Staunton launches 'Stanton Connect' planning to tackle housing, wages and access to services

Anna Levit, the city's economic mobility and opportunity special assistant, briefed the Staunton City Council on June 25 about "Stanton Connect," a new initiative to align city services and community supports around shared outcomes for economic mobility. Levit said the team has completed a gap analysis and equity baseline informed by more than 30 conversations with residents, service providers, employers and community leaders and is moving into a community co‑design phase.

Levit outlined two tracks of work: an internal city alignment to improve coordination across communications, transportation, economic development, housing and community development, and an external track that will convene local "change agents" to co‑design outreach and priorities. She described tools already developed: a persona deck that models typical household barriers, a compounding‑costs analysis that aggregates housing, transportation and childcare burdens, and a housing affordability calculator that shows a median household would need roughly $97,000 to afford a $300,000 home, versus a reported median income of about $65,000.

Levit said the team will pursue a Virginia housing grant to support a windshield study of existing housing conditions and a vacant‑land buildability analysis; the application opens July 1 and remains available through the year. She emphasized that the initiative intends to ground an eventual mobility action plan in resident voices and data. Councilors and staff discussed focusing limited data collection on priority neighborhoods and the limits of small‑city sample sizes for some national datasets.