At My Kitchen Table
Welcome to At My Kitchen Table, a conversational, interview-y podcast where I have a good yap with a guest!
When I was growing up, the kitchen table was the conversation center in a lot of homes. At my grandparents' house, friends and family alike were welcomed with connection as much as with drinks and food. In my parents' house, that tradition continued as my siblings and I would post up and chat with my mom as she cooked or baked or tried to read a book (with much exasperation as we refused to shut up). I found cozy similarity at my friends' homes with their parents, too.
Keeping with tradition, I create a space for everyone who visits my table, where we get to share a little bit of our journeys together - roses, thorns, and stems.
Interested in recording your story with me? Email me at atmykitchentablepod@gmail.com!
At My Kitchen Table
Guest: Dylan Altemara
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
You know we love a deep dive into the things that drive people to serve, particularly in government. This week, Dylan Altemara joins me at my kitchen table to discuss how is own personal experiences led him to get involved. Dylan gets candid about how his own health, two major medical events in his family, navigating insurance claims, filing for medical bankruptcy, and living with housing insecurity made him want to work to eliminate or ease these hardships.
Dylan also talks about the importance of being intellectually curious, the immediacy of now, being comfortable with loss at a young age, and how normal teenage milestones weren’t even on his radar. He’s running for PA State Representative in District 39 and finds that we all have way more in common in our day-to-day lives that we have differences.
Get cozy!
Intro riff by Dale Lytle (concert husband).
All content edited (I use that term very loosely) by Karen Shaak.
I hate tea bags. I have my kitchen table that doesn't have a specific small business about like this week. Let this be a general reminder to support your local small businesses whenever you can. This is a great way to get art and food and books and candles and oil and clothing and plants and so much more that is handmade. No two items or badges or designs are the same because they're not mass produced. Someone put their time and care into something amazing that awaits you in a small shop near you. Go explore and find your amazing. You know we love a deep dive into the things that drive people to deserve, particularly in government. This week Dylan Altemara joins me at my kitchen table to discuss how his own personal experiences led him to get involved. Dylan gets candid about how his own health about two major medical events in his family, navigating insurance claims, filing for medical bankruptcy, and living with housing insecurity made him want to work to eliminate or ease these hardships. Dylan also talks about the importance of being intellectually curious, the immediacy of now, being comfortable with loss at a young age, and how normal teenage milestones weren't even on his radar. He's running for PA state representative in District 39 and finds that we all have way more in common in our day-to-day lives than we have differences. Get cozy. One of my last tech jobs that I decided, you know what, I'm just gonna do the Mac because it just seemed to be what everybody else was doing. I actually like it better, except for Microsoft Office products.
SPEAKER_00Like it's like way too clicky and it doesn't the functionality to me is not there. No, especially when you're trying to copy and paste and like do edits, it's right, or maybe it's just because I've used Windows products for so long, it just doesn't resonate with me that there's a little bit of a different layout. Yep. But no, I think you know, like from a from uh an editing or like graphics and social media much better. And plus, I like how the fact the fact that my phone is like integrated into it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and see, I'm not an iPhone person. Yeah, I'm like I've been an Android person forever. I've never had an iPhone, so I don't care about the integration part.
SPEAKER_00Well, the only thing that it's jacked up is this is a newer iPhone. The one I had before was really an old iPhone, but it worked great with my um Mac. Yeah. But then when I upgraded to this one about six months ago, I'm not sure because I'm with call time or what happened, but my number was reported as spam. And so now I cannot sign into iMessage or FaceTime, and a lot of my emails do not come through because of it too.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow. So was that some of the issues with the IC?
SPEAKER_00So it's it's a pain in the ass because if I don't have my computer on me and I'm on the go, I'm anticipating I get everything here. And then I would say most of the time I do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But every once in a while I think stuff still like trickles, you know, trickles in late or I don't get it, or like it's weird because like I'll have like messages and then it'll like it'll end up like way below.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, it's so frustrating. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, technology, we come to depend on it so much. Uh-huh. And then when it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong. Yep. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you being here today. Thank you so much for joining me. Um, before we dive in, I would just love it if you would introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So my name is Dylan Altamar, and I am running for the state legislature in the 39th district, which uh comprises the southern tip of uh Allegheny County. So I'll give kind of a breakdown by school districts. So uh all of the Elizabeth Ford School District, Thomas Jefferson, South Park, and then we go a little bit into Ring Gold and cover about 75% of uh that school district as well.
SPEAKER_03Gotcha. So you're you have that you straddle a little bit of Allegheny County and Washington County.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean as far as geography, we're like 50-50 split as far as population, it's like 75-25.
SPEAKER_03Which which way?
SPEAKER_00So 75% in Allegheny County.
SPEAKER_03Allegheny, okay.
SPEAKER_00Specifically the South Hill suburbs. That's really the anchor of this district.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, gotcha. So you were not born in Pittsburgh, but your family's been in Western PA for like generations. Can you share a little bit about where you were born?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So uh my mom was a 1979 graduate of Cal U or Cal State at the time, graduated school to become a speech language therapist where she worked with uh students with disabilities. And at that time, unlike now, if you were graduating out of uh the state schools, there was no teaching jobs in Pennsylvania. Yeah. So she went out of state and um got a job in in West Virginia with Mineral County Schools and lived right across the border in Cumberland, Maryland. And that's where I was born. So we lived in Cumberland from the time I was born until the time that I was about 11 years old. And then we moved back and been here now over 23 years to take care of my grandma, who, you know, was kind of on her own after my grandpa passed away.
SPEAKER_03So the you moved back to PA to help take care of grandma. You were about 11. How did that move impact you? Because we had talked a little bit in our background session. Cumberland, Maryland is very rural. Yeah. You're definitely in a redder area. What does that look like then to you when you move back to PA?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, it's interesting because, you know, at that particular moment in time, like people think of Maryland as a you know a very deep blue state, and no question it is. Sure. But in Western Maryland, specifically Allegheny County, Garrett County, even parts of Washington County, uh, it's very, very Republican, very, very conservative. But interestingly enough, where my mom taught across the state line in in West Virginia at that time, West Virginia was very blue. In fact, up until maybe 12 years ago, a lot of people don't realize like West Virginia had a Democratic supermajority in both houses.
SPEAKER_03So which I actually didn't realize. I don't think I realized that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So, you know, having sort of that life experience, when I when we moved back to Western PA, like a lot of the Democrats that I saw when was around in West Virginia sort of reminded me of the Democrats that I saw in Western PA. Yeah. Where they were makes maybe socially more conservative, but like economically, they were still speaking the language of working people. And then, of course, you know, with my exposure to living in Western Maryland, I sort of understood from a young age how more conservative-minded folks thought. And, you know, I mean, it's not, I'm not going to say that I'm the most progressive on certain social issues. I kind of find myself to be sort of a consensus builder and somebody who, you know, understands how to navigate both sides of it because I've had that experience living around people who are super conservative and then conversely now living like I do in Allegheny County, people who are super progressive on a number of issues as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, which makes total sense. And so for the listeners who are not geographically aware, there's an Allegheny County in Maryland, as well as we live in Allegheny County in Pennsylvania. So two totally different areas, and that I think Washington as well, right?
SPEAKER_00There's a Washington County in Maryland and one in Pennsylvania, and they're actually both next to each other, just like they are here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So you are not confused if you are listening and you're like, wait a minute, what?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So two totally different areas, but just uh similar names um in both spaces. So okay. So when you were young, did you were you a social kid? Did you make friends easily?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think I was a pretty social kid. I was always somebody who because we moved back to take care of my grandma and because, you know, growing up it was just primarily myself and my mom. I was always around, I think, adults a little bit more than I was kids. Just because, like, you know, with my mom teaching, if it was an in-service day or something, I just came and tagged along with her.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, I think being around adults like I was, I was always a little bit more mature and a little bit more of an older spirit. But yeah, in school, like, you know, I always had a close circle of friends that I got along with. And then, you know, as I got got older, I think, you know, kind of became more interested, you know, in hockey and in certain and certain things socially, like politics, for example. And then sort of found my lane, especially I think by the time I got into college.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And what types of, you know, when I think about the ages you were at, and like I just think back to my own childhood. I moved when I was around 12. Like I was almost 13. So you were pretty close in age.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What kind of community or like connection had you built with friends in Western Maryland?
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, by that point, I had a pretty close group of friends. So I'm not gonna suggest that, you know, it wasn't difficult. I think when you kind of leave what you know, yeah, you know, it it's certainly difficult because, you know, those are the people that you grew up with that you hung out with, that you kind of had, you know, I think a lot of like those, well, 11 years old, but still you had like certain like first experiences with growing up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so it's like leaving that comfort. But at the same time, though, like for me, like all of our family was still back in in Western PA.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we came visiting, like and we were visiting Western PA umce pretty much every weekend or three weeks.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow, so that was really a lot.
SPEAKER_00So like three weekends out of maybe four each month.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00So, like, you know, we still had a lot of connections. My mom had friends up this way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh, you know, my biological father still lived up this way. Sure. So, like, you know, we it wasn't like moving to a foreign landscape. It was really just kind of more or less like moving to your second half.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, and I think too, as I'm listening to you say that, as a kid who was an only child and the child of a teacher, yeah, and you're used to being around older people, and you have more than just sort of a connection to here, but like roots, like really deep roots, it was probably a little bit of a no-brainer in in some ways. Like you probably had a lot more resilience built in at that age than maybe somebody who didn't have that same kind of connection.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, it was interesting because I think like just thinking back at the dynamic at the time, like outside of, you know, trying to find a particular crowd to fit in with at school that I was friends with, beyond that, like outside of school, it was actually probably more comfortable because you just there was more strength in numbers. Yeah. You know, we when we moved back to the area, we lived like six doors down from my grandma's. So we just I'd walk down to her house, she'd walk up to our house. So it was a it was a a more tight-knit dynamic at that time.
SPEAKER_03Right. Which is actually, I think, pretty typical of what you used to find in the in the Pittsburgh area in particular, but even some of the suburbs, you definitely have neighborhoods where the neighborhood connection was really, really strong. So like the entire family lives on a street. Exactly right. I'm I have had people on the podcast who are from Mount Washington, and it is very much the same way. And in fact, they will talk about it in terms of like, oh, well, they live two hills over, or they hill, which is like insane to me. I didn't grow up with that.
SPEAKER_00Right. But yeah. I mean, like, for example, we live when we moved back, we lived on Highland Avenue in North Charllery. And so, like, my grandma lived at 415, we were six doors down, about another six to seven doors down. My late uncle lived there with his wife and one daughter who was still in high school at the time, and then his older daughter, who had gotten married, she's about 10 years older. She lived like two streets down Isabella.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00So, like, you know, the whole family was there. And then, of course, the people that my mom grew up with, people that, you know, had been neighbors and you know, sort of family friends forever. So, like everybody knew everybody for the most part. Yeah. It was definitely sort of that old school type of Pittsburgh situation where there there weren't that many strangers, if you will.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense to me. How did the so you came back here to help take care of your grandma? What was the loss of your grandfather like? And how did that impact you at that age? Like, did that make the move more difficult or traumatic to you in any way?
SPEAKER_00Um, not really, because I think, I mean, unfortunately, by that point, like at 11 years old, you know, as I said earlier, I kind of was always an older soul and a little bit more mature. And that's because growing up, like that wasn't the first person that I had a, you know, regular relationship with in my life who's passed away. Okay. Like my stepdad had died when I was six, seven years old of throat cancer.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00You know, my grandma's sister, uh, Aunt Margaret, who was kind of like a second mom to my mom and who was very, you know, close to me when I was a toddler and watched me and stuff like that. You know, she had gotten Alzheimer's, gotten very sick, she had passed away. Her husband had passed away. So, you know, by the time I was 11 years old, there was two, three folks that I already kind of had that really tight bond with and knew, grew up with, and and you know, spent time with regularly that had passed on. So it it it wasn't like a fish off water experience. You knew loss at that point. Right.
SPEAKER_03Okay, fair enough. Okay, so let's fast forward a little bit. You're while you're still in school, your family experienced some serious medical events. Can you talk a little bit about what those were?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so in 2011, I was still in high school. I was 16 at the time, and by that point, we had moved off Highland Avenue. So at this point, we were living about two miles from where I live now. I didn't live in Elizabeth Township, but at the time we lived two miles up the road, right across the border in Rost River Township. And um, at that particular moment in time, a lot of times on the weekends, like we would pick up my grandma when she'd come over and hang out with us for a few days and take her back to her house because she didn't drive. So that morning, my mom called my grandma just to kind of see how she was doing, you know, let her know what time we're gonna go be there to pick her up. Um, and she didn't answer the phone, which was a little bit strange. So when we uh went over to her house to see what was going on, I actually was the one who found her uh and she had had a massive stroke, which then left her, we didn't know this at the time, but later turned out to leave her uh completely paralyzed on her left side.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And so, you know, obviously that was that was very um shocking, I think, particularly since I was the one who who discovered her like that, you know, to see and sort of understand like how her life was going to change as a result of that stroke and then how you know ours was going to change because, you know, not to throw anyone under the bus, but as a lot of people know in western Pennsylvania, you you might have big families or or networks of friends and associates, but when something like that happens, generally it's always like one or two people, maybe at the most three people, who kind of get left holding the bag on whose responsibility it is to make it work. So it was very clear from the onset that that was going to be myself and my mom.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Which, hey, you do what you do. For sure. But then, you know, shortly thereafter, it it got a little bit more treacherous, if you will, because my mom while back to school a few months later, in between buildings, because at the time she was itinerant, so she traveled between buildings to see kids for speech services, she was involved in a very serious car accident.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Which then forced her to have to have a spinal fusion and she lost five discs in her lower back.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, in a span of less than six months, you know, here I was, 16 years old, and you know, I had my grandma. She was just coming out of the hospital in rehab, about to transition her to home care, where she was gonna need us to help with bathing and dressing and feeding and all that fun stuff. And now on top of that, my mom, you know, she was, you know, seriously injured, having to have a spinal fusion, off of work. So we, you know, I learned pretty quickly how quickly life can change. Sure. And you know, as a result of that, I think a lot of the experiences that I had the opportunity to witness about the next 10 years after that are probably directly traced back to those events happening.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about that a little bit because what you're describing, I mean, and you're you're saying it in a very academic way, which you have the you have it in the rear view, so it's a little bit easier to do that. But there is a lot of impact there because you're now the sole caretaker, basically, for your mom and your grandmother. Is that a fair assessment?
SPEAKER_00Uh that's a fair assessment, especially specifically for my grandma. I think for my my mom, I mean, you know, I never really had to be as hands-on as I was with her as you know, your grandma. Sure. But still, you know, recovering from surgery, doing the rehab thing, you know, not being able to work did certainly pose its own unique share of a challenge.
SPEAKER_03Well, sure, because now you're you have challenges where you're physically taking care of your grandmother. I mean, at that point you're literally helping with bathing and dressing and all of it. Is that that's right, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. On top of being a type 1 diabetic myself.
SPEAKER_03Which we didn't even touch on yet. When and when was that diagnosis right?
SPEAKER_00So I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was five. Okay. And interestingly enough, it was actually my mom and my grandma who realized something wasn't right because when I was younger, like a lot of Italian kids, I was a little bit, I guess you could say, pudgy. And uh I lost a lot of weight really quick. Okay. And when I was outside playing in my grandma's yard, like she actually pulled me aside and like she was like counting my ribs.
SPEAKER_03Oh no.
SPEAKER_00And she's like, this because it was the first time, like, you know, she had seen me without my shirt on. And she's like, this this something isn't right. And so, you know, for a few months leading up to that, of course, my mom had to take me to the doctors and they thought, well, maybe you have a uh thyroid issue. So they were treating me for thyroid problems, and they were doing this test and that test. And then finally, between the two of them decide this isn't something isn't right here. So we went down to actually to Baltimore, and that's where they diagnosed me in five minutes.
SPEAKER_03Gotcha. Okay. So you're physically taking care of grandma. You yourself are trying to take care of your own health, right? And mom isn't working now.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_03So there is a financial burden or component as well. What was that like?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think, you know, at first you didn't necessarily realize, you know, how bad it was or how bad it was eventually going to be, just because, you know, there there was a little bit of savings there. You know, my my grandma and grandpap, um, from when he was still alive, like, you know, they had a little bit of investment. So like there was there was a cushion to keep things going. But then when you factor in like all of her medical bills and then some of the stuff that my mom was dealing with, because when she was off work, her employer at the time offered her cobra, but it was like $1,800 a month.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so ridiculously expensive.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, within I would say a year to a year and a half, you know, we're pretty much talking like no money whatsoever.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, really from from that point, we're talking maybe 2012, early 2013 to 2017, 2000, maybe 2020. Okay. You know, pretty much being in a situation where it was always paycheck to paycheck, always hand to mouth, always very like, you know, trying to get everything down to an exact dime. And then just, you know, never having extra if there was an unexpected expense or an emergency or things of that nature. Sure. So, like, you know, a lot of people when they when they run for office, you know, they try to have a cost of living discussion, and I understand your pain and I understand what it's like.
SPEAKER_03I I truly you actually have that.
SPEAKER_00I I I truly and truly understand it because I've lived it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I will be 100% honest, like to this day still, and I'm not saying this to you know score brownie points or be more sympathetic. Sure. But like when you live in that type of situation and you understand just how desperate economically things can be, you never truly escape it. Because there's always, you know, those years of you know missed opportunities where you know, you didn't have a chance to participate in something because you couldn't afford to participate in something. And so there I think there's this added sense, especially now as I get older and look back, like, you know, I'm happy with where I'm at now. But you know, had I had the ability to to participate in this or to do that, you know, it could have maybe made my life easier. Sure. You know, I could have been fast tracked to get certain opportunities quicker. But you know, that just didn't materialize and it is what it is. And I understand that.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah, but I think it it brings up a really good point too, though, because so again, we already talked about like you're you're taking care of your health, your grandma's health, but you're also working with insurance companies and trying to make sure that things are getting handled in a in the correct way. Right. Because you're the person who's kind of left to do those things.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03And there has to be an impact on other things. There's an impact on school, on your friendships. Like, right, do you have a community to leverage or that you could turn to for support?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, at that time it was interesting because, you know, full disclosure, when I was younger, Dylan wasn't really a fan of school. Like when I was in elementary school, I liked it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00By the time I got into middle school when in high school, it was basically I was spending seven and a half hours a day in a building and learning for, in my opinion, two and a half to three. And there was a lot of downtime. And so I'm just somebody by nature who I just can't sit there because I get very antsy. So I I was looking, I was sort of looking for an alternative way to do school at this point anyway. But then obviously, when everything happened with my grandma and my mom, there was really no choice in the matter. So I actually finished my uh high school career um online.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00So You know, by that point, I basically I guess you could basically say that I understood by 12th grade how to be sort of a an independent learner, doing it, you know, kind of when I could fit it in on top of everything else I was taken care of.
SPEAKER_03Right. So there you're like you're not having normal teen milestones, and you're I think which I think kind of goes back to what you just said about missed opportunities. I mean, there are other missed opportunities, whether it's educationally based or experientially based or whatever that is. But I even think just some of the basics like did you go to a prom? Yeah. Did you like were those even things that you were like even on your radar at that point because you have so much to take care of?
SPEAKER_00No, no, totally. Like that, none of that stuff was on my radar at that point because where I was in life, you know, it wasn't being a 16 or 17 or 18-year-old kid trying to finish high school. It was basically being an adult that was having to take care of or help take care of all these problems that emerged out of basically nowhere, out of a set of circumstances that none of us could control, right, and just trying to piece it together one day at a time. So, like looking back at it now, like, yeah, I actually never did go to my prom. In the moment, though, did I ever think, like, oh, that's a realostomy? No. Because it just doesn't prioritize. Sure. It doesn't prioritize. Sure. And I will say, like, you know, I still have like a group of friends, like, you know, outside of school, actually that were a little bit older. But, you know, and those people were always, you know, consistently there. But, you know, I think it was just a different dynamic because by that point it had almost graduated into adulthood. So a lot of the a lot of the milestones or a lot of the things that maybe kids in high school would talk about as like a reference point that really kind of defined who they were in their earlier adulthood. I never had that. Because to me, my early adulthood was basically, you know, becoming the breadwinner, the social worker, the caretaker, right? Kind of holding it down, uh, and understanding like very, very early on in life that, you know, you were on your own.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And, you know, when people, when people make that statement that, you know, no one's coming in to save you, you don't necessarily realize how isolating that is until you're actually living that. That's right. And when you are on your own, you are, you do not have the luxury to feel sorry for yourself. That's right. Or to really, you know, lobby the issue to get other people to see how screwed up it is. Right. You're just you're trapped in that predicament and you're trying your best to keep your head above water.
SPEAKER_03You're surviving.
SPEAKER_00You're surviving.
SPEAKER_03You're surviving. Right. How long was it before your mom was able to go back to work again?
SPEAKER_00So it was almost two and a half years.
SPEAKER_03And you worked as well? Like, did you work part-time while you were doing all of these things?
SPEAKER_00So I worked part-time, uh, doing sort of a hosh pause of different things. So fortunately, when I turned 18, I was actually able to get paid to be my grandma's caretaker through uh the waiver program. So, you know, that was helpful. But at the same time, we're talking maybe $11 an hour. And which is still better than minimum wage in Pennsylvania, which is so sad. Right, right. And $11 an hour back, you know, 13, 14 years ago when it had more purchasing power than it does today. For sure. But that being said, like, you know, the way it's my understanding, this is still the way that the waiver program does things, they'll assess a number of hours depending on how much care they think you need. So, like in my grandma's case, she was basically 24-7 care. Do I think 30 hours a week is adequate for someone that has 24-7 needs? Right. No.
SPEAKER_03No, of course not.
SPEAKER_00But as far as the system was concerned, like that was the most you were gonna get. Right. So, you know, understanding that and balancing that, again, you look at I talked about earlier, like missed opportunities. Like, don't get me wrong, you know, I loved helping out my grandma. It was in retrospect, it was nice that I was able to actually contribute to the family callers while doing it. We were able to make that work for sure. And what that was something that I just stumbled across by just navigating the system and sort of being her advocate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But at the same time, like certainly there were moments where I felt I could have gone out there and and and done more and made more money, but it just reality at the time didn't, you know, allow that. And then, you know, when my mom was back to work, obviously that was nice, but at the same time, by that point, there was so much medical debt between the two of them. Right, you know, you're just you're basically still just struggling to survive.
SPEAKER_03Right, right.
SPEAKER_00There's not really, there's not that feeling or inclination that you're making progress. You're just stagnant.
SPEAKER_03That's it. That's it. I think that's a a really interesting way to put it. It's like you're never really climbing out of a hole. No, because that hole is always there. And medical debt, I do want to kind of take a turn into that for a second because kind of help people understand what the size of that debt looks like.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, you know, everybody has, I think, their own unique connection. You know, medical debt is the the leading cause of bankruptcy today in the United States. When I'm talking about what that looked like as it related to our situation, $350,000 to $500,000.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Roughly.
SPEAKER_03Okay. That's still big. And you're right, it is relative to people's situations. Right. But again, I mean, you're talking about, you know, at the time of your mom's accident, you're it's a single income, you're a student, and you're taking care of your grandma. And so that's a massive debt for somebody in your situation.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That in combination with the fact that you did say you were not the greatest student, like you were initially, but then you were not for a time. How do you then make the decision that you're gonna go to college? And like, how did the medical debt and sort of navigating all of that, how did that impact your decision and ability to go to college?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I mean, as far as you know, my decision to go to college, I think, you know, I think it's perhaps changed now, but certainly when when I was of that age, the expectation, at least in my family, was, you know, you're gonna go to school.
SPEAKER_03You're going, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you're you're gonna go, you're going to, you know, get a piece of paper that qualifies you to do something. And even if you don't necessarily, you know, get a career in that occupation, there's still value to learning.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Because, you know, my grandma and grandpat never went to college, but everyone else that came after them did. And there was a really, really like strong emphasis on being intellectually curious. Yes. And, you know, getting the the book smarts to go along with the street smarts. Because as my grandpat would always say, like, you know, growing up first generation in this country, not having very much money during the depression, like I really understood Street Smarts. Yeah. Like he had that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But he said, like, I think I could have achieved more had I been able to parlay that with book smarts. So it was like a really high emphasis that you're gonna learn.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Fortunately for me, you know, the underlying financial situation of the time really didn't uh append uh my ability to pursue an education because I was able to access, you know, federal funding, uh, student aid.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00So that that was one worry that I did not have at the time. But, you know, as far as scheduling, again, just like I kind of finished my high school career online, much of the first many two or three years of of my undergraduate career were primarily spent online. Now there were times where, you know, maybe for an hour or so, you know, I would go in just to do one class in person throughout a semester once a week. But, you know, it was primarily online.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I know at one point too, you had mentioned that part of the the outcome of the debt problems that you guys were having, that you also had some housing insecurity. Can you share a little bit about that as well?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So um, you know, my grandma had her stroke in in 2011, and then ultimately she passed away in 2015. So when she passed away in 2015, speaking earlier about medical bankruptcy, that was actually in addition to my mom going back to work and and me earning some money, you know, it was actually that filing that kept us sort of, you know, our head above water.
SPEAKER_03Medical bankruptcy. Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_00But then, you know, when she passed away, those protections go away.
SPEAKER_03Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00So a lot of a lot of the things that, you know, we were in the process of negotiating payment for or trying to sort out for her immediately came in.
SPEAKER_03So that's so crazy. So you can get bankruptcy protection, but then it's like all that debt just then exists again if the person passes away.
SPEAKER_00Because it was covered under her individually, not the estate. And by that point, we all lived in the same household.
SPEAKER_03I see.
SPEAKER_00And everyone's name was on the same documents.
SPEAKER_03So But they're gonna get you no matter how.
SPEAKER_00Well, and the other thing is too, I mean, just to be 100% candid, like there were there were points in time where, like when my grandma was in uh skilled rehab, right? Like right after her stroke. Like what they don't explain to you in the fine print is when you come out of the hospital, you get 100 days of Medicare coverage. But you're not necessarily entitled to those hundred days of Medicare coverage because it's all contingent upon how you're progressing.
SPEAKER_03I see.
SPEAKER_00So if you're in rehab and Medicare no longer wants to pay, do you assume private pay responsibilities or do you try to find another program, whether it be, you know, the waiver program, Medicaid, VA benefit, which my grandma was entitled to? Because your grandfather was in the war.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00But in the interim, though, just because while you're still waiting for those those programs to get in place, the the cost doesn't go away. Sure. It still adds up. Sure. And then, you know, if there's a clerical issue or if it just doesn't materialize, you're left with that. So that's that's really what happened with us. Like a lot of the stuff that accumulated early on just was never really resolved.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I think, you know, partially is too, like we just didn't really have the ability to, you know, consult professionals along the way to try to get fixed. It was a lot of trial and error and learning myself. And you know, I mean, uh, looking back, I don't think I did bad as a 17 or 18-year-old kid. Um, but you know, in hindsight, had I I known then what I know now about how sort of the game is played, right, and how the system works, you know, certainly there's a lot of things that probably would have been handled differently.
SPEAKER_03Right. So okay, so then all that medical debt comes due. Yeah. And then so how does that impact your housing situation?
SPEAKER_00So then how that impact our housing situation was um we basically sold the house and everything we had to pay it.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And so then when you're in a situation, and then you know, by this point we're talking, this is like 2015, 2016, early 17, the housing market then isn't as crazy as it is now. It's not as expensive as it is now. That's right. But it's still a situation where, you know, in the Pittsburgh area, let's say you want to go and rent like a two-bedroom apartment or a house. You're looking at easily first month, last month security deposit. So if that's $1,500 times three, you do the math. How do you cover that when you're living paycheck to paycheck? Right. That there's no, there's no factoring in for that.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And then in our case, like a lot of people, you know, we is as difficult as it was for us, we weren't basically suffering enough in order to get that extra help. So again, you know, you were on your own. And during this period of time, I learned a phrase which is really kind of stuck with me, and that is the immediacy of now. And so when you are, you know, faced with immediate needs, that is what you focus on really to the detriment of long-term planning. Sure. And of course, you know, when you when you're struggling and you don't really have a lot positively going on, you generally tend to associate with landlords. That wouldn't be on your, you know, your first choice if all things were, you know, in a better situation.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So, you know You also don't have a lot of choice. Like it's not, it's not like you're just blindly like you know, renting from bad people. You don't have a choice because it's a cost-effectiveness issue. Right. And you don't have the funds to cover something better, which you would choose if you were able to. Right.
SPEAKER_00And candidly, like, even if you find somebody who is perhaps decent, I mean, I think at the end of the day, let's let's be real, like everybody has, you know, I think a sense of pride. And I think being like completely honest, especially completely honest with a stranger, is one of those things where, you know, maybe it works out in your favor. Ultimately, you know, that was what kind of broke the cycle for us. Yeah. But, you know, finding those people that are willing to, you know, extend that grace to you and actually work you and meet you where you're at, it's very difficult to find. Yeah. And so there's a lot of trial and error in the interim, uh, you know, until we were ultimately able to get on our feet and and and deal with somebody who was half decent. Got it. But you know, that's what our situation looked like. It was that instability of not knowing, like, you know, is this gonna be like a permanent fit or is this gonna be just like a few months?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Six months.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, and and I think, you know, certainly that does ultimately have an impact on you psychologically and on your mental health as well.
SPEAKER_03Well, and that was sort of gonna be my next question, too. And I know, you know, this we know we're talking about you, we're not talking about your mom, but I have to imagine that there is a a mental health impact on your mom as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because she is also trying to take care of your child. Right. You're not a little kid, but you're still, you know, kind of in this together situation. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, I I think, you know, to touch on that, I you know, I think for both of us really it was it was very frustrating because, again, not to, you know, play the victim, but it was completely unexpected what happened. There was really no way to plan for it. We tried to navigate it as best as we could, but nevertheless, we found ourselves basically in an impossible position. And when you just when you don't have it, you don't have it.
SPEAKER_02Correct.
SPEAKER_00Uh, that math isn't mathing. And like we understood like what it would take for us to get in a better spot. But like again, when you are in a difficult position, some of the the things that can happen to make your life the most easiest are sometimes the more most difficult to obtain. Right. Like in that point, you know, I could have, if I would have, you know, gotten a job that paid close to $45,000 a year, that would have provided the extra money that we needed to make it work.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00At that particular moment in time, I was working, but it just it wasn't, it wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Like in her case, you know, she had been teaching for close to 40 years. And when we had moved back, actually, it was kind of a shame because she had 25 years of service in another state, but she only got credit for three of those years.
SPEAKER_03Why?
SPEAKER_00Because that's basically, again, you know, it the emphasis was I'm moving back to take care of my mom, who had just lost her husband of 60 years, right? Who, you know, didn't drive, who was pretty much on her own. So, you know, I'll make it work. But then the consequence of that is many years later, you know, you're not in a position based on your experience where you're making, you know, seasoned teacher money. Not that that's a lot of money, but still. But it's better than, you know, making making the money of someone who had at that point close to 40 years of experience but was being basically being paid like she had 17.
SPEAKER_03So but what is that like in within that system that makes it such that that's the case?
SPEAKER_00I mean, it really comes down to bargaining. So in each in each school district or each intermediate unit, uh, depending on how the the contracts are are negotiated between the local union and you know the school board or the IU board, you know, there's a lot of discretion in terms of how they can credit existing service.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And obviously at the end of the day, like this is a business where you're it's all about trying to keep costs down. So if you're gonna bring somebody in who has experience, but you can pay them pennings on the dollar, contractually speaking, that's that's a win-win. Sure. Um, so that's sort of how that system is is currently set up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And there's a lot of people, especially mid-career people, who, you know, because uh, you know, of uh medical situations or because of family issues, you know, maybe they have to move uh or relocate to another area, and we don't necessarily talk about how they are being taken to the cleaners and fleeced.
SPEAKER_03And I'm I'm kind of glad that you put it that way because I will tell you, just as like um just as a person listening to this story, and I've heard I've you know, I've known other people in my life who've been saddled with massive medical debt until you actually are listening to it or ex experiencing it sort of with somebody else alongside somebody else who's experiencing it, I think we do ourselves such a grave disservice where we like to think that there must be something that you had done that made it this way. It's how we distance ourselves from things and it's how we don't look at the human sort of face of what that looks like. And it sucks because what you're talking about, and I think what most people go through is you're talking about hardworking people who have studied and have jobs, and they just think that they're going to work and provide for their families, and you know, and that's the path to, you know, a good life, right? And then something like this happens and it upends everything, but it has nothing to do with anything that the person did wrong, or differently or badly, but that is like a protection that we kind of put for ourselves, is like it's not intentionally otherizing, but I think that that's like a thing that we tend to do where we like to think of it as well, that's not a thing that's gonna happen to us. Or I have this insurance, and so my and my insurance is better than that insurance. Right. And it's it's just not true. I mean, I think we're all like, I forget what the statistic is, but we're all like however many steps away from we're like one medical event away from bankruptcy, or we're this many paychecks away from yeah, you know, what whatever that is.
SPEAKER_0060% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck, and 40% of the population doesn't have $400 in the event of an emergency.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and that's data from 2018, 2019.
SPEAKER_03Right, right.
SPEAKER_00Before, you know, gas is five bucks a gallon and you know the average rent is $1,500, $600 a month. Right. But, you know, that being said, though, to kind of piggyback on what you were saying, you know, I think a lot of it comes down to the way our system is designed, universally speaking, is don't look up. If you are somebody who experiences difficulty or hardship, it's easier for the powers that be to point at you and cast aspersions about you and make it seem like you're you're ultimately at fault for your situation more than the system. Because then if people actually turn their attention and we weren't so quick to judge others, we would recognize that the problem isn't with us, but rather it's with the people who we put in positions of authority who make decisions for us and who set up this system.
SPEAKER_03So going back to college, you decide you're gonna go, and despite the fact that you didn't really love school, right? And would you have said that despite the fact that you you told me, I think your words were I was a sucky student.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Despite that, did you still feel like you were intellectually curious? The way that your your grandfather sort of met up as an example?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I I was always intellectually excuse me, intellectually curious. Yeah. Uh for the listeners, I apologize, I can't speak. Um but the thing was, like, I just honestly, when you have all this other stuff going on, you're there, but you're not really there.
SPEAKER_03It's not a priority. It's it's not a priority.
SPEAKER_00And you know, I'll be honest, when I initially started my undergraduate career, like I changed majors. Like maybe like some people changed underwear. Yeah. Like sports management, yeah, sports business. Finally landed on sociology because by that point, I kind of saw a lot of overlap in terms of what the the humanities were talking about and the social sciences were talking about as it related to my situation.
SPEAKER_03That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Unfortunately, that was after three years in. So, you know, I was I was a five-year undergrad student, not a four, which again, that's an extra year of debt that, you know, in a normal situation, I probably would have avoided had I had a little bit more of an opportunity to really sit down and think like, hey, what do you want to do?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00What's your interest? Sort of what's the end game. But you know, I was at least there.
SPEAKER_03Well, and also you're a little bit in a spot where, I mean, again, this is just outside looking in and hearing your story.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You're also very much in a spot where you have the opportunity now to be curious in a way that you didn't while you were in high school. So it doesn't seem too out of the ordinary that it would have taken you a little bit more time or that you didn't land on something right away that was super interesting to you.
SPEAKER_00Right. I it's interesting because at you know, at this particular time, it's sort of when I kind of first got really interested in politics, but like I didn't know what that looked like. I was just I was like more or less, I would say, one of those, you know, kids sort of coming out of the, because we have to also remember, like this is just a few years after the Great Recession.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, there were a lot of people that were, you know, basically sold a bag of goods about hope and change. And then what did they see? They saw a situation where, when, you know, bailouts were being passed, the money was going to help big banks. Right. And homeowners were losing their shirt. You know, it was during that period of time where it was sort of the old guard, the establishment trying to put a new face on an old problem. And so it was right around the time when you started to see, you know, the Charlie Kirks of the world and the turning point USAs of the world and sort of that alt-right movement come a lot more on the college campuses. And at the same time, you also started to see a progressive movement that was taking shape on a lot of these college campuses. And by then, you know, of course, social media was becoming more part of our daily lives. And so, you know, what I was really noticing as a sociology student was like the ground shifting here. And I'm curious to see like what that means, you know, for all of us, because I don't think it was, it wasn't going to be the the good old days of the early 2000s, right before 9-11 and the Iraq war anymore. Like there was going to be a political shift. There was going to be massive social and economic changes in terms of how people, you know, lived in the world, consumed things, supported themselves and their family. And it was really going to be interesting to see sort of what that looked like. And so by that point, when I had graduated with my undergrad.
SPEAKER_03And what year was that?
SPEAKER_00So that was 2017.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00I had decided that, you know, for me, that the track that kind of made sense given where we were at in that time period was, well, let's pursue a master's degree in human resources. Because I was very interested in like how all this like political upheaval, and remember, we were like still in the first year of the or second year of the first Trump term. It was going to be very interesting to me to see how this was going to affect ultimately the job market.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And, you know, for me, I think being economically upward and being able to, you know, find not just a job, but really a career that provides a living, that, you know, keeps you intellectually curious, that makes you feel as if you're being productive and, you know, and a part of something that's bigger than just yourself. You know, I think that's sort of what when we go back and we look at the 1950s, for example, that's where a lot of the communities that I grew up in, for example, that was sort of their reference point. So I was sort of curious and being involved in HR and using that as sort of a launching pad to be part of the next sort of generation or the next movement that really would be productive for regular people as they were trying to find, you know, not just their economic floor, but also their economic ceiling and then economic security.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00If that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it does. And so you get your master's in HR, and where does that place you career-wise? Like what were you doing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So at that particular moment in time, so we were we were still in COVID. So, you know, again, timing's great because, you know, it's wonderful. You know, I graduated into basically doing, you know, remote in remote interviews on Zoom, and everything is still, you know, either completely remote-facing or hybrid. You know, by that point, I had worked about a good five to six years in education. One of my first jobs was I was a teacher's aide and I worked with kids that were autistic, emotionally disturbed, kids that were low functional in like a life skills setting. Um, really liked, you know, the the feeling of being able to contribute positively to these kids' lives uh and make them as functional and as you know uh adjusted as they could be, but at the same time kind of realizing like, you know, there was a little bit more for me and there was like a bigger picture.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_00So transition that into working on on the OVR employment specialist side. So, you know, continuing to work with kids with disabilities, doing workforce discovery, workforce training so that they can become gainfully employed. And I think it's important too for their own psyche so they have a sense of worth and they feel that they're, you know, being productive and and they're able to contribute. And then by the time I finished with my uh master's degree, I parlayed that and then basically started to work at the community college level.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um and worked with students that were maybe like first-time students or students that were, you know, mid-career, early adults. Maybe they had give call they had given college a try before. They had some credits, but they didn't necessarily have a plan to put all that together to get something out of it. So, you know, worked as a a college career coach for a couple of years. And then at that point, kind of really started to, you know, look more inward as far as some of my own experiences that I had, seeing what I was dealing with on a daily basis and how frankly miserable people were. You know, I think a lot of the mental health issues and substance abuse issues uh and behavioral health issues that we have today as a society can be completely traced back to the fact that economically so many people are really living on the margins. And I'm talking like even people who live in like upper, middle class, suburban, Miranda home, Ryan home communities. A lot of friends of mine, you go into their house, there's no furniture. Oh, wow. Are you, you know, you're you're they're working, but they're not really getting ahead. They're they're working and working and working, and it's just to maintain.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00And I think there's this underlying sense of bitterness that has really started to take hold of people. And I really noticed that a lot during my time working in the community college ranks.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Where you just you had people who, you know, they were playing by the rules, they were doing everything they were supposed to do, and it just it wasn't happening for them.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00But they just they felt like this sense of stagnation, this sense of just punch in, punch out, really not getting anywhere. And that's what ultimately then drove me to uh pursuing my doctorate of education.
SPEAKER_03Got it. And you're still doing that right now. Yeah. You're not, you have not finished that.
SPEAKER_00No, I'm I'm actively um working towards my dissertation.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Awesome. So I want to shift gears again a little bit and talk about, you know, what I'm one of the things that interests me and that I I do like to talk about in the podcast is sort of like what are the motivations for people, what what drives them, whether it's a passion project or you know, some struggle that they've had, or in your case, you've had a few, right?
SPEAKER_00A couple.
SPEAKER_03A couple, right? And you you end up getting into politics, and and I want to talk about what your entrance was to politics for sure, but understanding like, did you have service modeled for you from a younger age, or not so much? Because I can clearly see a path from like your advocacy for your grandma, like and how that translates into you know politics for you. But you definitely had some politics in your family, though that wasn't really like the model for you. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it's interesting. I I'm probably one of the very few candidates for office that can say both things, both of these statements at the same time, which is I have a great deal of respect for the institution, but I also desperately understand the need for change.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I have respect for the institution because as you alluded to, on my grandma's side of the family, you know, her one cousin served in the House of Representatives in the 58th district, James Mandarino, for close to 30 years. He was a Speaker of the House. His daughter, Kathy, served uh in the house as well, out towards Philadelphia, on top of being an attorney and doing a lot of great work for individuals with disabilities. Served as Governor Wolf's first secretary of labor and industry, which actually was interesting because she was serving in a cabinet position with the governor at the same time that we we were personally experiencing homelessness.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00So it really sort of shows you the contrast. But, you know, in addition to that, like, you know, there were other people in my family that are involved in local politics and different nonprofits. So, you know, even though those were sort of like distant or or distant relatives, if you will, I think that that, you know, sense of service kind of shaped me from a young age because I saw what they were doing or I heard about what they were doing and thought, kind of thought, you know, that's interesting. And how does it ultimately fit into my situation? Right. And of course, when you're younger and when you were dealing with some of the things that I was dealing with, didn't really have the luxury of being able to sit back and take a more, you know, wholesome uh worldview of everything. Right. But, you know, as I have slowly gotten on the other side of things, I kind of view myself now as one of those generals in the Civil War where I might not necessarily be best at fighting on the front lines, but I think I'm very good at like standing at the top of the field, taking it all in, and then tactically and strategically sort of understanding where I fit and where other people can fit on the board, you know, as we fight these battles.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about your district because you are in a fairly mixed district. Would you say purple or like is it is it a relatively even split or does it lean more conservative?
SPEAKER_00I think it's interesting because I think, you know, depending on what race you look at, determines sort of your your perception of the district. So I think if you look at the last couple state house candidates that have run in the 39th district, the impression you would get is it's a it's more of a Republican district. Okay. I think if you look at other races, you know, the governor's race in 2022, the statewide judicials last year, frankly, a lot of the municipal elections last year, which I think are always a good bellwether for where people are at. Because to me, if you're willing to go out and elect Democrats to serve on a school board or on borough council or as township supervisor, like those are the people that you're interacting with a hell of a lot more than you're interacting with your state representative or a member of Congress.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Um it just impacts your day-to-day way more, way more of your everyday stuff.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah. So I mean, I I really would consider it to be a true swing district that's purple. Okay. Um, and I think that's also borne out in just the top line numbers. Like there's 19,500 Dems, 21,500 Republicans, 6,300 independents. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Fair. So how do you feel like you are positioned to be able to talk to people, what however you want to term it, across the aisle from both sides, if you will. Uh, and how much of your your upbringing and sort of the areas where you've spent your four some of your formative years, like how does that inform how you think about the people who are in your district?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I for me it's very easy because I think, frankly, both sides are guilty of doing this. It's all about leading with the brand and the layer that's next to your name. And for me, it's very much a value system of what's going on in your life, what do you need help with, and do you think these ideas and policies will make your life easier? And I think when you look at a whole host of issues out there, whether it's paid family medical leave, whether it's raising the minimum wage, whether it's childcare, whether it's, you know, closing corporate tax loopholes, like the Del World loophole, and making life more affordable for people, specifically working people and seniors on fixed incomes by lowering their property taxes. There's an overwhelming consensus out there on those issues.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so when I go and talk to people and we talk about those things, they don't necessarily see a Democrat or a Republican. They see somebody who's taking an interest in what they're experiencing, drawing from, frankly, some of the same experiences I had growing up. Right. And who's willing to go and be an honest broker in the conversation. And I think ultimately that's what that's what's been lacking a lot, not just in this district, but more broadly speaking, throughout Pennsylvania politics. I think, you know, the vast majority of these elected offices are considered to be D seats, R seats. People kind of put their time in, they work their way through up the through up the party structure. You know, the opportunity presents itself, they get elected, they do what they're told, they don't really cast any controversial votes, they don't really believe in anything, they don't stand for anything, they just sort of carry carry water like they're told to. And it's to me a very unproductive, frustrating existence for a lot of the people back home whose quality of life is getting no better.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Do you feel like are you seeing? Let's just talk within the confines of your own district. Yeah. Are do you feel like you're seeing people have a bigger issue and pushback against electeds who are just living the brand?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, absolutely. I I think throughout the 39th district, there are so many issues that are so tangible to people because it's the issues they're living every day. And what's been shocking to me is whether it's been outdoors or talking to people with different um functions, how problems that are so obvious to them are so hidden for people who are elected to represent them and fix those problems.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00There's such a disconnect. Yeah. And again, I think it kind of touches on what we talked about earlier. Like there is, we have by design created this social construct where, you know, people talking about their struggles is forced to make them feel as if they're emitting a failure. Right. When in truth, I think what we're starting to see is people talking about their own livid experiences and where their life has been difficult actually is a more of a reflection on the people that are supposed to be there looking out for them, just not giving a damn.
SPEAKER_03Do you feel like or have concerns that sort of national divisions and politics blur people's sense of what impacts them in their own backyards?
SPEAKER_00Um, yes and no. I I think we have to understand, you know, sort of what level we're at. And so I think within, you know, a state legislative body, a lot of what's going on really does flander the radar because it's not on social media or on your TV 24-7, like what's going on down in DC is. Um, but I also think it's it's very important that we articulate, and something that I try to clearly define for people is we actually agree a lot more than you'd you actually believe. Like there are some issues where you might just not agree with me, and that's perfectly fine. But I think on the vast majority of the issues that actually matter to you and your quality of life, there is a lot of agreement out there. But the thing is, the the culture wars have been designed intentionally to distract people in front of the bank while the politicians and their donors are around back robbing the place. And that's sort of the the car trick that we have to sort of, you know, when I was growing up, there was a program on TV called the The Mass Magician. And, you know, after they would do the trick, they would explain to you like step by step how it was performed. And I think a lot of what our campaign's about is sort of explaining to people in a very straightforward, easy to understand way. Like this is this is the trick that's being played on you. And I think when you explain it, not necessarily in absolute terms, but in a way that's very easy to follow, people understand that um, you know, they they've unfortunately they they've sort of been conned for a long time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. One of the things that I like to ask people, um, because I've talked to a couple of folks now who are you know in various levels of politics, right? From town councils to, you know, other folks running for state, um, state positions. And one of the things that I'm curious about is what are some of the ways that you like to engage in the community? Where are some of the places where you feel like you're most effective to go in and have conversations? And is it like one-on-one situations? Are there events that you feel like are great places for you to talk about, you know, some of these things?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for me, it's really on doors because I think, you know, there is no there is no more intimate space than someone's home.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And when you are on their doorstep and they give you the opportunity to introduce yourself and you do it, but then you, at least in our case, talk about the bigger why, which is why we're running, what do you need, what's your life like? Trying to try to really do that vibe check in real time. I think people really are impressed and taken back a bit because that's just not how politics is done nowadays. It's a lot of people will show up and they'll talk at people about a candidate or a campaign, but they won't talk to them about any particular issue.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um, that's something that we've been very intentional about. Okay. You know, you explain to me what is going on in your life. What do you think the state representative needs to do for you? Yeah. You know, what what isn't working that you'd like to see work better? And I think when you allow people that platform, it's very, very empowering to them because so many folks struggle on their own. And you're finally, you're giving them that platform.
SPEAKER_03To be heard.
SPEAKER_00To be heard.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. We all that's what we all want, right?
SPEAKER_00And they're telling you, they're telling you in that two minutes, sometimes in that 35 minutes. Right, right. Everything that they've been wanting to tell somebody, but they just don't know who, or they just don't know how to tell them that. And I think that's really where I've been, you know, what I've enjoyed most through this journey, because that's really where you can connect with people in a real honest way. Right. Not saying the events don't have value, not saying that the debates don't have value, but there's there's a certain degree of staging that happens, there's a certain degree of, you know, scheduling that happens, sure. You know, having people fit in around you. Whereas when you're on the doors and you're having those conversations, you are the person there allowing yourself to hear from them.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And I think hearing from them has a great, great deal of value.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Before we wrap, I do have a couple of questions I want to know. Um, like, what do you love about your district?
SPEAKER_00The people. Because I think, and that might sound somewhat generic, but you know, going throughout this district and campaigning, what you see every day is how similar people are in terms of what they're dealing with. And I really am excited by using this campaign as an opportunity to unite people about what really matters, not what they're told what matters, but what actually matters based on what they're telling us. Yeah. And actually delivering real representation that'll make their lives better.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And then what do you see as some of the bigger challenges facing your district in the coming few years?
SPEAKER_00I think not unlike a lot of districts in Western Pennsylvania, a lot of people are are, you know, both excited and scared about data centers. You know, they they see it, particularly those union households, they see it as, you know, short-term and intermediate term work. But at the same time, once they're up and running, like where's the next union job coming from? Sure. Once the data center is up and running, what does this impact, you know, maybe office workers or people that, you know, work in education or work in banking? You know, what does what does this mean for them? Because, you know, the the computer can do their job a lot cheaper and doesn't have an opinion or a mouth to feed. And then conversely, too, I think there's people that are just concerned with, you know, what are the what are the environmental ramifications for water consumption, pollution, what does it mean for ratepayers who are already struggling to pay their electric bill and then they have to pay for maybe, you know, Amazon's data center down the street or whoever's data center it is down the street. So I think, you know, that that's probably the biggest issue. And I think beyond that, too. I mean, just you know, affordability in general. And, you know, obviously within the context of geopolitics, I mean, we could have a whole episode. On why gas costs as much as it does. Right. But I think, you know, more locally speaking, like recognizing there are things that we can do at the state level around the gas tax that can really help working people, that can help small businesses. And we we need to do that by at the same time finding revenue in other places. It doesn't have to be a this or a that, it can be all of the above.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And so I think things like that are really the types of issues that are going to be impacting not just people in in my district, but people throughout Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And I'm just going to ask about the data center because I like you brought that up. Is there is there something that is looking to go in in your district? Or is there one already like that? Yes still.
SPEAKER_00So since about 2018, 2019, there's been some talk that we we might be getting one or could possibly be getting one in like the El Rama, New Eagle part of the district. Okay. You know, I can't confirm or deny that, you know, that's in fact true, but people talk about it. And certainly I think, you know, as we see the the build out occur at a more rapid speed, it's only gonna be a matter of time before probably every legislative district, you know, has one or is attached to one in some way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Okay. And are you trying to get ahead of that knowing that this is probably one of the bigger issues facing the district? Are you trying to get ahead of that with like research, materials, information, or are you is this still like a very much wait and see sort of a situation?
SPEAKER_00I really it really, you know, it's it's all of the above. Like, you know, I have a lot of conversations uh with people in organized labor, specifically in the building trades. I also talk to people on the the environmental side of things. And so I think, you know, we we're kind of at a point now where like we all realize, you know, this is this is a direction of things. This is, you know, where the where a lot of the jobs are going in Pennsylvania, but then conversely, like what can be done on the environmental side, you know, to protect communities, to, you know, protect local ordinances, to protect air, to protect water, to protect ratepayers. It's interesting because I think a lot of people look at data centers as having to be powered to the exclusion of other forms of energy. And I think for a lot of people who are interested in renewables, I think the data center build out actually presents a unique opportunity for us to really test the resiliency and the capability of renewables. Right. And then if you know we're able to get some of these data centers powered by renewables, then it's a question of how can the state or possibly federal government put money behind those efforts to grow them at scale.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. Okay. As we wrap, I always do three good things about your week. Rolling seven days can be big or small, whatever.
SPEAKER_00Okay. First good thing about the my week or so far, actually today, is I got up because I'm very aware of the fact, especially even my background, that you know, you you just don't know how much time you have. That's true. And so, you know, every day that I'm able to get up and continue to do this and fight the good fight, I look at it as a gift. And so I think that's probably the the biggest positive of not just my week, but of today.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, beyond that, I would say that just, you know, on a on a personal, on a personal level, you know, as we touched on before, I'm working on finishing up my doctor's degree, making some progress there. Yeah. Got some positive feedback on some of my rewrites, because like a crazy person, I'm up till two, three o'clock in the morning, right. Uh juggling school on top of everything else that I do. Um, so I'm, you know, positive that you know I'm starting to see a lay at the end of the tunnel.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I would say the third thing is just, you know, being able to do this. Like this is by no stretch of the imagination, you know, an easy thing to do running for office. Right. You know, if you're somebody who is self-conscious or is a stretcher or somebody who doesn't like uh to have plans changed in a heartbeat, probably wouldn't recommend doing this for you. But you know, for myself, I mean, it's just every day, every day is an adventure. And every day you get to meet new people, learn new things, you know, really think about uh what's going on. At least I think about what's going on, um, you know, in a very abstract, but also in a very thoughtful manner. And um I think it's a it's a real real opportunity and a real gift that I enjoy every minute of.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate it. Hopefully it wasn't too word salady.
SPEAKER_03No. No, I think it's gonna be great. I think it's gonna um, you know, I think the more that we get to know the people who are actually trying to take the time and their their energy to run for, you know, our elected spaces, I think it's it's super beneficial. I think we do a terrible job anymore of getting to know the people who are trying to make a difference. Right. So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate that. Totally agree. Awesome.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.