Voting has begun in Detroit’s mayoral election.

Reverend Solomon Kinloch, a political newcomer, is taking on career politician and City Council President Mary Sheffield.

Leading into the primary, the common refrain on the campaign trail was affordable housing and lowering crime.

Kinloch, the leader of Triumph Church, is no different.

In an interview with Detroit Public Radio, Kinloch spoke about filling up the city’s limited housing stock.

“We got to begin with, neighborhood revitalization. My plan would commit to putting a family in every house,” Kinloch said. “We do that by creating a greater pathway to home ownership, by increasing and intensifying the down payment assistance program… and prioritizing affordable housing development.”

The City of Detroit says there’s been over one billion dollars of affordable housing investment in the city since 2019. Many of those developments come with more expensive apartments, with units set aside for people with median income.

This, Kinloch says, is where he and Sheffield disagree. He thinks Sheffield, and the city, aren’t being aggressive enough.

“They’re bragging about affordable housing. Affordable for who?” Kinloch said. “You got rent 17,18, $1,900 a month. That’s not affordable for the average family in the city of Detroit.”

No victory laps when it comes to crime

Another key difference is that Kinloch sees city leaders, Sheffield included, already celebrating a drop in crime.

“I don’t think nobody should be taking a victory lap,” Kinloch says. “When you talk to residents in the city of Detroit, and when you leave a funeral, as I have left so many, where I’m burying too many young people in this city to go into saying, ‘you ain’t gonna change nothing’.”

Kinloch maintains that many in the city still feel unsafe, despite recent improvements.

“We got to be honest about how bad the problem is, so that we can take some comprehensive and some realistic and practical steps in order to deal with that,” Kinloch said. “People still don’t feel safe…they still got bars on their windows.”

That willingness to try new things when it comes to law enforcement and lowering crime does not extend to the using the National Guard in Detroit.

“I believe that the wonderful police officers in the City of Detroit should be responsible for caring for the people in the City of Detroit, and that people who live in the city should be responsible for being a part of that police department in order to patrol and protect their citizens,” Kinloch said.

Referencing the uprising in the summer of 1967, Kinloch says the National Guard being sent to Detroit is still an open wound for many.

“I believe that when you start talking about martial law, it regurgitates some traumatic experience for the community,” Kinloch said. “They long have tried, mentally and socially to and psychologically to distance themselves from (that).”

The organization that operates the Detroit People Mover has launched a study to look for ways to improve services.

Kinloch says he lives downtown, and he wants Detroiters to feel like it’s their downtown too. Expanding and improving the People Mover would help that.

“When I did my launch, people were saying, ‘Why are you going to the Fox (Theater)? That’s that’s not where we go. We don’t go downtown.’ We have to make sure that everyone in this city feels a part of what’s going on in this city, because if we bring them downtown, we want them to use the mode of transportation to get around downtown,” Kinloch said.

The day before Detroit’s primary election, Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told The Metro “less than five” polling places in the city have accessibility problems — and that her legal obligation includes ensuring entrances and voting machines are accessible.

This week, nonprofit advocacy organization Detroit Disability Power pushed back. The group disputed Winfrey’s claims, pointing to its 2025 survey of 167 polling locations. The findings, they say, reveal widespread barriers and raise serious concerns about Detroit polling place accessibility ahead of the November election. The audit of this year’s primary found that half of the surveyed polling locations had accessibility issues with entrances and doorways, and 70% had problems with Voter Access Terminals (VAT).

Eric Welsby, the policy director for Detroit Disability Power, joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to dispute Winfrey’s claims. He explained the persistent barriers for people with disabilities at Detroit polling locations and how this issue is not unique to Detroit.

Documented problems persist

During the 2021 election, disability advocates filed an ADA complaint saying key voting information, like where and how to vote, was inaccessible online for users of screen readers, affecting thousands of Detroiters. And, some polling locations across metro Detroit remain inaccessible to voters with disabilities.

The Metro contacted Clerk Winfrey’s office for comment, but received no response.

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