Running for office is something of an unexpected turn for Tiffany Caudill.
But years of caretaking for two children with chronic health conditions, working in the healthcare industry and volunteering with a nonprofit that helps members of the military access mental health resources prompted her to get politically engaged.
"All of those experiences kind of just left me bewildered at how many gaps there are for families, how much our health is tied to insurance companies and ability to pay for things, and it really just kind of was the big door opening into all of the other social structure gaps that exist as well," she said.
She volunteered with Planned Parenthood and helped resettle refugees in Colorado. Then she got involved with politics, first volunteering on ballot initiatives and progressive campaigns, then working for them, then running herself. She's in the race against incumbent councilmember Kevin Flynn and Chris Herr in the race for Council District 2.
Caudill grew up in Denver before her family was priced out and moved to the suburbs. Now she lives in Southwest Denver and says housing is a top priority.
"Housing is the most critical issue that we're facing right now," she said.
Caudill wants to see a housing first approach, which would involve repealing the urban camping ban, expanding safe camping sites, implementing rent control (if legalized at the state level) and supporting zoning that would allow multi-family housing. She also wants to audit city owned properties and implement the right to first refusal, so the city can purchase and develop social housing.
"The sweeps on our own unhoused community are cruel and inhumane, but they're also incredibly costly, and the money that we're spending on a policy that isn't working is irresponsible," she said. "There's not a lot of trust between our unhoused community and our elected officials, and so there's going to be a lot of repair that needs to happen there."
Caudill also wants to focus on public safety, climate and transportation, including lowering energy bills, preserving green space, growing micro transit in Southwest Denver, expanding EV charging and building more bike lanes.
"We really need to be re-envisioning how Denver looks right now," she said. "If we want to be a good city, if we want to be a thriving city, we have to provide safe shelter and housing, food security, thriving wages, whole health care, education, green and healthy spaces, and that's our foundation. If we start ensuring that everybody has an opportunity to succeed, through providing those basic necessities, we see a lot of these other things start to improve as well."
Caudill feels like there's a divide between the haves and have-nots in southwest Denver and wants this election to change things.
"I think that there's competing views right now, and that's sort of between, maybe the more wealthy affluent folks who live in southwest Denver versus, again, our community members that are struggling to make rent."
She hopes to be a voice representing the latter-especially lower income people, renters and minorities.
"How do we really impact our communities?" she asked. "A tangible way of doing that is getting a City Council that's willing to really address these very pressing and urgent issues in a way that I think we haven't seen in the last 10 years... When we have the opportunity to create change, we have to take it."
