Below you will find the Report of the Toledo Housing Task Force. The Task Force was formed in August of 2006 to develop a housing policy and action plan to address the most serious challenges facing our city’s neighborhoods. As individuals, the members of the Task Force have long dedicated themselves to creating and implementing solid solutions to the problems facing our city. While their original challenge was to come up with strategies to solve the pressing problems facing our neighborhoods, I also asked them to think even bigger than that. I asked them to develop policies and programs that will build upon our diversity and all of our other strengths to transform Toledo into a city that more people will choose as their home.
The recommendations contained in this report are wide-ranging and deal with many issues including: foreclosure prevention, attracting young people and professionals to our city, improving home ownership rates, eliminating or repairing the blighted properties that drag down our neighborhoods, to being smarter about the way we commit public and private resources. The recommendations are very ambitious but they are well grounded and are based on some of our current successful programs as well as programs and approaches that have been successfully employed in other communities facing similar challenges.
None of what is contained in this document can be accomplished without a full community partnership focused on solving our problems and transforming our community. These include: my fellow elected officials, city staff, administrators, community leaders, community based organizations, individual members of our community and our local business leaders. In short, every one of us who loves Toledo and is searching for ways to make Toledo better than it is.
Our neighbor to the North, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, talks about creating “Cool cities.” It will come as no surprise to any of you that I think that Toledo already is a pretty cool city, however we have a lot to do before we can convince the rest of the country, the rest of Northwestern Ohio, and even ourselves that Toledo is a really great place to live, work, raise a family, go to school, run a business and so much more.
As the Toledo Housing Task Force Report says, our future is in our hands so please join the efforts to elevate and transform our community into the kind of community we all deserve and the kind of community many will choose.
Carty Finkbeiner