Why Should Delaware Care?
In his second year in office, Wilmington Mayor John Carney made housing a focus in Delaware’s largest city. But debate with city council over how to spend city dollars exposed a divide over whether Wilmington should prioritize dollars for affordable housing developers or for immediate help to people in need.
After weeks of debate over how Wilmington should spend its money to address affordable housing, the City Council passed a compromise budget that largely preserved Mayor John Carney’s plan to incentivize development over short-term rental assistance.
The budget included an $8.4 million appropriation to subsidize developers who build affordable housing. It also included $2 million to help smaller developers acquire vacant lots in the city, and $1.5 million dedicated for grants to housing nonprofits to provide immediate assistance for renters.
The City Council agreed on those final figures after a tense back-and forth during a Thursday meeting. While council members appeared to agree on the goals of fewer evictions, more affordable homes and less housing instability, many disagreed on how to get there.
Also during the meeting’s public comment period, more than 30 residents spoke, with most urging the body to support Councilwoman Christian Willauer’s plan to appropriate additional dollars for rental assistance and support for homelessness.
“Its almost depressing that we don’t have the will to do some of the things that were talked about during public comment,” Council President Trippi Congo said during the meeting.
As the council spoke during various parts of the meeting, the sound of chants and cowbells echoed from outside the city council building as protesters, housing advocates and unhoused residents demonstrated in support of immediate housing services. For those advocates, the need had become more urgent after Carney decided to close Christina Park, the city’s only sanctioned homeless encampment.
Ariana Miller, one of Christina Park’s youngest residents, was among the public commenters, criticizing Carney’s move to shut down the park.
“We don’t have nowhere else to go. Like, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I’m only 21 years old,” she said.
The competing proposals
At the core of the debate Thursday were competing housing proposals brought forth by Willauer and Carney.
Proposed earlier this month, Willauer’s would have redirected city money to programs like rental assistance, eviction settlement support and a housing trust.
The proposal came in response to Carney’s initial plan to use $20 million from the city’s tax stabilization fund for affordable housing, with most of the dollars targeted for developer subsidies to help build about 200 affordable homes.
Carney introduced the plan at his budget address in March.
But during negotiations with the City Council prior to Thursday’s meeting, the mayor revised his proposal down to a $11.8 million package, reducing the developer subsidy pool to just over $8 million.
The new plan would create about 100 units of affordable housing, Carney’s spokeswoman Caroline Klinger said. It also would appropriate $250,000 for a housing block grant aimed at immediate services.
Klinger said the block grant dollars would support a nonprofit to expand existing housing programs. Those include emergency assistance with rent and eviction prevention, as well as case management, financial counseling and employment assistance.
Still, council members Willauer, Congo, Shane Darby and Coby Owens urged their colleagues to consider that their initiative struck a balance between immediate assistance and long-term housing. They also argued the amount Carney’s plan would allocate to a housing block grant would not be enough to fund every program.
“If the city goes and spends all our money on something that doesn’t involve helping people right now. We’re not going to have the money available to help people,” Willauer said.
On the other side of the debate, council members James Spadola, Latitia Bracy, Yolanda McCoy and Zanthia Oliver argued that it didn’t make sense to allocate money to programs that the council hadn’t yet passed.
“It seems inappropriate to put this forward until these ordinances are actually passed and signed into law,” Spadola said.
Council ultimately struck down Willauer’s amendment in a narrow 6 to 7 vote.
The body instead passed a counter floor amendment, introduced by Owens to add about $1.5 million to the housing block grant to increase funding going toward immediate services.
The amendment narrowly made it through by a 7-6 vote.
Klinger said that Carney’s administration is supportive of the amendment.
