Following Mayor David Briley's "State of Metro" address, members of PATHE (the People's Alliance for Transit, Housing and Employment) joined with Community Oversight Now to express their top priorities for Metro communities.
This "People's State of Metro" included bus riders, bus drivers, unhoused people, tenants, and concerned community members speaking about the urgent gentrification and displacement crisis affecting Metro's families.
Speakers highlighted steps municipal leadership must take to fight alongside working-class residents for development without displacement.
"It's a big epidemic where we feel like the people that have the power to change this, they go to the table without the people that built the city, and the city is still being built by the people that are being put out of it," PATHE member Kennetha Patterson said.
Members of PATHE said they will continue working together with their neighbors, supporters, and other community groups to advance bold, common-sense solutions to mass displacement, inequitable transit, and hazardous, under-paid construction jobs.
On Saturday, they demanded $775 million in leveraged public funds to build and preserve 31,000 affordable homes by 2025. The also spoke about having a community oversight board.
"There's a sense of urgency. We are talking about people's lives, we are talking about public safety. It's our highest priority. Not only for ourselves, but for our community, for our children. If there is no oversight, there's no accountability, there's no transparency. It raises serious questions about what is really going on behind closed doors," Community Oversight Board advocate Andrea Burroughs said.
