All Minnesotans deserve a safe place to live. It's difficult to maintain a job, care for a family, or learn at school without somewhere to call home.

But out-of-state and greedy corporations built a system that ensures they profit, while our families struggle to make rent and feel stuck in leases that continue to outpace wages.

This leaves us with a shortage of affordable housing for middle and lower income earners. We need to invest in building more housing so that everyone – from college students to working families – has a safe place to live. We also need to create effective safeguards that protect our community from predatory, profit-driven corporations that keep housing out of reach.

People travel across the nation – and even the globe – to get care at Minnesota's hospitals and clinics.

Yet if my experience as a social worker has shown me anything, it's that our system prevents many folks in our own community from accessing those services. Healthcare is too expensive for many, and it's often too far away for folks in rural communities.

That's because insurance companies continue to raise premiums while Minnesotans in our district struggle to afford healthcare. With many people in rural communities relying on Medicaid, clinics and hospitals are struggling as payments from insurance companies do not meet their needs.

If Minnesota is going to remain a reknown healthcare hub, it is only fair that our own rural residents get to access those services too. We need to invest in a public health insurance option that provides high-quality healthcare to all Minnesotans, and we need to increase payments made by insurance companies to clinics and hospitals so they can stay open and stable.

Every child in Minnesota deserves a high-quality education regardless of their ZIP Code.

Our school districts currently rely on local property taxes to fund their schools. In areas where average property values are lower, this means that there is less money to invest in those schools. A ripple effect can result from this set-up – fewer resources, lower academic performance and even increase cost burdens on families, just because of where they live.

To make educational opportunities more even, we should fully fund public Pre-K through 12th grade education with the goal of improving learning outcomes and educator recruitment while also reducing property tax burdens. Working class Minnesotans already pay for plenty. This can and should be done by requiring big corporations and the top 1% to pay their fair share in taxes.

Seniors and Minnesotans with disabilities should live a high-quality of life because of our investment in programs that support access to high-quality care.

Greedy fraudsters have taken advantage of our most vulnerable Minnesotans and created distrust in our human service programs. This needs to be fixed, and our elected officials should be willing to be transparent and responsive to their constituents.

In order to help people, these programs need to actually reach the people who need them most. If elected to represent House District 18A, I will advocate for accountability within our systems, and I will work to ensure that state and county workers have the resources to provide critical oversight that prevents and catches fraud.