Issue Position: Protecting and Honoring Our Seniors

Issue Position

It's just wrong to treat the people who took care of us for so long, so poorly."

When economic hard times hit, we forget that our seniors are often those most affected. Seniors lose equity in their homes, their retirement plans are thrown in flux in an unstable market, and their fixed incomes just cannot keep up with the rising cost of food and gas. They don't have the luxury of time to wait for the equity on their homes to increase or for the market to start making gains.

Here are some solutions I will work on in the State Assembly:

Senior Home Equity Insurance Program

I will create a fixed home equity insurance program. This program will give seniors the ability to "lock in" the equity of their home anytime after they turn 65. A program like this will protect seniors from the type of housing collapse we experienced in 2008. The program is simple: for example, if you have $150,000 of equity in your home, as a participant in the program, that money will be available as an equity line of credit even if there is a real estate collapse. The main difference here is that it will be insured by the State of California. I want this program to be modeled in part by the "Too Big to Fail" program the federal government had in place for banks to cover their bad loans. My program will be called, "Too Respected to Suffer" because I think it's time we got our priorities in order.

Make the Politicians Pay the Same Price
Cuts to services for seniors citizens should have a proportional cut tied to the salaries and benefits of our elected officials, this ensures that the decisions our legislators are making are in the interest of the people and not their own.

Create Senior Care Cooperatives

Currently, California has programs in place specifically for senior in-house care, assuming all seniors will require "in-house" care. That is not necessarily the case; some seniors do have serious health issues that place them in a state of convalescence, while others are much more active. So, here is my idea -why not allow seniors to take care of each other? By creating senior health "cooperatives", we can provide several benefits: they would give certain, more active seniors the opportunity to earn a monthly stipend (non-taxed) in caring for other seniors, and be given the chance to unionize and have the security of collective bargaining. It would also create more opportunities for social interaction -some seniors are forced into isolation because of compromised health, this allows them greater interaction on a daily basis.

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