Independent D.C. mayoral candidate Rhonda Hamilton on housing, policing and crime

We are getting closer to election day. DC's early voting window starts today in time for some one-on-one. We've got DC mayoral candidate Rhonda Hamilton joining us this morning here on Fox 5. Glad to have you here with us. Thanks for waking up early. Thank you very much for having me. You know, a lot of questions that are top of mind for people when it comes to the mayoral candidate for DC. One of them being, of course, what would be the first thing you would do as you hit the ground running? What you see maybe perhaps with the current mayor in place that you feel like things have not been resolved fully and what you would like to do on your first day in office? Absolutely. Many of our community members feel under siege with the over-policing and the presence of the National Guard as well as the federal police officers. And so we want to be able to rescind that order and get our house in order with our Metropolitan Police Department in order that we can turn our sights on saving and preserving our independence, meaning our home rule. Obviously, in D.C., it's become increasingly expensive to live in the city. What are your plans when it comes to affordable housing, making it more reliable and more realistic for people in the working families in D.C.? Absolutely. Affordable housing is a hot button issue in both east and west of our river. And what we must do is we must be able to make certain that we are looking at the median incomes that tend to leave so many out from the actual production of our affordable housing units that many should qualify for. We want to make sure that we're increasing the production of our affordable units through our housing production trust fund. We're about 30 percent in the red in terms of not producing those affordable housing units. We have a lot of vacant real estate across the district that we own that we can certainly get folks out of the street. And we have to audit our troubled agencies, starting with our housing agency. We have so many families that are in the street and we have to do something about it. So we're going to have to either restaff or we're going to have to retrain or remove some folks, but we're going to have to make some decisions. I was curious about that because I know you talked about in the past, past campaign efforts, an office of residential affairs. Is that again, removing and moving people around when it comes to that? Or how does that affect the taxpayer? Well, absolutely. That's a great question. And right now we've been grossly affecting our taxpayers because we have not been getting the proper return on our investments for our housing outcomes. And so what we want to do is we want to audit first. We want to understand where we have those loopholes. We've had quite a bit of challenges in our lawsuits that have come up in that agency. And so what we want to do is we really want to take a look at who's in charge, whether or not they need more training, whether or not we need to move some folks around and move some folks out. Those are the tough decisions I'll have to make. Absolutely. And of course, public safety, top of mind. Strides have been made across D.C. compared to years in the past. But where do you see a big gap in what you would like to do when it comes to becoming the mayor of D.C. in regards to public safety and crime? Well, I'm glad you asked that question. In my understanding and professional overview, crime and poverty travel together. We have quite a few folks that are living below or at the federal poverty levels. And so we want to address that. We want to get folks working. We see that the unemployment rates for members in our African-American and underserved communities are a lot higher than what our overall unemployment numbers are. So we want to be able to sit at the table with our small businesses and be able to solicit them and offer incentives for them to help us get our people working so that we can get a balance in place for the economics and for the economy locally. Well, top of mind for many folks. We have an Instapoll. We've been asking folks today, asking them what is one of the biggest factors heading into the midterm. Many of them, I think at last check, 50 percent. It was momentarily ago. It was now immigration at 44 percent. But obviously that goes hand in hand with President Trump's initiative to secure borders. How would you work hand in hand with the president being the mayor of D.C.? Well, absolutely. We understand, at least I do as an independent, that we must get a handle on folks that are here illegally. But we certainly want to make sure that we are helping the president to understand the protections that are necessary for the folks that are here appropriately and legally and citizens of the district. Many of our communities that are here, members that are here legally, feel under siege because they're just not sure if they'll be swooped up. And we want to make sure to quell those concerns for our legal residents and also work with the president to understand anyone that shouldn't be here and to see where due process is able to be engaged in order that we can be the America that many people understand us to be. Yeah. Rhonda Hamilton, thank you for joining us. I know you had mentioned you're going to be making the rounds today as some of these early voting locations get open this morning. Where will you be headed out? Oh, my goodness. We're going to head out and meet the bus, and we're going to try to stop as many of them as we can. We have so many citizens that are so concerned. They're looking for change. I'm an independent. I'm not blue or red. Many folks have really resonated with that messaging. And so we're looking forward to go out and shaking some hands. We're going to start at the Martin Luther King Library, and then we're going to work our way across the city. I believe that we'll be over at the Emory Community Center over in Ward 4 midday. midday. So folks should come on out and meet me and talk to me and understand that change is on the horizon. Fantastic. Thanks for joining us this morning and highlighting some of your talking points as well. If you're interested and have some questions for Rhonda, feel free to go join her. There's her social media as well. Thank you again for joining us this morning. Thank you so much. And to hear from some of the other candidates and follow other races, find your local DC election guide as well. You can head over to fox5dc.com slash elections. We've got election night coverage as well for our Fox Live midterm election coverage on air and on Fox Local. We'll be right back.