Steve Owens

Education As a State Representative one thing I will focus on is removing college degree requirements from government jobs in favor of competency based learning. There are 1 million fewer full time private sector jobs in the USA today than there were in 2020, but according to Biden, jobs are booming. One thing is certain, the number of government jobs is on the rise but most people are barred from these jobs because of the nepotisitc culture embedded in the job placement strategy used by our state government. Every citizen should have equal access to these jobs, and it shouldn’t be who you know but what you know that counts. Economy What are some things we can do to promote a more robust local food economy? Well for starters we can favor food production versus wine production when it comes to awarding DNR land rents for local farmers. Currently the public lands are being used to grow grapes for wine, and not food to feed the hungry, which favors the hospitality industry over the hungry. Housing To help stave off the flood of homelessness due to increased real estate prices we can take a two pronged approach to attacking that problem. First a capital holdings tax will help make hedge fund ownership of homes a costly proposition, this will help drive down costs as they seek to dump these assts. Second, we need to make it easier for builders to build small homes, and we need to put limits on municipal codes and restrictive covenants which would restrict people from building their own tiny homes which could mean the difference between home ownership and being a forever tennant for many Washingtonians. By making property value expensive this will remove the incentive that owners of property have for keeping their property values artificially high. Housing My intent is to leverage capital holdings tax to make private property a liability while providing tax breaks on personal property. If you live in your home it’s personal property, if you rent it out it’s private property. I want to end the landlord class as a group within the United States of America. If you co-own a multi family dwelling with the other residents then it is personal property, but if you rent it out to renters then it’s private property. Housing As a minimum we need to address the most fundamental issues faced by anone who is homeless and trying to get off the street. What do they need most of all? First and foremost they need a legitimate mailing address. Every citizen in Washington should be able to obtain a free mailing address (even if it isn’t a home) which meets all of the legal criteria for an address of residence and record. This is the most fundamental barrier to getting off the street. Housing Only ownership offers a true freedom. So my focus will be on driving the cost of building your own housing down, reducing rules that artificially inflate home prices and unduly favor construction companies, as well as eliminating rules that act as barriers for groups of people in the “renter” class from co-investing in real estate that they can own. Housing Secondly every homeless person needs some basic storage facility to keep important documents and valuables safe from weather, crime and other things that the homeless are particularly vulnerable to. This doesn’t need to be more than a locker but it should be their private place, to keep their private things and treated the same way a persons home is treated from a legal perspective. Housing We should expand the number of restrooms which are publicly available, because not having a place to go to the bathroom should not be considered a crime. We can set minimum standards on municipalities to make many of these basic amentities available. Housing Finally, every homeless person seeking to get off the street needs some kind of phone number. These basic needs are not costly, certainly not as costly as many shelters but are even more vital than basic shelter.