This week we did something a little different and brought on two guests: Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington of Phoenix and Louisiana State Senator Royce Duplessis of New Orleans. They co-chair the NewDEAL Forum Housing Task Force, which just released its culminating report on what state and local leaders are actually doing about housing costs. Not white-paper theater, actual programs with budgets attached.

What I appreciated most is that neither of them talks about housing like an abstraction. Kesha told us about Phoenix residents who work full-time jobs, clock out, and go back to a shelter bed, and about the city’s new master leasing pilot that puts the city on the lease so someone with a past eviction or no deposit can still get keys. Royce explained why the mortgage is no longer the hard part in Louisiana, where insurance premiums have doubled for many families in just a few years, and how a fortified roof grant comes with a guaranteed cut to your premium.

We also got into the language problem in housing policy. Nobody dreams of an accessory dwelling unit. People do dream of a casita for an aging parent or a kid home from college. If Democrats want to win on affordability this cycle, and we should, that translation plus results people can actually see is the whole game.

The stories that stick

Tahra Hoops: Hi everyone. My name is Tahra Hoops. I am joined with my co-host Gary Winslett, and today we have two very special guests with us. We have Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington of Phoenix, City Council member for District 8, representing South Phoenix and one of the most dynamic housing laboratories in the country.

Since joining the Phoenix City Council, she’s led the creation of the city’s housing trust fund, now at $15 million, and helped Phoenix deliver more than 53,000 units of housing over five years, years before schedule. She’s a co-chair of the NewDEAL Forum Housing Task Force, whose culminating report we are here to discuss today.

I am also joined with State Senator Royce Duplessis, who is a Louisiana State Senator representing District 5 in New Orleans, a city that sits at the intersection of every housing crisis we talk about on the show, from shortages, insurance collapses, and a lot of climate exposure. He’s been the legislative driver behind Louisiana’s expanded fortified roof program, the most concrete state-level response to the homeowners insurance crisis we’ve seen anywhere in the country. He’s also a co-chair of the NewDEAL Forum Housing Task Force. We are very excited to have them both here.

Hello everyone. Thank you both for being here. Very excited to discuss the NewDEAL Housing Task Force report that just came out recently. There is a lot to get through, so I’m just gonna go ahead and get started.

So both of you obviously hear a lot about housing every day from your constituents. It is a number one issue across polling in just about every city, from town halls to the grocery store to your inboxes. For both of you, what is one story or moment from the past year that has stuck with you and shaped how you approach this task force?

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: I will say the moments that stick with me are the stories I hear from working-class families who are doing everything right. They’re working full-time jobs, sometimes multiple jobs, and they’re still struggling to find housing. I’ve met residents who have worked, who have lived in Phoenix for decades, who now suddenly find themselves priced out of neighborhoods they helped build. This just continues to reinforce for me that housing affordability isn’t just about housing, it’s about economic mobility. It is a workforce issue, it’s a quality of life issue. It just reminds me that we need solutions at every price point and for every stage of life.

This morning on the way into the office, I was returning a call, and it was about someone who was explaining how they wanted a connection with our landlord-tenant assistance, because they got a notice their rent was going up for an amount they thought to be unreasonable. So I can’t pick one story, because we hear so many of them, but to me, the stories tell the bigger picture. And I think for me, it just emphasized why this task force was so important.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: Yeah, very similar to what the Vice Mayor just shared. I hear it all the time, and it’s not just from the people you expect to hear it from, but everyday people, working people. I had a teacher who actually reached out and I connected with, and she wasn’t the only one, but I’ve heard this often, that the mortgage payment is no longer the problem. It’s the insurance and those other pieces that are now the big challenge. In Louisiana, we’ve seen the cost of insurance double for many people over the past few years. So, you know, when your insurance bill starts looking like a second mortgage, it’s not just about housing affordability anymore. This is really about economic survival on all fronts.

Gary Winslett: This is so important. This is something I never see talked about in, like, national media, but it’s hitting all different kinds of places. So, like, I live in Vermont, and nobody associates Vermont with flooding, but we’ve had flooding each of the last three summers, because we get so much bigger rainstorms than we used to get ‘cause of climate change. And now a lot of people, like, as you say, it’s not the mortgage, it’s the insurance that’s double or triple what it was five, six years ago, because now actually their house could flood. I would love to just hear you say a little more about this, because I know Louisiana has been at that intersection of insurance cost and climate change for a while. And I think it’s one of these things that really impacts people, even though it somehow, like, never makes the New York Times or whatever.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: Yeah, we have been at that intersection, just where we are located along the Gulf Coast. We are constantly in the cone or the threat of hurricanes every year. Unfortunately, after Hurricane Ida a few years ago, that’s when we really saw insurance rates just simply skyrocket. We’ve seen it happen after every storm. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina and other storms throughout the years. But most recently, after Hurricane Ida, we saw insurance costs become unbearable for homeowners, for businesses. And what we’ve been trying to do is come up with some real solutions that are gonna address a problem that isn’t going away.

Because to your point around climate change, people need immediate relief, but turning around the environment and addressing climate change can’t happen soon enough to be able to give the people the relief that they need right now. There’ve been a number of policies that we’ve been trying to address, and I’m sure we’ll get to it, but it’s been crushing for our city, for our state, for economic development. We’ve seen a lot of for-sale signs on homes. And Louisiana and New Orleans isn’t unique in that regard, ‘cause everybody’s getting crushed, but insurance in particular is the top issue for us, or it has been the top issue for us locally.

Surprises in the report: insurance and AI permitting

Tahra Hoops: I think it’s important that you mentioned how diverse local issues can be, especially when it comes to housing and insurance issues. Vice Mayor Hodge Washington, I want to pass this question over to you. Were there any policies or ideas in the report that might have surprised you, something another member brought to the table that you hadn’t considered before, that you’re now maybe thinking to bring back to your own city? Because as we’ve mentioned, the great thing about America is, like, all of our cities are so diverse and unique that a lot of them might need a very diverse set of solutions. So interested to hear more there.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: Thank you for that. I wanted to piggyback a little bit on the last question, because that was one of the issues that I admittedly was embarrassed to say I didn’t think about as an affordability issue. My profession pre, I guess, pre-elected office is I actually do commercial civil litigation in the property insurance world. I actually am a lawyer that does a lot of property insurance claims. I’m actually from the US Virgin Islands, which is also struck with a number of hurricanes. And I saw the same exact story that the senator was talking about. Many times, if residents were able to file a claim, their insurance became out of reach the next year for many of them.

So that was something I think that hadn’t always been to the forefront of my thought process when it came to housing affordability and housing stability. And I think it’s one of those areas that we could definitely learn a little bit more from. The senator serves in the legislature. I’m in city council. We have quite a bit of preemption issues, but I think it was helpful to highlight this issue for some of my colleagues at the legislature to say, this is also something you should be considering. So I think that was one of the ideas or the issues that came up from the report that I really hadn’t got an opportunity to think about before.

And the second one was utilizing artificial intelligence and layering that to help us expedite some of the work that’s being done here. Of course, for reliability purposes, we don’t want artificial intelligence to be making all of the decisions when it comes to permitting, but there are possibly ways where we could use it to be more efficient and to highlight potential conflicts and just help the process move more speedily. Those are some of the ideas that I got from the report and got from my time with my colleagues to help address this issue that I think we can bring back into our city.

But I was very encouraged by how much consensus we had about the idea that we can’t solve affordability simply by increasing supply. We have to look at other options, and how do we preserve more existing units, and how do we reduce some of the barriers to development, and modernizing the outdated codes and permitting some of our cities have. I think those were all great things that came out of the report, so thank you.

Tahra Hoops: Yeah, and I’ll pass that question back to you. I really do appreciate you bringing up the idea that AI can help streamline some of the redundancies and inefficiencies that we have in government. I attended a conference last year, I think it was the Abundance Conference, and Jennifer Pahlka, I believe, was the one to say that when you think of government, you think of, like, the DMV. It’s just very long and boring and you just think it’s going to ruin your day. So utilizing modern tools to try and just fasten up the processes that we found were actually adding sometimes days and weeks is going to make it such a much more efficient process for everyone involved. And I agree with you, like, there should always be a human involved to triple check all and every work possible. But it is great to see the progression that we are moving to ensure that the government does not just become the same equivalence of a terrible day at the DMV.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: It’s one of the lessons that I think struck me the most when I transitioned from my private practice into government service, is things moved a lot slower than I was used to. I mean, we have hardworking employees at our city, but I also think we need to figure out how we can move things a little more streamlined. That’s definitely a priority for me.

Casitas, parking minimums, and single stairs

Gary Winslett: I wanna talk about a couple of the ideas in the report. It’s interesting, when you go into reports like this, they use a certain kind of language, and I totally understand why they do. This is, like, policy talk, like single-stair reform and ADU legalization and parking minimum rollbacks. But those are certain ways of talking about it that I think we could actually do better at. So just, like, ADU legalization, I totally get what that means. I think a lot of our listeners will understand what that means, but it’s actually just got so much more of a human story to it than that. It’s like, should you be allowed on your own property to build a small, nice house for your mother-in-law or father-in-law to come live with you on your own property? Like, that is just the most basic common-sense kind of thing. And so I just wanted to talk to you about some of these reforms. How do you see them helping people in your constituencies?

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: So the one you just talked about, I think, probably has the broadest long-term impact, the accessory dwelling units. I call them casitas or mother-in-law suites, dependent on the community that I’m talking to, because you’re right, ADU does sound very sterile. It doesn’t sound very welcome. It doesn’t really sound like a solution. But when we say it allows you, if you have the space and you have the setbacks, to be able to add an additional unit on your premises, whether or not it is for your kid that’s going to college and wants semi-independence, or your aging parent, or you just wanna supplement your income and be able to provide a unit for someone else to live in. They allow more property owners to participate in the actual crisis in creating housing. They support multi-generational families, aging parents, workforce housing.

Here in Arizona, it has pretty much been affirmed on the state level. The way I say affirmed is because our friends at the legislature like to tell us if they disagree with what we’ve done by preempting us, and the only preemption we’ve seen on this so far is limitations on short-term rentals. They didn’t want it to be subject to that. So I think that’s a huge win, because this is one way we can create supply without just requiring the traditional developer or the apartment complex builder or the home builder or the industry to do this. This is how individuals can be a part of the solution. So I would say that’s probably had the easier of the political paths.

We’ve done a little bit on the parking reform. That worked for us because we did it along our transit-oriented development, or pretty much where we wanna see more density. And those are the areas where we expected that more of the residents would not have access or wouldn’t need access to a vehicle, because they’re in such close proximity to transportation. So by removing some of the parking requirements that some may view as excessive and adding to the housing costs, we were able to hopefully drive down the ultimate cost per unit, which can then be passed on to the end user, the renter or the owner of the premises at that juncture.

Gary Winslett: Yeah, no, I think the way you’re talking about that, just removing the excess, is really important. I forget exactly where it was, but there was a town that had parking requirements on, like, nursing homes, as if all of the residents in the nursing home had two cars. And it’s like, you’re not doing anything with that rule. You’re just driving up cost for, like, no reason.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: I don’t have a disagreement to that.

Tahra Hoops: I wanted to pass the same question off to Senator Duplessis, on basically, what was something that you found in this report that you might have not thought of for yourself in your own city, but someone else kind of brought to the table that opened your eyes or shed a new perspective? I like to think of one example, of people understanding how housing politics and housing policies is very much climate politics and climate policies, like you just mentioned, transit-oriented development. The more we are able to create walkable cities, the less reliant we are going to be on cars. More people are just outside, walking more, enjoying the fresh air. It’s better for small businesses as well, because people can just go down the street, go to their favorite cafe, maybe work from there for a day if you’re working a remote job. It just creates so many different options. I didn’t have that perspective before getting into the nitty-gritty of all the benefits that these policies could have.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: Absolutely. I mean, when we’re talking about lowering the cost, the shared costs, how does that cost get spread amongst the developers, building owners, renters? And what we know in development, going to your point about walkability and having people in one space, making towns accessible, we know that density plays a role in that. And a lot of these decisions around density, the number of units allowed, a lot of these decisions do get made at the local level, where the Vice Mayor is serving. We sort of dabble in local building code issues, zoning issues, various issues somewhat at the state level, but these are really more locally focused issues.

And I found the issue on the single-stair reform to be pretty interesting. Not something that I have a lot of experience or familiarity with, but it seems to be an area where there can be some significant long-term impact, particularly in terms of how it can unlock apartment buildings that may not otherwise work out, how a deal may not work out. So I found the single-stair reform concept to be an interesting one, and one that we should be taking a closer look at here in the city of New Orleans and other cities throughout the state.

But certainly, going back to the conversation around accessory dwelling units, how we talk about it absolutely matters. And when you personalize it and you talk about it from the standpoint of a mom-and-pop or mother-in-law unit, that’s more relatable. And then when you talk about it from the standpoint of how people have property rights, and how property owners should be empowered to make decisions around what they’re doing, how they’re using their property, not at the detriment of their neighbors or their neighborhood, but finding that proper balance, it makes the conversation more relatable, and I think you can be more effective when you talk about it using simpler terms like that. But the accessory dwelling unit aspect of this is certainly another key policy that we can’t overlook, because that additional unit can make a big difference for an individual or for a family who needs access to housing.

Gary Winslett: No, I totally agree. On the single-stair reform, one of the things that I find really interesting about it is that it unlocks development on, like, smaller parcels of land. Because when you’ve got the two-stairway rule, you need a big building to make that pencil out. So on, like, small parcels of land, all of a sudden all the numbers break down. But with a single-stair reform, you can do new, you know, smaller kinds of apartments, three, four floors, on these smaller parcels of land. And what that does is it also helps your developers who are small businesses, because they’re often the ones most interested in doing the smaller buildings, rather than the, you know, 90-unit sort of five-over-one that takes up half the block kind of thing. So that’s another one of those areas where I think you actually can hook up to the interest of small businesses when we talk about how we do some of these reforms.

Results, not ideology: the 2026 housing message

Tahra Hoops: I wanted to open this up to kind of a central conversation that Democrats are just having across the board, ‘cause we are still reeling from a devastating loss in 2024, but we do have the election happening later this year, and obviously affordability and housing become a central focus to that. So I would like to ask both of you, what is a housing message that you think is going to resonate to the voters who left, or who just didn’t really leave the couch, in 2024? That was a large issue we had. People did not feel motivated. They did not trust our party enough to go back out there and feel confident that Democrats could deliver for us. So I would love to know how we can close this gap, because it is clear people are upset, like, they’re not happy with what is going on right now. But I’m still a bit unsure if they fully have our back yet.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: You know, nothing speaks more to voters than results and outcomes. Ideology is great, but when you can point to actual progress, if we can point to a city like Phoenix, or point to a city like New Orleans, or any Democratic city where we can show that there’s actually been progress, we’re not gonna accept the narrative that Democrats who are in leadership are killing their cities. When we can show that there’s actually been progress under Democratic leadership, then I think that’s a message that can resonate. So just pointing to actual results and not trying to lead purely through ideology, I don’t know anything that’s more effective than that.

And also leaning into the, or leaning away from, I should say, the false choice narrative, that we can’t be pro-growth, pro-development, and also be pro-affordability, like you have to choose one or the other. We have to embrace and own the idea and the reality that we can be pro-growth, we can be pro-development, and we can also be pro-affordability for people. So I think those are the messages that we should certainly be leaning into as we approach these upcoming elections. We can’t let anybody else steal this idea, that Democrats can’t be for having a piece of the American dream and also making it such that we’re not against people prospering at the same time.

Tahra Hoops: That just reminded me of something that Senator Gallego spoke about last week at the WelcomeFest event. He said that when he talks to people directly, like as you said, people aren’t really discussing ideologies. He’s talking to immigrants who moved here because they so believe in the American dream. They think that is vital, it’s worthwhile. They wanna work towards that. And right now, it doesn’t feel like Democrats kind of own those results. They don’t own that dream, that people feel it is so out of touch these days. And there’s been recent polling that shows the share of independents is growing day by day. People don’t feel attached to either party right now. So the more representatives that we can have out there in the Democratic Party that’s showing we are focused on our cities doing better, progress, more units going up, people being able to feel comfortable at the end of the month where their bills are all paid for, is something that I do believe will resonate to people. And hopefully we can see that play out in election results. And also, Vice Mayor Hodge Washington, I would love to hear the same thing from you as well.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: I think the senator nailed it. I think our message is not based on policy. It should be based on results. I think we need to do a better job of showing how our practical solutions are making a tangible difference. I mean, most of our constituents and our residents, they live policy decisions through their everyday life, whether or not it’s their monthly rent, it’s their mortgage payment, it’s their utility bills, it’s their commute. I think we have to make sure we’re clear that we are not just identifying the problem. I think we do a very good job of flagging the problem, but I don’t think we do a really good job of identifying what our solution looks like and how that solution is going to impact them. Because we can’t just continue to say that we need to see a shift on the federal government side, sorry, we need to, you know, flip the House of Representatives or gain more seats in the Senate. We have to talk about what it is we’re gonna do when that happens. And we have to cite to real-life examples of how those policy decisions worked for everyday family members, family lives. That is how they need to do that.

We also need to do a better job of, and one of the things that I prioritize in my time, is there are a lot of programs that our community, that our government, our local government and state government, provides, but sometimes they are so siloed. We don’t share that information with the residents. They don’t know where to go in that time of need, and usually by the time they are there, they’re so far behind. So we need to do a little bit better job in sharing those available programs and making sure that more of our residents are attuned with what’s going on. And we have to make sure that we are communicating the result of those programs and progress in a way that doesn’t seem like just spending for spending’s sake. We need to personalize those stories so that it is not viewed as some individual who is just taking advantage of the system. I think the more we personalize the stories to show that they are the teachers, they’re the person that serves us in the restaurant. They get up every day and go to work.

For me, I find that one of the most compelling arguments when I talk to those people who I don’t necessarily share the same ideology with, when it comes to we should be doing more in the homeless and housing space, is what I share with them: Do you realize that we have people in our shelter system who get up every day and go to work? And they clock out from work and they go back into our shelter system. That is not because they’re lazy. It is not because they are on drugs. It is because affordability is a true concern that needs to remain front and center, because it affects everything. It affects the ability for businesses to be able to find the workers they need. So if they can’t afford to work in our city, they’re not gonna wanna commute from outside of our city into the businesses. So our businesses gonna have the same problem finding individuals to work.

For me, as a sociology major, like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, housing is only second to... yeah. And if we’re not focusing on that and showing how we get tangible results, I think we are going to continue to lose the message war and the policy war, because we cannot get people to buy into it if they don’t agree with it, if they don’t see the impact of it.

Gary Winslett: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s exactly right. Like, we’ve gotta show that it can be really affordable to live in blue places and thrive there. It’s just not good enough to have all the right stated values, but then people can’t afford the rent or the mortgage or the insurance. That’s just not gonna ever win you votes if they’re just constantly feeling like you haven’t delivered.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: We also have to understand the economics of it. I think sometimes the Democratic Party gets criticism for thinking they can just simply spend their way out of every crisis. And I think we need to be focused on results and metrics of success, and understanding you can do all of these things and further our democratic values and still be really good financial stewards. And I think we need to start speaking in that language also, so people understand that.

Gary Winslett: Right, well, that’s totally right, because on something like transit spending, you need to be able to spend the public money to build transit systems. But then voters understandably don’t want to give you their taxpayer dollars to spend if they repeatedly see what looks like total waste. It turns into this, like, self-reinforcing cycle. Whereas you can actually flip it around, and if people believe that you’re gonna spend it wisely and they understand where their money’s going, then they’re more willing to actually, you know, say yes to the bond or say yes to the small percentage tax increase.

What their districts do best

Gary Winslett: I think we’re running towards the end of time, so I kind of wanna get to some of our final questions, if that’s all right. I guess I’ll take the first one, and then the rest can go to Tahra. For each of you, what’s something that you think your district does really well that the rest of the country could learn from?

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: All right, I’ll go. So I represent New Orleans, and I like to tell people I represent the part of New Orleans that you visit when you come to New Orleans. So I have the innermost part of the city. I have most of the largest economic engines in the city, which is tourism. But I also have the Port of New Orleans. I have the Superdome, I have the Smoothie King Center, I have Caesars and several major hospitals, and a lot of economic assets are in the district that I represent. But more importantly than that, more importantly than everything I just said, is that we have a community and the culture that emanates from the district I represent, which is the Tremé, and the history that comes out of the Tremé. And if you see some of the second lines that come through, just kind of how we’re able to intertwine all of that commercial activity I just talked about, all of that economic activity, and how we’re able to make it work in our city with community, culturally, and the connectivity there, through the arts and through song and dance and food and everything that we do here. I’m very proud to represent Senate District 5. It’s a special place, and I think it’s very unique.

Gary Winslett: It’s a lot of fun. I’ve been there. It’s great.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: Yeah, I would say District 8. It’s one of the most diverse, eclectic mixes that you’ll find, but I think it tells the story of Phoenix so well. It includes our historic neighborhoods. It includes my South Phoenix, which has a history of redlining. It includes the downtown, so the Mortgage Matchup Center, where our Suns play, and where our baseball stadium is. I also have some of the major economic engines, such as Phoenix Sky Harbor. But for me, the thing that probably my community does the best is resilience and community. Our residents continually show up for each other, whether or not it’s, like, small business. We recently did our 602 Day, which is our city pride, and our community, more so, like, the way they connected small businesses and continue to invest in one another and advocate for neighborhood improvements. I love all the youth mentorship programs that we have, but for me, the most important thing is neighbors step up and help each other during difficult times. There is such a strong sense of community pride, and that pride and that vision, I think, is what continues to shape the district’s future. And I think the district kind of leads the city, but I’m a little biased.

Lightning round

Tahra Hoops: I love both of those answers. Senator Duplessis, I’ll pass this to you, and then, Vice Mayor Hodge Washington, to you as well. In one word, first thing that comes to your mind, don’t think too hard about it, and you can’t say housing: what is something that you think is too expensive?

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: Insurance.

Tahra Hoops: Insurance. Okay. No, that’s too close. That’s too close.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: That’s too close. That’s too close. One thing that’s too expensive... ground meat. It’s two words.

Tahra Hoops: That is very true. Recently, we have the numbers to track that. I’ll pass it over to you, Vice Mayor Hodge Washington.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: Well, just because we are going to vote on our budget today, or one of our final votes, I will say childcare has become very expensive. And we’ve learned that that’s one of the biggest affordability challenges facing our working families today. And the reason I said that, I was thinking budget, is that for the first time, we will have a childcare set-aside as part of our city budget, to help try and address the affordability concerns for our working families. So I’m very excited about that.

Tahra Hoops: Well, that is great. And I definitely believe that childcare is also just incredibly up there. It is quite insane to see that. And then last one, and it could be either one: what is a policy or innovation that you think is either overrated or underrated? Feel free to pick whichever one from there.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: I’ll go again, since I’m in budget mode. We vote on it this afternoon. One of the things that I’m very excited about, I think it’s probably underrated, is that we will be trying for the first time here in Phoenix, and I’ve pushed it forward, so I’m very happy to see it move forward. It’s called master leasing. It is simply allowing the city to become the tenant and then being able to sublease those units to individuals who are facing some barrier to housing stability, whether or not it’s an eviction, or simply can’t afford the deposit, or have been the victim of domestic violence and those types of things. So it’s going to create more housing opportunities, and I don’t think we try it as much as we should. I’m very excited to see what we’ll do in our pilot for the first time this year, and hopefully being able to continue that. So master leasing is my underrated policy.

Gary Winslett: I have to learn more about that. That sounds cool.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: For me, underrated policy would be the fortified roof program, and the effort to strengthen more roofs throughout this city and throughout the region. Fortified roofs, that’s not a particularly new concept. We actually modeled our program after the state of Alabama, which is also located along the Gulf Coast. They’ve experienced increases in insurance as a result of hurricanes. The whole concept is, if you get a certain type of roof, certain type of nail, shingle, the way that they seal the roof on top of the home, that mitigates losses anytime there’s a storm, hopefully there is never a storm. But the idea is that on your homeowners insurance policy, you should see a guaranteed reduction. So we’ve really been talking this up and trying to encourage as many people as possible to either get a fortified roof or apply for the state grant program, which we just put more money into, and I think it’s probably hands down the most effective and efficient way that we can get rates down in the state of Louisiana. Because, again, we can get more fortified roofs across the state more quickly than we can deal with the issue of climate change. And I just think it’s something that’s a little underrated. If we can put that program into overdrive, we can see some drastic changes on homeowners insurance.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: And if I could co-sign on this, the fortified roof, real quick, just because of my own personal experience. I’ve actually lived through a hurricane. We lost our roof in a hurricane, and a fortified roof was placed on when we rebuilt our home. And it has since been through many other storms of higher magnitude, and it has been a tremendous, tremendous savings. And people talk about the physical impact of a hurricane, but it also provides emotional stability, especially for those individuals who are seniors. It’s traumatic enough, but being able to stay in your home knowing that your home is able to withstand it, it’s also a plus plus. So I just wanted to say great work of the senator on touching on a policy I don’t think many people think about, but it’s so important.

Tahra Hoops: I am glad we were able to highlight that, and thank you both for your time. I really do encourage everyone to read this amazing Housing Task Force report. You guys are doing incredible work. Housing is such a local issue, so it’s good to know that we have leaders in charge who treat it to be a priority, such as the both of you are doing. So thank you both again.

Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington: Thank you.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis: Honored to be a part of it. Thank you all for having me.

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