Tiffany Price plans to lean on motherhood experiences in addressing local education, crime, and more in District 26

Photo Courtesy of upballot.com

The Missouri House of Representatives District 26 covers the Southeast side of Kansas City. Tiffany Price, in her first run for elected office, is the Democratic candidate up for the seat.

Price is the founder and executive director of Hold Em Up 4 Care—an organization that provides clothing and mentorship to underserved youth. She graduated from Kansas City Public Schools and is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in social work.

She became interested in running for state representative while participating in the Parent Leadership Training Institute-KC. While in Jefferson City for Child Advocacy Day with PLTI-KC, where kids got to meet legislators and go on the floor, she was asked by several people if she was running for state representative or if she had thought about it.

“I was like, well, maybe they see something in me that I’m not seeing,” Price says. “And I was like, I’ll go ahead and give it a try. I’m already advocating and doing stuff in the city as far as supporting the community and providing social services to people. So, I was like, ‘Well, why not go to Jefferson City and do it?’ Therefore, if I have a voice, I’m already helping people, and I’m a voice for the people, then I will love to go to Jefferson City and be a bigger voice and help the people.”

Being on the school board at Brookside Charter School and raising four sons, Price is aware that education is an incredibly important issue. She wants students in urban areas to have the same education and opportunities as students in suburban areas.

Price says that it’s not about a battle between public, charter, and private schools—each educational institution has its individual challenges. She thinks that parents should have a choice of where to send their children to school because they know what’s best for them. She would also like to improve working conditions for teachers.

“If our teachers are not thriving, then the teachers cannot pour into our kids, and if the teachers are not there to pour into our kids, then what do we have?” Price says.

Mental health is also an important issue to Price, as she served in the Navy and has been diagnosed with PTSD. She wants to hold health insurance companies accountable for covering mental health, and she would like to reduce wait times by encouraging more mental health providers to practice in Missouri.

Another side of mental health is crime and the high levels of it being seen in Missouri currently. 

Price claims that a lack of sustainability, investment in impoverished communities, and overall lack of providing basic living necessities is a primary cause of our local crime.

“When those are not being met, then they tend to go out and find it elsewhere, which is committing crime,” Price says.

She also says that we should ask ourselves how we can help families holistically in order to curb violence in Kansas City and provide childcare.

“We can start with the children, but however, those children go back to parents or caregivers or family,” says Price. “So it’s like, we have to look at the family as a whole. We have to start doing stuff. We have to start providing services and start working with the families as a whole. Therefore, it could change their whole nature of whatever is going on in the household. So if a child is out robbing and stealing because their basic needs are not being met at home, well, what’s going on with the parents or the caregivers? What can we do to help them—if they need mental health services, job training, transportation, child care, because all of those are major things. Those are barriers that are stopping people from doing a lot of things.”

The other side of the crime issue is the matter of gun control, to which Price says she supports laws banning minors from possessing guns and red flag laws. She doesn’t understand why the average citizen would need assault weapons.

“What do we need with an assault weapon?” Price wonders. “I understand shotguns for hunting. I understand handguns. But if we are not going to war, I’m thinking, ‘What would you need with an assault weapon?'”

Price believes she is the best candidate to represent her district because she’s just like them.

“I am going through some of the things that they’ve gone through, and I have been in situations that they have been in,” Price says. “So I know the struggle; I’ve been there. So, with some of the people in my community, we’re one and the same. So who’s better to have that lived experience, to go fight for you.”

You can reach out to Price with questions via email.