Question 1 — Mt. Airy Business Improvement District: What specific federal policies or programs would you support to help small businesses grow, hire locally, and remain viable in commercial corridors like ours?
This is near and dear to me because I wrote a book called ‘Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity.’ I’m very interested in social impact and local entrepreneurship. So I actually use the term local businesses, not small businesses, because not all small businesses are community centered, and I think that should be our focus. I used to work at the White House Conference on Small Business after I left as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate many years ago, and I learned that there’s not enough resources to allow entrepreneurs to build business, get access to capital and have the training they need to have viable businesses.
I would have a revolving loan fund for those businesses that are focused with the business model around community wealth building. So those are all the businesses that actually help communities grow and sustain themselves, instead of predatory practices or things that are just about profit maximization for private individuals. This is what we need in terms of our corridors. We need to make sure we have the right local businesses that are not just small, but are reinvesting in those communities, including a living wage for all. I am the author of the boldest living wage for all bill in the entire country, which would start at $15 an hour and go up to an actual living wage for Philadelphians. And the reason that’s good for local businesses is the more people have money in their pockets, the more they spend locally.
We should also provide subsidies in terms of grants and other means to incentivize local businesses that are committed to community wealth building, and that should be a priority, not bailing out Wall Street corporations and so forth, but those folks who are truly invested in local communities and care about their employers, the environment and their consumers and other stakeholders. That’s something I will continue to work on in Congress.
Question 2 — The Chestnut Hill Conservancy: How would you support federal funding and policy that help communities preserve historic buildings, protect open space and watershed resources, and expand access to local history?
I’m proud to say that I helped get state funding for the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, and have been involved as a partner in the work that they do in the district and beyond. I’m particularly interested in their new mission statement, to go beyond Chestnut Hill, to talk about all issues along the watershed. And I’m a former board member of the Friends of the Wissahickon, who I also helped get state money for. These are important issues when we talk about green spaces, when we talk about protecting historic spaces, this is Philadelphia. We need to make sure that we have all the resources to protect and preserve these historic sites, and so I’ve been a strong advocate for it on the state level. I will continue to do that on the federal level.
The money is there. How do we know the money is there? Because we’re sending it overseas for wars we shouldn’t be in. We have everything we need to have all of these things and understand that this is part of what I said earlier about what community wealth is. It’s our shared history, it’s our green spaces, it’s all of the built environment and the natural environment that we have to preserve, protect and uplift, because that allows us to strengthen our communities in all the most meaningful ways.
Question 3 — Face to Face Germantown: What laws do you think Congress can pass in the current political environment to increase housing supply for low-income renters?
Well, in this current political environment, I don’t think we can pass anything, which is why we need to change this current environment to make sure we have more progressive public servants and fewer centrist politicians representing us. To make sure that the boldest housing policies are what we put forth, and not just things that help private real estate developers, private equity and so forth, because those are the folks who have the biggest influence on the Democrats we send to Congress, which is why I don’t take corporate PAC money, and I’m funded by the people.
But going back to housing policy, we need to have social housing. We need to make sure that we fund the Whole Homes Repair Plan, which was sponsored by [state] Senator Nikil Saval, who has endorsed me, and who is trying to take this to a national level, and I will be one of the advocates to do that. We have to have support for the Place to Prosper Act, which was introduced by [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] who also endorsed me, to make sure that folks can stay in their homes, get the support they need, but also build more housing, which includes social housing.
Housing should be a guaranteed human right. We have the money for it. We don’t have the political will, but if we elect the right people and take back the House in 2027, we will have the substantive policies that allow us to build a lot more housing that is deeply affordable, green and accessible. Those are the things that have to be a priority, because we shouldn’t have to worry about people not being able to buy homes and to have rents that are way too high. This is born out of policy. We can do this if we have the political will to make it happen.
Question 4 — Friends of the Wissahickon: As flooding, extreme heat, and biodiversity loss intensify across Pennsylvania, what role should urban forests and watershed parks play in the federal climate strategy, and what concrete steps would you take to increase federal investment in places like the Wissahickon Valley?
Well, this is close to my heart, because obviously part of the Wissahickon is in my current legislative district, and much of it is in the congressional district which I seek to represent going forward. I’m a former board member of the Friends of the Wissahickon, and I said, “You can either keep me on as a private citizen, or you can allow me to take my leave from the board so I can help you get grant money from the state.” So I left the board, and since then, I was able to bring home several hundred thousand dollars for the Friends of the Wissahickon because it’s organizations like this that promote all of these policies and programs that help us embrace nature and incorporate that into our urbanity and our fabric of society in the most meaningful ways.
This is something that we can do on the federal level. There are funds that are available, but the thing is, this current extremist administration is anti-environment, anti-urban, anti-anything that is truly equitable. These programs are being stripped of the funding they need. All of that can be restored. We’ve got to make sure first we get Trump out of office, but in the interim, we can also work across the aisle to make sure that we work with conservatives who believe in conservation and who do share some of these values. And I know that because I serve on the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, and work with some Republicans who share our values around green space, around protecting our natural environment.
I believe that we can find common cause with folks in order to restore and, more importantly, broaden the funding for all of these types of programs and initiatives that are so necessary, particularly in the city of Philadelphia, where we benefit from a rich ecosystem, where people come from all over to take advantage of this gem that is the Wissahickon that I am so deeply proud of and will continue to support in whatever capacity I can.
Question 5 — West Mt. Airy Neighbors: Can you recall a moment from your career where you wish you did things differently? What did you learn from that experience?
I love this question. In 2016, the year before I took office, the state legalized medical cannabis, and in 2017 there was discussion of implementing and figuring out how to license medical cannabis dispensaries and where they should be sited across the Commonwealth. Here in Philadelphia and in my current legislative district, there was discussion about whether they should be in our communities, and because I was brand new to office, I didn’t think about leading on this and having town halls and having interactive discussions with folks.
Instead, I was more reactive, because I didn’t have the benefit of being part of the process of enacting this bill into law, and so I was more in reactive mode. As a result, the narrative got away, and it became very combative, and people were saying, “Oh, these are businesses that we shouldn’t have in our community, because it’s bringing in a bad element,” and so forth and so on. Instead, I wish I had engaged and initiated instead of reacting to other elected [officials] and other folks, without inserting myself as someone who agreed with bringing in medical cannabis as a legal alternative to pharmaceutical products, et cetera.
As someone who became a medical cannabis patient, it was personal, but the thing I learned most was if you lead with authenticity and vulnerability and you show people instead of just telling them, they can come to better-informed decisions. So one of the best things that came out of it was I actually personally picked up people who were against dispensaries, who had never visited a dispensary, and I got them to see what they could look like and how they could actually benefit our community. That changed hearts and minds, and I’ve used that approach ever since.
