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-Hi. My name is Terry Rice,
and I'm running for Seattle City Council
in District 6.
I'm running as the true progressive
in this race.
We need to take bold steps
and think long-term in order
to solve our city's toughest problems.
I'm talking about doing the hard work
of tackling the root causes
of our most intractable problems,
problems like reducing
the number of people
experiencing homelessness,
creating more
low- and mid-income housing,
strengthening and investing in
mass transit,
and addressing climate change
in a meaningful way at the local level.
It is not possible to solve
the homelessness crisis
without addressing housing affordability,
but that doesn't mean
that there isn't a lot
we can do
to bring people inside right now.
First, we can invest
in work programs
that we know already work,
like upstream diversion.
This means that
if a family or an individual
is about to become homeless
because of a broken car or a sick child,
we step in and give them a rent
or transportation voucher.
This $600 or $900 is often enough
to keep a family in a home that they have,
which is the right thing to do,
and it's the fiscally responsible
thing to do.
The city needs to build
more low-income housing.
This is a long-term plan,
and without doing
the hard political work
of building more low-income housing,
we will not exit
the homelessness crisis.
Some of this publicly financed
low-income housing needs
to be built specifically
for people who have
severe and chronic mental illness
and/or severe and chronic
drug addiction.
If we want people who are facing
these hardships off of the street,
then we must give them a place to go.
Arresting them won't work.
This is also
the morally right thing to do
and the fiscally responsible choice.
We need to expedite and expand light-rail,
connect our bike lanes,
make metro the easy choice for people.
Gridlock will be reduced
by improving access
to and investing in mass transit.
The biggest threat facing our city
and every other city
is climate change.
We need bold action,
and we need it right now.
If elected to the City Council,
I will push for the wholesale adoption
of Portland's
174-point Climate Action Plan.
If we ramp up our investments
in reducing emissions today,
we can get to zero emissions by 2050.
If you want a pragmatic progressive
on the City Council,
vote for me, Terry Rice.
Thank you.