Issues (in no particular order)

Affordable Housing

Many people can't afford to buy a home, or sometimes even rent. And new housing that is being built is too expensive more many. We need to build more housing that the average person can afford, as well as building more low-income housing to replace the gentrification that has happened in downtown Elkhart. I would also support a program in bringing abandoned/comdemned housing back up to code, and allowing potential homeowners to invest their time and labor to decrease the cost of the house once repaired/remodeled.

Foster Care (Department of Child Services)

The ombudsman (accountability for the Department of Child Services) does not have the power to actually make changes. The law says that the ombudsman can tell DCS that they did something wrong and all DCS has to do is to verbally respond to the ombudsman. They don't necessarily have to change or fix anything. That leads to a lot of repeated bad choices or poor decisions being made, that can hurt kids.

Also, some of the power that DCS has, needs to be taken away. They need to be forced to work as equal partners with foster parents, therapists, service providers, etc. because we all need to put the child's well-being first. Judges need to be able to decide when kids need moved/removed/sent home/adopted without waiting on DCS for paperwork. They also need more training to keep up-to-date with legislation and make the best decisions, as well as accountability when they aren't making the best choices for children.

Utility Costs and Solar Power

Our utility bills keep going up, and utility company have a stranglehold over how other alternatives can be used. There are exciting things happening in solar technology right now, and we should be taking advantage of this, regardless of how President Trump feels about them. I think that we should be able to form solar "communities" where each house that wants to participate puts as many solar panels on their roof as will fit, and they all feed into a battery hub. Every house will be generating power during the day and the batteries will store it. These batteries would provide the majority of the power for each household, which would drastically decrease utility costs.

I would also support school career centers training students to install these. It teaches the student a usefel trade school, while lowering the cost of installation, and serving as an additional source of funding for the school.

This page is still in progress. More issues will be added soon. If you want to know my stance on something specific, please use the Contact Me tab to ask me to add a specific issue...

Decent Wages

The minimum wage has not increased in over a decade, while costs continue to skyrocket due to tariffs, gas prices, etc. If we want people to be able to get out of poverty, we have to stop selling the idea that they just have to get a job, when we know that they can't living on a wage of $7.25, even if they get multiple jobs. Raising the minimun wage gives people the chance to change their future, and it increases tax revenue for the state to fund programs to help more people.

Addressing Homelessness

The federal government and the state of Indiana have chosed to treat homelessness as a personal choice, rather than a problem to be solved. The have reacted by outlawing homelessness, as evidenced by the laws saying that people can't camp on public land without having a permanent residence, or they may be fined or sent to jail. Putting people in jail for not having a home, doesn't solve anything. In fact, it makes the citizens of Indiana pay roughly $50 a person, per day, for them to be in jail.

Instead, we need to creating "housing first" communities. This means people can stay in apartments, even if they aren't substance-free or working. The second part of this solution is that you put caseworkers and mental health workers on-site to provide the treatment and services that people need. This is how we help people out of poverty. And even if they stay there forever, the statistics say that this is actually cheaper to pay for, than what we are doing now.

State Healthcare

Healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Insurance companies and pharaceutical companies should dictate what medical treatment we are able to obtain. And this is something that we can financially obtain. Putting everyone in the state on state healthcare allows us to negotiate with hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies on a level that can make this feasible. And making healthcare accessible will lower costs because we will catch issues before they before they become bigger and more expensive. We can do some much better for all our people...

Connect

Emily Yaw

iwanttohearfromyou@emilyyaw.com

574-349-1413

Paid for by the Committee to Elect Emily Yaw