We need affordable housing, healthcare, and food

We need to make sure the next generation has a chance
  • These are human rights. Everyone, no matter how flawed, deserves a place to live, to be cared for when sick or injured, and to be able to put food on their table. There’s no way for any of us to know what has happened to a person to put them in a place where they can’t provide those things for themselves, but increasingly even those people who are doing everything "the right way" can’t find a place to live, can’t find a doctor, can’t find a job that actually pays the bills and leaves them with enough to put food on the table. That’s unacceptable.
  • The kids graduating from our state universities right now are doing all the right things — getting a great education, saving up money, getting a professional job in their field — and still finding themselves unable to afford to buy a home in Maine. Something is broken. Fixing it has to be a top priority.
  • If we want to make sure kids can leave the nest, we also need to create an aging strategy for townspeople who don’t want to leave town once family members have grown up and moved out, but maybe don’t need to keep living in their three-bedroom family home. 
  • We need to follow the strategic plans we’ve set for our communities and not whipsaw back and forth based on the gut feelings of whomever happens to be “in charge.” The towns should have plans and they should have an advocate in Augusta to make sure those plans are supported by state regulation and funding. 
  • We need a variety of housing options and we need to have zoning and planning that is flexible enough to take advantage of opportunity. 
  • We need to explore public housing options.
  • I believe that density is more sustainable, easier to provide services to, and opens up options for public transportation, retail opportunities, and live-work spaces. We must find ways to do more by spending less. 
  • I support a medicare-for-all-style public healthcare system that ensures everyone has access to healthcare and especially can take advantage of preventative healthcare that will save us from exorbitant expenses at emergency rooms down the line. If you think what we're doing currently for healthcare in this country is working, we are in fundamental disagreement. It's broken and failing and we have to fix it. As a country, we spend more per person than just about every other country and have worse health outcomes. I'm not sure what more evidence you need that there's a better way. Let's find it. 
  • The state can get us closer to that through efforts to create large insurance pools similar to those available to educators and/or public employees. The bigger the pool, the more spread out the risk, the bigger the buying power. Making healthcare better is a process that will take maybe decades of dedicated work. Anyone who tells you they have one quick fix is just telling you what you want to hear. 
  • We would be stupid to do anything without considering the way the environment is changing, the way demographics are changing, and the way society is changing. We need solutions that consider the conditions we will face in the future and lay plans to account for the new and different challenges we will undoubtedly face.