Folks,

While growing up in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn, it was a diverse, humble, tight-knit community of working-class families, immigrants and people of color - who made an honest living and could afford where they lived.

But today, that neighborhood I grew up in is almost completely unrecognizable. Skyrocketing housing prices have pushed out most of those residents and filled the neighborhood instead with apartments and lofts only the well-off can afford. And in the Virgin Islands, the public housing in which we lived in is now a shell of the vibrant families that lived there when I was a child.

My childhood neighborhoods are just two of countless examples of the consequences of failing to provide affordable housing and maintain middle class neighborhoods. And don’t be fooled: this is not just happening in our big, coastal cities—it is happening all over the country.

I’m strongly committed to tackling this crisis head-on. Last year, I worked on proposals like the Neighborhood Home Investment Act and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit that would revitalize communities suffering from disinvestment, increase the supply of affordable housing units and help people in low- and middle-income communities afford homes. We have the tools and the knowhow to address this problem, but we need the political will.

That’s why I’m asking for your help. I’m working hard to make housing more affordable and breathe new life into our neighborhoods, but we can only push these bills through if we have a stronger Democratic majority in Congress. Can you chip in to support my work and help us elect more Democrats who will address our housing crisis?

Thanks for your help, friends.

-Stacey