ADRIAN — As Adrian approaches its bicentennial in 2025, newly re-elected Mayor Angela Sword Heath says one of the biggest tasks facing the city is continuing to improve quality of life for residents.

And when she looks at how to do that, at the top of the list is housing.

Adrian has a housing problem, Heath said in a recent interview — or, more precisely, three problems. There isn’t enough of it, it’s often substandard, and it costs too much.

“We need more housing and we need more quality housing,” she said, adding that it’s a problem she’s heard about from many other Michigan mayors as well.

Heath said many of the city’s rental properties aren’t in good shape.

“I personally have seen conditions in some of these apartments and houses that nobody should have to live in,” she said.

And at the same time, people have trouble finding an affordable place to live.

“People are paying more for rent than I pay for the mortgage on my house,” she said. “That’s not OK.”

Heath is beginning her third two-year term as mayor. During the just-concluded commission term, she said, the city hired a second code enforcement officer to focus on rentals. The city had fallen way behind on rental inspections, she said, and since hiring the new enforcement officer has been catching up.

She said she’s seen improvements in that time, but there’s still more to be done.

As for cost, it’s hard for the city to exercise much direct control. Rent control is illegal in Michigan and has been since 1988, according to the nonprofit news service Bridge Michigan.

“We can’t dictate what people can charge for rent,” Heath said.

But indirectly, she said, the city can work to help more housing get built by streamlining the permitting process and making it less bureaucratic for developers, and by lending its support to efforts like the Downtown Adrian Riverfront project. More housing supply, and thus more competition for tenants, could help drive prices down.

As other priorities for the next two years, Heath listed addressing commercial blight and continuing to improve downtown in an effort to make sure Adrian is a place that more people want to move to or stay in.