Mayor Grace Garner: Housing Affordability & Income Disparities in Palm Springs

In this episode, Mayor of Palm Springs Grace Garner talks with students from the UC Riverside School of Public Policy about housing affordability, income disparities, and gentrification in the context of Palm Springs.   About Grace Garner: Grace Garner earned her Bachelor of Arts from the Pitzer College in Political Studies and Gender/Feminist Studies before receiving her Juris Doctorate from California Western School of Law. Previously, she has served as a board member of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry, was the Chief Operating Officer at Americans for Financial Reform, and was an Attorney Case Manager at White & Case LLP. Since serving on the Palm Springs City Council, Grace Garner has become a board member for the Desert Regional Medical Center as well as California State University-San Bernardino.  Learn more about Grace Garner via https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracegarner/  Podcast Highlights:   “We need people to do maintenance work, we need people to do landscaping, we need people to wash dishes at restaurants and to cook in our kitchens. And to decide that they're not worthy of living somewhere because the rent would be lower is just really disrespectful to all of the people that literally make Palm Springs what it is.” -       Grace Garner on the topic of the importance of the workforce population in Palm Springs and why they deserve access to housing.  “There's one condo complex for instance that half of the units are vacant, and these are one bedroom units and so they're perfect for somebody who's kind of just entering college or someone who is just a single person or maybe a couple for them to move in. So how do we connect with this private condo association to then encourage their owners to rent out the home long term for workforce housing?” -       Grace Garner on the topic of how the unused vacant housing in Palm Springs can be rented to provide income for homeowners and housing for the workforce. “So if we can get that down to a more reasonable rent based on a person's income, then that would help a lot. They're still going to pay more than they would for a low income unit because they have the means to, but instead of paying 50% of their monthly income they'll pay the 30% which is supposed to be the standard rate that we should all be paying but almost none of us are." -       Grace Garner on the topic of how rent rates need to be structured for people who don't qualify for low-income housing, but also can't afford to use half of their salary on rent alone.  Guest: Grace Garner (Mayor of Palm Springs) 

Interviewers: Rachel Strausman (UCR Public Policy Major, Dean’s Vice Chief Ambassador) Matthew De Haro (UCR Public Policy Major, Dean’s Ambassador) 

Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/WV9q-jAhm4A

Music by: C Codaine

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Xylo-Ziko/Minimal_1625

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Commercial Links:

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This is a production of the UCR School of Public Policy: https://spp.ucr.edu/ 

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