Tenants and housing advocates urge council to revive rent-stabilization vote, tie housing stability to youth outcomes

Housing advocates told the Wilmington City Council Education, Youth and Family Services Committee on June 11 that unstable housing directly harms students and families and urged the committee to back rent-stabilization policies that advocates said would keep children in schools.

"When housing is unstable, everything else starts to fall apart, especially for our young people," said Brandon, an organizer with the Wilmington Tenants Union, during the public-comment period. He described families forced to move midyear by rent increases or unresolved habitability problems and said advocates had 70 postcards urging council to support rent stabilization.

Cheyenne Miller, representing the Homes campaign, told the committee she had a stack of postcards and criticized recent council votes. "On June 5, you, Leticia Bracey, and Yolanda McCoy voted against rent stabilization," Miller said, urging council to align future votes with the needs of students, teachers and families. She added that frontline school staff often take on nonacademic supports when families face housing or food instability.

Both speakers asked the committee to treat housing as a youth-and-family issue and to bring rent-stabilization measures back for council consideration; they handed postcards to committee members during public comment. Committee members acknowledged the remarks and did not take an immediate policy action in the committee meeting.

Ending: Speakers asked the committee to return rent-stabilization to the council floor and to consider housing policy as part of a broad strategy to support students and families; no formal motion on housing was made at the committee meeting.