Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg sitting for an end-of-year interview on Dec. 19, 2024.(Roberto Roldan / LPM News )Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg sat down for an interview with LPM News Thursday to discuss the city’s approach to gun violence and housing. These two issues have presented a challenge, not just for Greenberg, but for prior administrations, too.So far in 2024, Louisville saw slight decreases in the number of homicides and nonfatal shootings compared to this time last year, but gun violence remains far above pre-pandemic levels. Louisville Metro also continued to clear encampments. City officials say camps of people experiencing homelessness are not safe or healthy, and Louisville police have been issuing citations to people living on the streets since the summer. Advocates, however, argue the camp clearings and citations disrupt peoples’ housing process and criminalize homelessness.Greenberg reflected on areas of progress this year, and laid out his ideas for 2025. This interview was edited for length and clarity.Roberto Roldan: I'd like to start out talking about what seems to be the top issue for residents and for public officials for years now, which is gun violence. Homicides this year are down 4% compared to last year. It's just six fewer homicides than last year. With the amount of time, resources and focus that the city is putting into addressing gun violence, why do you feel like we didn't see a more substantive year-over-year drop?Craig Greenberg: Well, we are seeing progress. Homicides are down. Nonfatal shootings are down this year, more significantly than homicides. They're down over 20% since their peak in 2021, but that's no cause for celebration. We still have a lot of work to do, and the Louisville that we had two years ago when I became mayor, is very different from Louisville today. LMPD is a different organization. They're arresting more perpetrators who are committing violent acts of gun violence. This year, one of the things I'm proud of is a new partnership we have with Attorney General [Russell] Coleman and Commonwealth Attorney [Gerina] Whethers, where we're focusing prosecution on gun violence offenders.I appreciate that there has been a good amount of progress. But compared to the pre-pandemic level, so 2019, homicides are still up 56%. What is it going to take for the city to get back where we were just five years ago?It's going to take the 200 more police officers that we need to hire, that can work to prevent crime from happening in the first place by being on patrol in areas, particularly areas where there's been violent crime. It's going to take our judges sentencing individuals who are repeat offenders that continue to commit these acts of violence crime. It's going to take violence prevention work that we're working through Group Violence Intervention, and many others. Really, until the past year, that was all talk. It wasn't action. We're now taking actions on the things the city has said it's been doing for a long period of time.One of the other issues that's continued to dog Louisville in recent years is homelessness. We've seen a steady increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness, despite new investments by the city, not just in your administration, but the prior one. What are some additional strategies that your administration can consider going into 2025?We are focused on safe and healthy streets, and if someone is living on the streets that is neither safe nor healthy for them. So, we've provided a record amount of services and shelter for individuals in need, through the Community Care campus, through other nonprofit partners, through the government itself. Our homeless service division responds to calls within 24 hours. We are fully staffed and funded for the first time in memory. At the same time, if people are doing illegal things on the street, we're also going to take action. And so we have cleared a significant number of encampments and overpasses at highway exits, in every corner of our city. We are enforcing the law. We are trying to get those individuals services and shelter. We still need more 24-hour shelters and day shelters in our city. That's something that I'm going to propose funding for in next year's budget.You set a goal two years ago to create 15,000 affordable housing units in your first term. Can you tell me a little bit about where we're at in meeting that goal?So, we're making progress. About 5,000 new units of housing have been created or are underway right now. We have a long way to go, we know that, but we purposely set a bold goal, and this is an area that we need some help from Metro Council. We need some help from the state. We need to make it easier to build more housing in Louisville, in every neighborhood, not just in other people's neighborhoods, and that's been a challenge. When projects have come to Metro Council, and they've passed Planning Commission, and then have been denied. It just happened last week. We're focused on new single family homes that families are going to own. We're focused on duplexes, town homes, apartments. We need all types of housing at all price points so that it's affordable for families across the wide range of income spectrums in our community.