Meet Gabriel Velásquez
My Story
The very first job I ever had was as a church custodian at the church I've grown up. I took the job in order to pay for part of my tuition at Portland Community College at the time. However, things suddenly changed when during my last year at PCC, my grandmother who has taken care of me just as much as my own parents did, was diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer. I was heavily involved with her recovery becoming her home healthcare worker while also juggling school and my internship with State Senator Lee Beyer all at the same time.
Since then my grandma is in remission while I have still been taking care of her. During this time I have worked for Shemia Fagan's campaign for Oregon's secretary of state, worked for Oregon Senate Majority Leader Rob Wagner, co-founded a political action group called Americans United For Democracy, which seeks to improve democracy in government as well as in the workplace, all while graduating in 4 years with a Bachelor's of Science in Poltical Science and a Minor in Business Administration at Portland State University during a global pandemic.
Why I'm Running Now
It's because I feel like I have to. The ramifications of this global pandemic and subsequent economic downturn have been catastrophic for our community. We can not wait any longer to help people all across Oregon that working people so desperately need. It should have been abundantly clear for the start that plenty of Oregonians would face some finical hardship. And while the state did set up strong and safe guidelines to follow to maintain everyone's safety, neither the federal nor the state government did enough to protect us from the finical burden placed down upon working families.
The reason why I believe it is time for a change is that we still do not have the assistance from our government that we so desperately need, and in order for all Oregonians to begin to recover from this most recent economic hardship we need to fight for our assistance now.
To see what my policies are that I belive would help every day Oregonians recover from our most recent economic hardship visit my policy page or click the button below.
