About Michaela Kelso

Introduction

Early life and background

Michaela Kelso grew up in Germany and immigrated to the US in 1993 as the spouse of a US Soldier. Growing up she was surrounded by people who fought for the environment and against war mongering. The nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl brought home the futility of thinking "What I do only effects Me". We are living in an interconnected world! Now, more than ever, we all have a shared responsibility to preserve and protect this world for our children.

A life of patriotic service

Michaela Kelso joined the United States Army in 1995 and (together with her husband) retired from Active Duty in 2018. During her service she deployed to Bosnia Herzegovina, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and was stationed in Germany, Hawaii, California, and Texas. She honors her oath to the Constitution to this day!

There's no place like Home

After Michaela Kelso and her husband retired from Active Duty in 2018, they settled in Chattaroy, WA, an area they chose after coming here on a vacation between schools and deployments. These days they spend their time enjoying the outdoors with their dogs, gathering eggs from their chickens, working the garden, listening to music, and defending Democracy.

Key priorities

1. Housing

Why do we have so many unhoused individuals in our region? Not because they chose to live on the streets, (which is how many treat them), not because they are all drug addicts (hint, they are not!), and not because they all have mental health issues. Too often they are just people down on their luck who lost the roof over their head as a result of other circumstances – getting sick, rent increases, unexpected car repairs, etc.

Every person deserves a safe place to live, and data analysis has shown that the most important factor in lowering the number of unhoused individuals is to provide affordable housing.

We need to make building multi-family housing more attractive and less expensive. One way we can do that is by limiting how much land in urban growth areas can be zoned as single-family only. For years urban planners have been spreading the “build up, not out” message, Michaela Kelso intends to listen.

We cannot make more land, let’s use what we have responsibly by protecting our natural resources, for the benefit of all.

2. Healthcare

Healthcare is a Human Right!

Michaela grew up with universal healthcare in Germany. Despite being sick often, her parents never needed to choose between her medical care and other priorities.

Our current system serves the shareholder over the patient, and every day we can find stories of patients who have suffered due to denials of needed care.

With the continued loss of rural healthcare providers, it becomes more important than ever to ensure that our rural residents can remain in their homes and communities, while still having reliable access to the areas that have their needed medical services.

While single payer systems in other countries aren't perfect, they are vastly superior to what we have. At the very least our government should regulate the healthcare industry to ensure that patients are protected from outrageous medical bills, that prescribed medications are available and affordable, and that a patient's needs are chosen over shareholder profit.

3. Education & Youth

We owe it to the next generation to ensure that they are equipped to deal with future crises. For that we need to guarantee them the right to a quality education AND fund it!