“If I were mayor.” To say that means you carry yourself dignity and honor. To be trustworthy and to look out for the best interest of others and not just yourself. Every city and community has a problem that affects many people. There are good parts of the city, and bad, but it’s all these things that make up the city we know as home.

Affordable housing is hard to come across nowadays. With salaries decreasing, and housing costs increasing, the means to get a house that meets your standards and expectations of living comfortably, is quite hard. The cost of living in Carson is 33% higher than the national average and housing is 81% higher. With these statistics, how can the people in Carson live adequately? A lack of affordable housing negatively affects employers, seniors, poor people, immigrants, entry-level and service sector workers, and public sector professionals such as teachers, firefighters, and police officers. It also impinges on broader quality of life issues such as the economic development of the region, traffic congestion, commute times, and air quality. In short, it affects the whole city. Effectively solving the affordable housing crisis does not mean addressing the needs of just the poor; it also means addressing the needs of the business community, working- and middle class families, and the broader population. “We face a housing shortage unlike anything we’ve seen since World War II,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in 2014. “The high cost of housing affects everything in this city.” Garcetti set a goal of creating 100,000 new homes in Los Angeles by 2021. As Mayor, I would help by raising awareness and pushing to follow through with his goal, and hopefully that will certainly help this hitch.

A husband loses his job. A single mother can’t afford a place to live. A college graduate cannot find a job with their degree. A teenager runs away from an abusive home. A sick child medical bills drain a family's finances. All of these situations can lead to homelessness. Like affluence and success, most Americans view poverty and homelessness to be conscious or unconscious choices by the individuals concerned. This is far from the truth. There are far many more causes of homelessness, than simply choosing to become homeless. Due to the homeless population soaring over 23% over the last year, it is clear that if we are going to end the homeless crisis, we need to stem the overwhelming tide of people falling into homelessness. Everyday you come across homeless people. This difficult situation is evidently heartbreaking and it should be cut down. In order to do so, more homeless shelters and opportunities for them should arise. As Mayor, I would look into the areas of where the problem is more of a demand and start off from there. It would be nice to start a team of other people with like mindedness who want to help the community, and have them get to know a gist of the people's story so that they understand why they are homeless and how they would like to be helped.

Another thing I would address is the lack of programs for kids. Around town, I come across the big name programs/clubs/organizations for kids, such as The Boys and Girls Club, but I feel as if there isn’t enough around. Too many kids around Carson are getting into trouble because they have too much time on their hands. By starting up local clubs or programs for kids that have to do with what is “popular” today, I think they would be interested to go which would get them off the streets. If the program had educational help as well, that would be awesome!

Being Mayor would be a hard job due to the fact of you wanting to please everyone, yet being precise and being stern enough to not get walked upon. With being a Mayor, comes change. And the journey to such transformation is smoother when you can step back from anger, fear, or grief and take a breath, before emotion takes over. Then you can enable the issue to pass, for not even those feelings that seem so enormously important or overwhelming stay the same. With given time, what is vital to us now, will then be fixed with the help of the people who make up the community and city we call home.