$75,000.
That's how much they said this building permit would cost me.
Because of this program called MHA.
I can't even break ground unless I write them a check first.
If I do that, I'm not even gonna have any money left for the house.
My name's Anita Adams, and this is my family.
When Covid hit, my kids had to abruptly move out of their dorms, and we realized
quickly that there just wasn't enough.
When I had to come home because of Covid, it was me and Leland coming
home at the same time, which neither one of our rooms was available
to us because grandpa was here.
And then we had other family members staying here.
And it was just a lot for all of us to be stacked on top of one another in a house
that was not meant for that many people.
I can barely afford, you know, a car payment rent.
And so like I've had to look, you know, moving out of the state.
I also miss not having to drive an hour to and from work.
I miss work only being 10 minutes away.
I miss being able to just be in the city, be near everybody that I grew up with.
We're behind my house and this is where I was hoping to build a home for my kids.
Right now, the only ones building here is the raccoons.
When I heard about how much it was gonna cost to be able to build in
our own, on our own property, you know, the MHA fee, I was heartbroken.
Like, it totally turned our project upside down.
Like, we've had this plan for a long time
Before the city passed MHA, they put out a report saying how it would affect housing.
The report said that these fees would stop new housing in low income areas.
But City Council did it anyway.
The mayor came out and announced that it was a deal for large developers.
Well large developers can afford it, people in our community can't.
It's kind of obvious, really, you don't make housing more affordable
by making it more expensive.
Pretty much, it's just crushed our dream.
Growing up, I'd walk by this house every day and I would look at the maple tree.
I would look at the stairs and realize that I wanted to own that
house one day, and now I live here.
Central District for years has been predominantly black.
Even when I was a kid, hundreds of black folks, it was real community
and people looked out for one another and things have just changed.
There's no more black businesses.
Now that it's kind of gone, you really miss it.
My family, my community, we want to exercise our rights
to build on our property.
We don't want to leave.
We don't want to be displaced by high fees.
This is our home.
That fee is excessive on me as an individual homeowner.
Now, if I was some large developer making deals with the city, maybe
they can afford it, but me as an individual homeowner that is exorbitant.