CHEYENNE — Justin Nadeau sees himself as an outsider looking in. Originally from West Virginia, he believes he can offer a new perspective to local government that would bring sustainable economic growth and address the affordable housing crisis in the community.
“I’ve watched this town grow, but I’ve also watched it fall in so many places,” he said. “... Without intervention, it’s going to get worse.”
In his 20 years in the community, Nadeau said, one of the areas where the town has fallen short is in the cost of living. He said it is growing faster than wages in most industries.
According to his calculations, a single person living alone in Cheyenne would need to earn around $25 an hour to live comfortably. That’s higher than the $20.49 that Massachusetts Institute of Technology identifies as a living wage in Laramie County, and significantly higher than the Wyoming minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Rather than government intervention to forcibly raise the minimum wage, Nadeau said the cost of living should first be addressed. For Nadeau, this must start with affordable housing.
He contends that the housing shortage would best be tackled through city investment in city-controlled housing units. He estimated that a $25 million investment from the city budget would create around 2,000 housing units. He said he hopes these units would be made affordable to both address those who currently struggle to pay for rent and to create capacity for Cheyenne’s anticipated population growth as projects and businesses continue to come to the area.
Over time, he said he believes the rent from the tenants would pay off the housing investment and eventually go toward supporting the city budget. Nadeau said this would also reduce the amount of people who will need Section 8 housing assistance, alleviating tax dollars spent from the city and state budgets to support this program.
Once tenants have housing, he said, they will be able to continue to grow their life from there.
“Now, people can save some money and get things they actually need, like a vehicle, pay off college debt and potentially even start a family, if that’s what they’re looking at,” he said.
Nadeau also wants to grow the local economy more sustainably. He said there are too many businesses that come into town that look good on paper, but often will not pay their workers a living wage. With a lowered cost of living through city-funded housing investments, he said that more businesses will be attracted to Cheyenne because the cost of living is lower, so they may not have to spend as much on wages to source labor.
“I believe anybody who works 40 hours a week should be able to provide themselves a home, feed themselves and provide themselves transportation ... because they’re pulling their weight,” he said.
Currently, Nadeau works as a night shift manufacturing supervisor for Adams Publishing Group. (Editor’s note: Though APG owns the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, the WTE runs stories about all local candidates, and this story is not an endorsement. All stories about mayoral candidates are published on page A1 of the print and e-Editions.)
Nadeau recalled personal stories of people he knows who work full-time jobs and are contributing to the community, yet they cannot afford their own home, and instead live in a home sharing one bathroom with three or four other tenants.
“There’s two things in this life you can’t avoid, and that’s death and taxes,” he said. “Why aren’t your taxes helping you?”
If elected as mayor, Nadeau said he also hopes to improve quality of life through addressing ordinances he deemed unnecessary. He provided the example of lawn care, stating it seemed to be an excess of government control to ticket people if their grass gets too tall.
Although it is a nonpartisan election, Nadeau said he aligns with the beliefs of social libertarianism.
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