As State Representative for District 4, I will work for ambitious, affordable, and justice-based policies. I will advocate for affordability, accessibility and equity in housing, water, health and education.

I have the courage, experience, and work ethic to implement policies that put people first and focus on our essential needs.

Affordable quality housing is a human need and human right. A stable home is the foundation for healthy, thriving families. There is room in Detroit for everyone, yet we lead the nation in foreclosures, eviction, and blight. We must work to keep families and homes together, build homeownership opportunities, and extend access to affordable rental housing. 

• Reform tax foreclosure- no auction of occupied homes
• Tenant rights- right to counsel during eviction. Landlords must maintain rental standards
• Public housing- increase public housing options both project-based and voucher-based
• Land banking- prioritize programs that build local ownership, homeownership, and occupancy
• Property taxation- extend poverty exemption access, eliminate usury delinquent tax rates, change assessment practices
• MSHDA- provide Hardest Hit funds to those hardest hit individuals and communities.

Water is life. Air is life. Water rates in Detroit and Hamtramck are unaffordable, water shut-offs occur at epidemic levels, and residents suffer high asthma rates from air contamination. We must eliminate environmental racism and work toward clean water and air for all.

• End water shutoffs
• Offer water affordability plans
• Invest continuously in water infrastructure regularly to avoid lead exposure and catastrophic failure
• Protect our Great Lakes as a national, collective, natural resource
• Strengthen and enforce controls on air quality
• Increase renewable portfolio standards and energy-efficiency
• Respect indigenous land and its people
• Improve air and water quality testing metrics within MDEQ and target interventions where they are most needed

The future of our state rests in our education system. We must vastly improve the investment and quality of our education for its own sake and for the cause of reducing racial, criminal, and economic disparities.

• Literacy is mandatory. Fund schools sufficient to make reading a reality for all students
• Modify school funding to reflect need based on indicators such as low-performance, high classroom sizes, proportion of ESL student. 
• Demilitarize schools by investing in education and educators rather than policing. End school-to-prison pipeline.
• Repeal laws that force struggling schools to close. Rather, invest in those schools. 
• Eliminate any public spending on for-profit charter schools
• Increase transparency in school performance to parents
• Improve transportation options to and from school
• Fund early childhood education
• Enact tuition price controls in publicly funded universities.

Democracy is the skeleton and funding is the lifeblood of our communities. We must maintain proper funding to our local communities and governments and sustain democracy, especially in these difficult economic times.

• Repeal emergency management. We cannot “cancel democracy” merely because of financial hardship
• Expand FOIA compliance to all parts of government including legislature
• Enforce revenue sharing requirements for Michigan to return funds to municipalities
• Create public banking for public works, infrastructure and citizen use
• Accept federal funding and implement federal programs to fund Medicaid
• Support independent redistricting measures to end gerrymandering
• Eliminate redlining in car insurance rates so residents of our do not have to vote outside their communities
• Get dark money out of politics with increased disclosures, and increase voting options and access.

This is the most incredibly diverse district in the state and perhaps the county. We have so much to be proud of, and through this diversity we can be leaders in an end of racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, classism, anti-Immigrant views and other divisions. We can continue to build an inclusive society that embraces all identities. We need to fight fiercely for criminal justice reform. We must fight inequality and discrimination in policy and ensure equal opportunities to all. 

• Extend Elliott-Larson Act protections for all LQBTQ individuals
• Systematically reduce prison populations; defund jails and invest in support and rehabilitation 
• Police enforcement: provide de-escalization training; prohibit racial profiling and quotas; prohibit choke holds and other methods of strangulation
• Increase transparency in police violence instances and improve FOIA access for tracking incidents
• Create Civilian Complaint Board for reports of police misconduct/excessive force. Reporting on police to police does not work.
• Support refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers, in our communities.

Michigan is in the midst of a very delicate economic period. We must balance economic and public health demands, provide support for unemployed individuals and reduced-capacity business. Our economy must also balance profit with fair wages and safe working conditions. 

• Expand and extend access to unemployment. Reduce dislocure requirements for “job searching.”
• Create public works project to invest in infrastructure and public spaces while providing living wages.
• Support minimum wage levels that track with cost of living expenses, starting at $15/hr minimum wage. A person who works full time should earn enough money to provide for themselves and their family. 
• Support union rights, organizing rights, and collective bargaining.
• Support extended access to unemployment and fewer mandates on job search documentation
• Support businesses struggling to re-open with loan and payroll support.

We are in the heart of the automotive industry, yet many Detroit and Hamtramck residents are unable to afford the costs of driving due to car insurance rates. We lack adequate public transportation to meaningfully provide alternatives to driving.

• End redlining in car insurance policies, as well as other non-driving factors
• Invest in public transportation
• Invest in road funding and repair by reprioritizing massive highway projects to failing roads, bridges and dams.
• Create Public banking to fund infrastructure and public works projects at low interest rates
• Incrase transparency in insurance rates that will result from reduce coverage options