COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther shared his top priorities for the city Tuesday in his State of the City address.

Ginther spoke about the importance of no matter where you are in the city, there is opportunity.

Two main points that build into that are public safety and affordable housing.

“We want to be the safest big city in America; we are not there yet,” he said.

In the last two years, Columbus has seen unprecedented violence and a record number of homicides in 2021.

“Really treating gun violence as a public health crisis and so that means we need public health to be part of the solution, we need recreation and parks, we need neighbors, we obviously need law enforcement,” he said.

More than $660 million is going towards safety, which includes investing in 170 police officers and 120 firefighters, but also new programs and strategies.

Ginther said city officials also need to address the growing population.

“We don’t have nearly enough housing units coming to market — we didn’t before the pandemic and we certainly don’t know,” he said about the affordable housing issue the region faces.

Ginther called for private, public, city, and county partners to invest $1 billion in affordable housing over the next 15 years.

An affordable housing initiative will be on the ballot in November, similar to one passed in 2019.

“It’s really helped us generate thousands of more units generate about… that $50 million really leveraged about $300 million in other investments to these projects, so just think about what we can do with $150 million.”

You can watch the full speech by clicking here.