Candidate Shayla Favor

Tim Fulton 00:08Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, in anticipation of this fall's election, the Confluence Cast is endeavoring to introduce Columbus voters to the 12 council and two mayoral candidates in their own words. Under the new city council district system, District Seven encompasses downtown, the Short North, German Village, Olde Towne East, Franklinton, Fifth by Northwest, and everything in between. Incumbent city council member Shayla Favor is running for re-election within this district, unopposed. In today's interview, Favor talks about equity, housing policy, and how her background applies to council policy work. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Shayla Favor, Columbus City Council member and candidate for District Seven. Shayla, how are you?

Shayla Favor 01:30I'm doing good, thank you for asking. How are you?

Tim Fulton 01:30I'm well, thank you for asking. First of all, tell us about yourself. What brings you to your candidacy and council?

Shayla Favor 01:30Well, first, let me just say thank you for even providing the opportunity for me to introduce myself to your audience. My name is Shayla Favor. I'm born and, for the most part, raised in Dayton, Ohio. I've lived all over the place. Moved to Columbus to go to the Ohio State University. I'm a lawyer by training, I am a creative at heart, and I'm a fighter.

Tim Fulton 01:30How did you get to council in the first place?

Shayla Favor 01:30I got to council—it's a bit of a journey. And I live by this model: live for the journey, not the destination. And so, I don't know if we've got time to go through the whole journey, but I look back over every encounter that I've had, and it has all been leading up to this point that I'm at right now. Practically, I served as an assistant city attorney in the Columbus City Attorney's Office, working to clean up Columbus neighborhoods. That really helped to zero in on this love and passion around advocating for safe and affordable housing in our community. And so when an opportunity presented itself, I threw my name in the hat, didn't think much of it. And here we are, four-ish years later, taking that experience, that expertise, that passion, and helping to hopefully bring positive impact in our community all throughout.

Tim Fulton 03:02Talk us through the issues that you believe Columbus is currently facing, and how you, as a council person, try to address those challenges.

Shayla Favor 03:11You know, without a shadow of a doubt, if anyone is familiar with my name, my platform, you're going to hear me talk about housing. You're going to hear me talk about our issues around evictions and our growing homelessness crisis in our community. When I think about the way we have Columbus's good fortune and its growth—and it's going to continue to grow with big projects like Intel on the horizon—what keeps me up at night is to think about how we are going to grow equitably in our community. It's 2023, and we're still talking about Columbus being one of the most segregated communities in this country. It's a sin and a shame. And while the pandemic taught us so many different types of lessons, this is one that I welcome, because now we're having some of those candid, sometimes confrontational, uncomfortable conversations about what disparity looks like in our community, what it looks like to really unpack there being two Columbuses, and the reality that there are many people in our community that don't have access to safe and affordable housing, that don't have a place to lay their head down at night. And we're not just talking about a siloed issue of housing, because quite honestly, we're talking about systemic impacts as it relates to housing. I talk a lot about systemic racism and what that means. And so let me just unpack that, if you don't mind. If you think about the realities of housing in our community and the history of housing—I had the opportunity two years ago to teach a course at Denison University, and created the class; they said, "Do what you will," and I taught a class about the history of housing. And I entitled the course "Ghetto by Design: Racism and Inequity in Urban Communities," as a way of truly educating young folks, and now people in our community, about how our communities came to be. That it is not just as simple as unpacking redlining—and we're having a large zoning conversation in our community—but it is so much more than that. When we talk about how people that look like me and others were essentially locked out of the opportunity to not only obtain housing, but to also have the opportunity to partake in what we now know as generational wealth. And so what that means is that people that look like me did not have the opportunity to obtain a house at some point in time, but also all those things that came along with that. So that's access to better educational opportunities, versus someone who has to take out loans to be able to obtain higher education. Let's talk about the opportunity to pursue entrepreneurial efforts with free-flowing cash that is available, or using the wealth that might derive from generational access to housing, versus someone taking out loans or credit, or having to float a small entrepreneurial effort on the good fortune of people just making some cash donations. All of these things are what we can unpack as systemic effects of racist housing policies in our community. Now, you can talk about other things that could be added into that, but what we know for sure is that if you don't have to worry about taking out a loan to take care of medical expenses, to take care of your child going to school, or a whole other host of issues, improving your home—those efforts, those monies can be used in other ways to enhance and better your life, thereby just increasing what we know as generational wealth. And so it is time for us to truly unpack what that means and how people have been disenfranchised over the years, how they have not had the opportunity to really partake in certain opportunities—the American dream, if you will. And I want to disrupt that. I want to call that out. I want to talk about what it is, and make some folks uncomfortable around this conversation, because it's through that uncomfortability that we can grow and become the Columbus that I think we all want to be.

Tim Fulton 08:02So, in addition to the awareness and the conversations that I personally believe are important, what is the role of council in addressing some of these, as you've said, systemic things that exist?

Shayla Favor 08:22Well, we didn't get here without local, state, and federal government interfering in this market, right? Think about how our communities were created. Subsidies were in place. White people were subsidized and able to get housing and opportunities by lots of different measures. Think of even the—

Tim Fulton 08:43Right. I was literally about to bring up your GI Bill.

Shayla Favor 08:47Right, right. And so when we think about other racist policies, like covenants that were keeping people—that literally said, if you were a Black person, you could not own this home. Yes, in the deeds, right, that literally said that.

Tim Fulton 09:02And just for the listeners, I invite you to go back to the episode on Upper Arlington, where we talk about that. The folks in power are trying to have conversations about being open and welcoming communities, but it's difficult when it's inherent to how these communities were founded.

Shayla Favor 09:25Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, what everyone knows about, hopefully, is what redlining did in our community. We talk a lot about redlining; we don't talk about those green-line communities, though, and how the green-line communities have flourished all over the country. And so if government at the local, state, and federal level played a role in helping to segregate communities, and for all intents and purposes block people from being able to obtain generational wealth, then I think that government also has a role in creating opportunities to right that wrong. And so I see city council playing a role in that. Number one, we're undertaking a huge zoning code update. Zoning impacts so much in our community. It is what helps to—it's the map of how our city will grow and how our city will develop. It is the determination of whether you're going to live next to a trash receptacle site, or you're going to live next to a beautiful park. Where do most communities of color, unfortunately, find themselves? They're abutted against highways, they're next to these trash receptacle sites. And those bring on a host of environmental concerns, which lead to health concerns, which means that if you're going to have a disproportionate impact as it relates to your health, then more than likely that's going to also impact your ability to go to school. So we see kids of color with a higher incidence of asthma and other health-related issues. All of that can be related to the fact that the environment that you live in may not be the best for you. Which also means, if you're not going to school on a regular basis, or you're out because you're sick at a disproportionate rate, you're probably not going to graduate high school on time. And if you do graduate high school on time, maybe you don't get the good grades that you probably could have had if you didn't have those other issues. So then you might not get into that four-year college that you had aspirations for, or you might not get that job. All of these things, it's a cycle. And so that's what I mean when I'm talking about unpacking the systemic issues as it relates to us. We might think, "Oh, housing, it's just this, let's throw some money at it, and that's going to solve the problem." It's not. Housing is a complex issue, and it's going to take complex strategies to truly address our housing crisis. And so there is not a silver bullet, for listeners out there. We are going to continue to roll out idea after idea. We're going to try different things, and hopefully something sticks. I know that something is going to stick, and that will begin to truly address the cycle that we are currently facing right now around our housing crisis. But there isn't one thing that's going to solve this, because it is that complex.

Tim Fulton 12:25And we've had a conversation with Aaron Prosser in the past. I want to, after the election, have another conversation with you about sort of the equitable solutions that you see from a council perspective. And there's a whole host of things we can get into there. Let's pivot a bit. Tell me about how you feel about the new districting system, and whether it's good, and whether this is the next step in a reasonable direction.

Shayla Favor 12:58So, I will be representing District Seven.

Tim Fulton 13:04We should note, you're unopposed.

Shayla Favor 13:04I am.

Tim Fulton 13:04So I am feeling a little bit more free to have a conversation about this. All the interviews I've done up to this point, I've been very conscious about—I want to treat everybody equally. Given that you're unopposed, and that you currently sit on council, let's talk about it.

Shayla Favor 13:32Okay. Yeah, yeah. You know, you say I am unopposed, but I believe that I do have opposition. And I do believe that is because some of the ideals that I am discussing—when we talk about our housing and evictions—those aren't things that we have talked about to the level that we are talking about them right now. These conversations tend to make people uncomfortable. And so that is opposition, right? To some degree, I have to have buy-in. I've got to have buy-in from my colleagues, I've got to have buy-in from the community, I've got to have buy-in from those who are helping to develop these projects that we're talking about. And so, yes, for all intents and purposes, I don't have another candidate that I'm going toe-to-toe with. But I am going toe-to-toe with ideas that I hope are going to disrupt the system that's currently in place right now, so that we can create the Columbus that I believe we all want to live in.

Tim Fulton 14:36Talk about whether having a districting system where everyone is running at large—whether that's good, and whether that provides the amount of accountability to those individuals. Whether there's enough there.

Shayla Favor 14:54Yeah. Well, this is voter-approved. This is what the voters said that they wanted. So I don't think it's up to me to say whether it's good or not. We don't know what is going to happen in January, except for the fact that there will be nine members on the dais versus seven. And I think that's okay, for me to say that we don't know what the end result is going to be. But what you do know is that you've got a member who believes in what the voters cast their vote for, who is willing to work in the system that has been created, and will represent not only the residents in District Seven, but the residents in the city of Columbus. And so, more broadly, folks are more familiar with a traditional ward-based, district-based model, like a Chicago type of system. This is going to be different. And so part of this is educating folks on what this looks like. Over the last—this came up in 2018, 2019 for a vote, and we've been talking about this since I've been on council, through a commission that was put together to figure out how this was actually going to be structured. And now it's here. And so here we are, making Columbus history again. And so we're the guinea pigs. We'll see how this all plays out.

Tim Fulton 16:33My last question—I almost feel like you've addressed a lot of it—what's the value proposition that you're bringing to your candidacy? Translating that: why should folks vote for you?

Shayla Favor 16:43Yeah, I mean, you're getting a fighter here. You're getting a fighter, you're getting someone who doesn't take no very well, who is creative, and who's always looking for other solutions, who never wants to be put in a box, to say, "This is how we've always done it, and this is what we're going to continue to do." Because that is insanity. If we truly want to be different, then we've got to do different things. We can't keep leaning on the same thing. We can't keep saying the same thing and expecting different results. I think Columbus residents want something different. And so we're going to give them something different. I'm going to give them something different.

Tim Fulton 17:21I end every interview with two questions. What do you think Columbus is doing well, and what do you think Columbus is not doing so well?

Shayla Favor 17:30I think that Columbus right now is stepping up and being a leader. And I say that with the understanding that you might not see the manifestation of that leadership right now. Columbus, without a shadow of a doubt, is going to continue to grow. That also means that central Ohio is going to grow. And so the issues that we're experiencing in Columbus, they're not unique—so much so that our suburban partners are not going to experience them. But we are leading in the way of having the critical conversations around housing, around safety, around infrastructure, and not just leading in central Ohio, but leading for the state as well. And so you might not see all of the housing units that we need online right now, but we are creating the pathway that will help bring all of that housing online, that will bring the infrastructure, that will bring the creative modes of transportation that we've been talking about for years, online. So I think that's what we're doing very well. And to lead, as you know, it's not easy. You're going to take the bullets along the way. But I think it's incredibly important to acknowledge that. What could we be doing better? We could just move faster. And that's just the realities of government, though.

Tim Fulton 19:13The realities of everything, yes.

Shayla Favor 19:19But I am encouraged by the people that I serve with. I am encouraged at the capacity for people to come together in some of the toughest times that we've had to face in our community over the last three years or so, and kind of stack hands and say, "You know, we're going to own this, and we're going to work collaboratively to address some of these critical issues." And so I don't want to lose that momentum. I want to keep inviting folks to the stacking of hands, if you will, and be a part of the solution. Don't sit on the sidelines. Participate at whatever level you can to help create the Columbus that you can be proud of as well.

Tim Fulton 20:02Great. Shayla, thank you for your time.

Shayla Favor 20:04Thank you. This was great.

Tim Fulton 20:17Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite attorney. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Phil Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.