KY: Lexington faith coalition urges council to improve public transit, protect renters

Hundreds of members of Lexington’s faith communities turned out Tuesday night to push local officials to make sure the city’s residents have reliable public transportation, safe rental housing and a support network for its elders.

“We have one purpose tonight, to join in solidarity with the marginalized, the vulnerable, the powerless,” Rev. Richard Gaines, of Consolidated Baptist Church, told a crowd of at least 900 people who converged at Central Bank Center for the annual Nehemiah Action Assembly hosted by BUILD.

BUILD, which stands for Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct Action, is a diverse coalition of 26 Fayette County congregations that have worked to find solutions to a number of social justice issues for more than 20 years.

At each year’s Nehemiah Action Assembly, they come together to hold public officials’ feet to the fire and seek commitments for moving their initiatives forward.

Tuesday, nine Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council members — Chuck Ellinger, James Brown, Emma Curtis, Denise Gray, Joseph Hale, Shayla Lynch, Tyler Morton, Jennifer Reynolds and Dave Sevigny — agreed to help BUILD as it works to address the problem of adequate public transportation.

The council members agreed to require funding for a microtransit pilot in Lextran’s fiscal year 2027 budget as a condition of their approving that budget, if a feasibility study currently underway supports it.

For several years, BUILD has urged Lextran to set up a microtransit service, a more flexible, on-demand supplement to the city’s bus system.

BUILD says Lexington’s transit system scored a 4.1 out of 10 on a national index by the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

“This means our transportation system is failing the people who need it most: buses don’t come often enough, they don’t reach where people need to go, and they’re simply not meeting Lexington’s transportation needs,” BUILD said in printed materials distributed to attendees Tuesday night.

Theresa Thomas, executive director of the Bluegrass Council of the Blind, told the crowd that while “paratransit is nice,” using it requires riders to block off a four- to five-hour window of time for something that might only take 30 minutes.

Thomas, who has a visual impairment, said she requested a ride to a doctor’s office. She said the paratransit bus arrived after her pickup window and she got to her appointment 10 minutes late after riding the bus for an hour and a half to get to an office a mile from her home.

Microtransit “offers the opportunity for a choice that can increase independence. It can increase safety, and it can save time for things that really matter,” Thomas said.

In addition to agreeing to required funding for a microtransit pilot program, the council members in attendance also committed to review the microtransit feasibility study within a month of its release and attend an informational meeting later this year with a Birmingham, Ala., city council member who will share how the Birmingham council helped launch a microtransit program there.

Lextran General Manager Fred Combs, who was also in attendance, agreed to work with consultants to coordinate a presentation of the feasibility study’s findings to the council.

“I’m excited about the possibility of microtransit,” he told those in attendance.

He also said Lextran is “working hard to improve paratransit, our Wheels service.”

Avery Baggett, who attended the BUILD meeting, said she was encouraged by the outcome.

“Lextran is finally listening,” she said.

Baggett has been blind for 10 years, and though she has family and friends who help her get where she needs to go, “every other blind person I know struggles,” she said.

Safe homes for renters

Bryland Smith and his wife have rented the same Lexington duplex since their college years, and Smith told the crowd the situation has brought “frustration, illness and hopelessness.”

“Our rent is $950, plus utilities,” Smith said.

And what does that get them? Smith said the home has been “severely flooded” twice in the time they’ve lived there, yet the carpet hasn’t been replaced.

He said bats “randomly come out of the fireplace, closets” to fly around at night.

One of the toilets was broken for seven months. Doors have cracks in the wood from being kicked in when previous tenants lived there. And, he said, there is mold in the walls and ventilation system.

After his wife developed a litany of symptoms, Smith said they sent samples to a lab to confirm mold growth, but the landlord has done nothing to remedy the problem.

Smith said he works in a factory, and his wife is a teacher, but “buying a home in the current market is impossible.”

He said other rental units they’ve considered require a deposit that is two or even three times a month’s rent, which is not within their budget.

“We feel trapped and we feel powerless in our home,” he said. “We pray that we will be able to find a better home some day.”

Smith’s situation is not unique, BUILD says.

“We’ve been shocked at how little accountability there is for landlords in Kentucky,” Lynn English, who attends Holy Spirit Parish Newman Center, told the crowd.

Addressing renters’ concerns “will be a multi-year campaign,” she said. “This is one of the largest issues we’ve ever taken on.”

As BUILD has researched the issue, English said they’ve realized they need more data.

“We need to know what the most pressing issues are and where they’re happening,” she said.

“Even code enforcement, [the University of Kentucky], and the city’s office of housing do not fully understand the scope of this problem because there’s no tracking of renter’s concerns outside of code enforcement’s case-by-case notes,” BUILD’s handout stated.

To that end, Charlie Lanter, Lexington’s commissioner of housing advocacy and community development, committed Tuesday night to share five years of code enforcement data with BUILD within 30 days.

Within 60 days, Lanter agreed to meet with BUILD and UK researchers to undertake a collaborative effort to understand the data. He said it’s a complicated issue that involves local, state and federal governments.

“We need your help, outside help, to move the ball forward,” he said.

Earlene Neal, of Consolidated Baptist Church, said afterward the housing concerns of renters was at the top of her mind during the event.

She said she bought her house in 2013, and “you thought things were expensive then.”

“It’s awful,” she said. “How in the world are these people affording to live?”

Helping older adults live independently

BUILD has also been working to get a system set up in Lexington to support senior residents, allowing them to live independently in their homes for as long as possible.

The group wants to use the Village to Village Network’s model, in which “villages,” or membership organizations, would be set up to help connect older people to services that might range from home repairs to transportation or even technology support.

Villages are “a grassroots, neighborly way of helping elders thrive at home,” Judy Maxson, a BUILD member from Second Presbyterian Church, told the crowd.

UK College of Social Work researchers and local elder-focused nonprofit A Caring Place are working on a needs assessment study. The ultimate goal is to have a “village” supporting elders in every Lexington ZIP code, according to BUILD.

Rev. Brian Chenowith, of the Unitarian Universalist Church, told those in attendance Lexington is “a place where there are still people suffering.”

“There is indeed a crisis in our city, and we will not sit idly by,” he said. “Hopelessness and powerlessness are not the final answer. By being here tonight, you are choosing hopefulness. Let this gathering be about the joy of rediscovering our power.”

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