KENTUCKY —  Mayor Greenberg D-Louisville., joined this week's "In Focus Kentucky" program to discuss a wide range of topics and issues affecting the commonwealth's largest city.

During this segment, Greenberg shared details about how his administration is working to create affordable housing and safer neighborhoods across Louisville. One of Greenberg's initiatives is the "My Louisville Home Plan," which calls to create and preserve 15,000 affordable housing units. So far, the mayor reports that as of 2024, 4,800 units of affordable housing have been created.

Also new this year, Greenberg launched a Lien Waiver Forgiveness program to redevelop vacant and abandoned properties and create new, affordable homes in neighborhoods experiencing blight.

"We need to build more housing," Greenberg said. "It's as simple as that. We need more single-family homes for people to own. We need more duplexes. We need more townhomes. We need more apartments at all price points. We need more housing, period."

"We continue to focus on affordable housing, but we need more housing in every neighborhood in Louisville, not just in other people's neighborhoods, and that's what we're trying to do. We're working to support affordable housing for individuals so that they can afford it. We're also working to make it easier for people to build housing in Louisville; there are too many roadblocks. There's too much bureaucracy, too much red tape. We need the support from Metro Council, from the state government, to make it easier for people who want to invest in our city, who want to create homeownership opportunities, for families, to build generational wealth, to improve the quality of neighborhoods, and that's what we're working toward."

"One of the things that we just launched a couple of weeks ago that I'm really excited about is called the Lien Waiver Forgiveness program. In some of our lowest-income neighborhoods, there are properties that are sitting and decaying ... they're attracting crime to the neighborhood. They're causing blight in these neighborhoods. We need to convert those vacant, abandoned structures and turn them into bright new homes that families can own and be proud of and improve the quality. One way where they're doing that is we're waving the code enforcement beings that are on those properties so they can get have a new life, to improve the quality of our neighborhoods." 

Greenberg also shared how leaders across the city are improving early childhood education through programs like Thrive by Five, which expands access to quality early childhood learning opportunities for Louisville families and partnering with the Bezos Academy to provide free, year-round education to 3- and 4-year-old children.

You can watch the full 'In Focus Kentucky' segment in the player above.