My Platform:  Job creation doesn’t occur in a vacuum; supportive services often must be provided to allow low and moderate income people, the elderly, those who are disabled, and others to work in the newly created positions.   I would therefore readily support such budget items as increased free and reduced cost school lunch, expansion of the Family Justice Center, increased enforcement efforts to combat domestic violence, increased spending on social services for the elderly who so often live lives of isolation more transit options for our senior citizens in Leisure World and for the communities in which recent immigrants live, improvement of Maryland’s Health Exchange, and increased support for the homeless and those confronting temporary financial emergencies.

 

My Experience:  As Deputy HUD Assistant Secretary, I oversaw our federal government’s homeless programming; and I helped lead the ground breaking effort nationally for the first time to link the  federal government’s previously separate social services and housing programs to provide “Shelter Plus Care” … in much the same way that I now propose to link our state’s economic development, workforce development, educational programming, and social services to create an unprecedented new state level “Jobs Plus Care” approach to middle class job creation throughout Maryland.

 

I can therefore be a leader of legislative efforts in Annapolis to craft new linkages between jobs and social services.