BOSTON -- Grace Ross, one of the lesser-known Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates, is campaigning on Thursday to bring her Green-Rainbow Party message to voters.

NewsCenter 5's Mary Saladna reported that Ross is a Worcester resident with an non-traditional viewpoint who said she's earned a spot on the November ballot.

"It just felt like somebody needed to get out there who remembered we're a democracy, and that every voice is supposed to matter," Ross said.

Ross, 45, said in the two decades she's worked as a community organizer, she's never seen people feeling more hopeless and disenchanted by politics. Ross said she wants to give voters an alternative.

"It turns out, the best way to build an economy for regular people -- none of us is going to make big profits off of it -- is to increase the minimum wage. And we got the beginning of one, but we actually need to bring it up to a living wage. Closer to where it was in the 1970s and tie it to inflation," Ross said.

Ross said more money needs to be put into schools and housing.

"If you put money in at the bottom, we're spending it locally. And it turns out that money that's spent locally, kicks around in our local economy seven times, the economists tell us, before it leaves. That means we have the money for teachers. We have the money to renovate housing. We have money for small businesses -- and that's the other piece of the picture. We have to stop putting the $1 billion that we are losing right now in tax revenue and other types of income for local communities in the state, we need to stop putting money into sweetheart deals for big developers. We have that billion dollars -- let's put it into small business," she said.

Ross was born in New York, was educated at Harvard University, lives in Worcester and is openly gay. Ross said that her sexual orientation does influence her politics.

"Does it affect my politics? Probably. But only in the same way that people of color are affected and women are affected. We're used to have to struggle our way in, to getting taken seriously, to having a full voice in the process," Ross said.

Ross said one of her priorities is bringing back affordable housing. She said the loss of rent control has become a problem for residents statewide.

"What actually happened was that people moved out, so the folks in Boston who could not afford it any more moved out, and that drove the prices up there. And then the folks there moved out. And it's been a wave going across the state and housing has become unaffordable almost all the way to the Berkshires at this point. But the state has to intervene, and there are some huge, wonderful projects. And that is part of why I want to run for governor," Ross said.

The Secretary of State's Office said Ross has until Wednesday, Aug. 30, to turn in 10,000 signatures. Those signatures will then have to be validated to finally secure her place on the ballot.