Assembly Standing Committee on Human Services

[Roll Call]

Fantastic. Welcome everyone to the March 14 Bill hearing of the Human Assembly Human Services Committee. I'd like to take a moment to welcome the new Members as well on the Committee and I look forward to working with each and every one of you. I will just share a few notes about the logistics of our hearing today regarding the public's access to discussions. For those joining us in person, face coverings are encouraged for all Members, employees and the public in all common areas and shared spaces.

For those dialing in, we will be using a moderated telephone service through which any Member of the public can testify on a Bill. The call in number for this hearing is 877-692-8957 and the access code is 1315437 you can also find this number on the Committee website as well as on your TV screen. If you're calling in, please do so now. The operator on the line will give you instructions on how to be placed in queue based upon whether you support or oppose a Bill.

When calling in, please be mindful of and eliminate all background noise. The first order of business is to adopt our rules and then we will move forward with the consent calendar. Do I have a motion? It's been moved. Dp I have a second? Been seconded. Madam Secretary, please call the role on.

Adopting the Committee rules. [Roll Call].

Fantastic. The rules have been adopted. Next we will move on to the consent calendar. Is there a motion for the consent calendar? It's been moved.

Second. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on the consent calendar. [Roll Call].

The consent calendar has passed out. Next up, we have opportunities to hear five bills today and we will begin with Assemblymember Dr. Arambula. Would you please come up on AB 605 and you may begin when you're ready.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present on AB 605 today. AB 605 stretches the CalFresh recipients the dollars of CalFresh recipients even further by combining successful fruit and vegetable supplemental benefit payments and programs with the efficiency of California's existing EBT system. It is estimated that nearly one in five Californians are living with the stress and trauma of not knowing if they will have enough to eat. Nearly 5 million Californians rely on CalFresh to provide food for their families.

Yet despite this tremendous demand, at the end of this month, the Federal Government is ending pandemic era CalFresh emergency allotments. This will represent one third of the food safety net in California.

The average CalFresh recipient will lose $95 per month and some households will lose $250 or more. But research shows that we can change this when people have more money to purchase fruits and vegetables. They do. By leveraging the existing EBT technology.

AB 605 provides up to $60 in matching funds when CalFresh recipients purchase fruits and vegetables at farmers markets and grocers. Testifying in support of AB 605 are Eli Zigas, representing Spur, and David Barber Durham, participant in the Moss fresco program in San Diego.

Great welcome.

Great. Thank you so much, Chair Jackson and Members of the Committee. My name is Eli Zigas. I'm the food and agriculture policy director at Spur and on behalf of both Spur and Nourish California as co-sponsors, we want to thank Dr. Arambula for his leadership and this Committee last year that was very supportive of this bill and you all for hearing it today.

We're excited about AB 605 and expanding fruit and vegetable supplemental benefits because we know they do three things. They reduce hunger, they improve health, and they support the agricultural economy here in California.

And it does that by providing supplemental benefits. When CalFresh customers, they go to a grocery store or farmers markets, they buy the food that they want already, fruits and vegetables that they see. And what we've set up and what CDSs and OSI have now set up is that the customers get a rebate back onto their card when they buy those fruits and vegetables with their EBT dollars, up to $60 a month.

As the Assemblymember said, what this bill would do right now, we are slated in the current scale of the pilot to likely reach thousands, tens of thousands of households. As you all know, there's more than 5 million people in California on CalFresh. And so this bill would go a big step to reaching more. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of households as opposed to tens of thousands.

And in a time of the hunger cliff, I can't think of many more things that are more timely and necessary than helping people make ends meet with additional money for healthy food. This bill won't fill that entire gap. It's $60 a month and there's only so many retailers that we can reach.

The amount we are seeking has been scaled down, recognizing the fiscal pressure the state is under. But I also want to make a plug that there are as a think tank.

There are few programs that we see that work as effectively that have such a strong evidence base and also importantly, at this time of fiscal constraint are as administratively efficient. 96% of all the dollars we are putting requesting will go into people's pockets directly that they then spend on food. So there's very little overhead and that's because the EBT system that the state has created is so efficient. So we're taking advantage of that.

In short, it's a win win, a triple win, reduction in hunger, improvement in health and support for the ag economy. We hope you will vote yes and make healthy food more affordable for low income Californians. Thank you.

Are there any additional public support in the hearing? We have one by phone. We have Mr. David Barber Dunham.

Thank you. Chair and Members of the Committee. I am David Barber Dunham from Barrio Logan, San Diego, California, San Diego County.

I am on a limited income with Social Security and have health issues because of working in hard labor for many years before receiving supplemental benefits like EBT and Mas fresco. I was living on a can of beans a day because almost all of my Social Security went to pay my rent. My health failed badly and my doctor prescribed foods that I could not afford. But EBT and mas fresco helped me to buy the foods that my nutritionist recommended.

Because I was able to buy healthy foods, I lost weight, I lowered my cholesterol and I got my life back. I am sincerely convinced that EBT and Mas fresco programs saved my life. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay, do we have any additional public support in the hearing room at this time? Please come on up. Please state your name and who you're representing.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Members Christopher Sanchez, policy advocate with the Western Center on Poverty in strong support.

Good afternoon. Kevin Aslanian, California Welfare rights organization. Strong support. Thanks.

Good afternoon. Jared Call with Nourish California proud to co-sponsor and strong support. Thanks

Cody Boyles on behalf of California Grocers Association and California Fresh Fruit Association in support.

Hi Ryan Allain. On behalf of the California Retailers Association in support. Thank you.

Holly Fraumeni De Jesus with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of the Black Leadership Council in support.

Okay, do we have any additional public support on the phone line at this time?

And as a reminder, please press one, then zero. We do have one line in queue. It comes from line 18. Please go ahead. Line 18. Your line is open. Possibly you have your mute button on. They did disconnect. We do have another in queue. It is line 16. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Sylvia Hernandez from the National Association of California Chapter. We support.

Next, we'll go to line 15. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi, this is Jamie Morgan with the American Heart Association. We are in support of the Bill and urge your aye vote today. Thank you.

Next, we're going to line 16. Please go ahead. Your line is open. They did disconnect yourself. That's all we have in queue at this time.

Okay, we will move on to opposition. Do we have any witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Do we have any additional opposition in the hearing room? Are there any opposition on the phone line at this time?

As a reminder, please press one, then zero for opposition. We do have one in queue. One moment. That comes from line 25. Please go ahead. Your line is open. They have disconnected themselves. We have no one in queue at this time.

All right, we'll bring it up to the Members. Are there any Members who have any questions for the author? Mr. Garcia?

Just a comment, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I want to recognize the author for bringing this forward, for identifying what became a good practice through the executive orders of both the Federal Government and state government, and utilizing the success of these efforts to institute it into permanent policy.

And I think that there's a lot for us to look at that worked via the executive order in a lot of different areas, particularly in the human health services, to help those individuals in our communities that are most vulnerable.

So I just wanted to commend you for bringing this forward and encourage all of us to look at other areas where the executive orders allowed us to do things without the significant amount of red tape to get to the end goal.

And I know that there are some areas, additional areas in this space, but also in the housing space, in the education space. And so just thank you for bringing this bill forward.

Any additional Members at this time? Seeing none. Assemblymember, would you like to close?

Again, Mr. Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to present, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Chair and Members. Appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you today and allowing me to present Bill 448.

Do we have a motion and a second? It's been moved. Do I have a second? It's been seconded. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

AB 605. The motion is do passed to the Assembly Agriculture Committee.

[Roll Call]

The vote is 8 to 0. The Bill is out and it will move on to the Agriculture Committee. We will allow absent Members to add on at the end of the hearing. Next up we have Assemblymember Carillo, AB 448. Welcome, sir.

This Bill seeks to strengthen existing requirements around social workers and probation officers documentation of family finding efforts for youth in foster care as many of you may know, youth in foster care are some of the most vulnerable children in our society. Many children in the foster care system have been removed from their homes due to abuse, neglect or other reasons beyond their control. These children are often left feeling alone, abandoned and disconnected from their families.

In fact, it is estimated that in California there are nearly 60,000 children in foster care and nearly 50% of them are Latino. They have often experienced trauma and instability in their lives and are in desperate need of supportive and stable relationships. One of the best ways to provide this support is by connecting them with their families.

AB 448 seeks to achieve this by requiring social workers and or probation officers to conduct an investigation to identify and locate adult relatives no later than 30 days of a child being removed from their custody of their parents or guardians. This time frame ensures that efforts to connect youth in foster care with their families are made as quickly as possible, which is critical for the wellbeing of children in their foster care system.

This Bill also ensures that these efforts are documented and shared with all parties to better facilitate meaningful and ongoing connections between the youth and their families. Research has shown that children who maintain positive relationships with their family members while in foster care have better long term outcomes. These children are more likely to have higher educational attainment, lower rates of depression and other mental health issues, and are less likely to experience homelessness and other negative outcomes.

Join me remotely today and to answer any questions is Julie Mccormick from the children's Law center. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded. Witness, Julie McCormick on the phone.

Good afternoon and thank you chair Jackson and Committee Members. I'm Julie McCormick, senior policy attorney at the Children's Law Center of California, the largest children's legal services organization in the nation, advocating for around 30,000 children and youth in foster care in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Placer County. I was previously a case carrying attorney for the Children's Law Center representing children and youth and dependency court daily.

We are proud to be a co sponsor of AB 448 and grateful for the Legislature's commitment to bolstering family finding efforts in the child welfare system and for assemblymember Carillo's partnership in continuing to build upon that commitment. In California, when a child is removed from a parent's care, there is a preference set forth in statute that the child be placed with a relative or non relative extended family member.

However, having a preference for relative placement in statute won't result in children being placed with relatives unless efforts are made to locate and connect with those relatives. Family finding is a critical tool already at the disposal of social workers and probation officers that can increase relative placements among youth removed from their parents. AB 448 will simply ensure that those efforts will be properly documented.

Documentation of efforts is essential so that all parties involved in the child welfare case, attorneys, judicial officers, will have the information necessary to facilitate meaningful and ongoing connections between the youth and their family. Our attorneys have seen countless cases where a relative was located or reached out, but that information was not provided to the court or minors counsel, resulting in a delay in the child being placed with relatives.

Numerous nationwide studies have documented the poor outcomes of children and youth who are removed from their homes and placed into the child welfare system. Studies have also demonstrated the significant benefit to children who are placed with relatives rather than with strangers in foster homes or in group care. AB 448 seeks to ensure that youth in the foster care system are connected to family at the earliest possible opportunity in order to alleviate additional trauma to the child.

I respectfully request your I vote and thank assemblymember Carillo for his leadership in promoting family connections for our most vulnerable children.

All right, is there any additional public support in the hearing room at this time? Please state your name and who you represent, please.

Yes, Kevin Osner and Coalition of California welfare rights organizations. I personally think that if they remove my kid from my house, my kid should go right to the relative and not somewhere else because if they go somewhere else, that screws them up for life. So I support this Bill. Thank you.

Seeing no other support in the hearing room, do we have any additional public support on the phone line?

And please press one, then zero if you'd like to show support. 1,0. We have no one queuing up at this time.

Then we will move on to opposition. Any opposition witnesses at this time? Seeing none. Are there any additional opposition in the hearing room? Seeing none, are there any opposition on the phone line hearing? Hearing none, we will move on to Members. Any Members have any questions for the author at this time? Mr. Brian?

Not a question, more of a thank you Assembly Member. All of the data shows that when we keep families together and find your next of Kin, outcomes are, in fact, better. I grew up in a family that did foster care for 26 years. I myself was adopted as a kid, hundreds of foster siblings.

And in all of the case visits, all of the family visits, all of the times that reunification was possible and was made possible through the county's efforts, better outcomes were achieved. This is one of those common sense things to ensure that children who touch the juvenile justice system also have those same safeguards to try to find the family members who are out there who can be a part of their life and their journey back towards opportunity.

If you are looking for co authors, I'm happy to join you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Assembly Member Brian. Assemblymember Bonta.

I also want to thank Mr. Carrillo for bringing forward this Bill. I had an opportunity, actually to represent many children in the foster care system and the two aspects of this Bill.

One is the immediacy and urgency to make sure that as soon as possible, there's an opportunity to find a relative is absolutely critical and that there's an intention actually to stick with the child over time with the status reviews and make sure that social workers are continuing to search for an optimal support system with family Members. So if you are willing to take authors, co authors, I'd love to co author as well. Thank you.

Any additional Members at this time? Seeing none. Assembly Member, would you like to close?

I just want to close by saying thank you, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee for allowing me to present this important issue that we all face in California in the district that we represent. I'll just say that this Bill would help make positive impact on the lives of California's most vulnerable children. And I respectfully urge you to vote Aye. And I want to thank you again.

We have a motion by Assemblymember Arambula, second by Assembly Member Bryan. Madam Secretary, please call the roll AB 448.

[Roll Call]

The vote is 8-0 and the Bill is out. Thank you very much. Next, we have AB 325 by Assemblymember Reyes. And I believe it says here you have two witnesses as well. They can join us and you may start when you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I present AB 325 which seeks to ensure immigrants who qualify for state and local benefits do not go without access to critical services and resources that they need as they await approval of their federal relief applications. Currently, applicants of U visas, T visas, special immigrant juvenile status petitioners, and violence against Women act petitioners can access state and local benefits in California. However, in order to access these services, the Federal Government must give notice that they have approved their application.

As applicants wait for this approval at the federal level, they may go months without access to the critical services. AB 325 would allow asylum seekers and qualified women and youth to access state and local resources once they file their application with the appropriate federal agency, effectively closing the gap in which an applicant must go without benefits and ensuring the needs of applicants are met.

Here to testify in support of the Bill are Cynthia Gomez with Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Chirla and Mariana Fernandez with the Loyola Law School Immigrant Justice Clinic. And here to answer any technical questions is Christopher Sanchez with the Western center on Law and Poverty.

Good afternoon. My name is Mariana Fernandez. I am a clinical law student at Loyola Law School's immigrant justice clinic in Los Angeles, California.

Here in strong support of AB 325, the clinic advances the rights of the immigrant population in East Los Angeles through direct legal services, education, and community empowerment. Our clients, like many other immigrants, face extreme challenges in establishing a new life in California. For example, asylum seekers coming to the US have generally fled out of fear that they will be killed. Most are poor to begin with, and they usually leave quickly, bringing only what they can carry.

By the time they reach the US, many arrive with nothing. These asylum seekers always encounter great difficulties, from the danger that initially pushed them out of their homelands to traumatic incidents along the way. But the damage is needlessly compounded when we cut them off from critical services. When we deny people access to the imported services they need to live, it makes it that much harder for them to get back on their feet.

Due to long processing times, many abuse survivors and asylum seekers endure long waiting periods between the time they apply for relief and the time they become eligible for benefits. AB 325 would extend state and local services to survivors of abuse who have petitioned for relief under the Violence Against Women act, children who have faced parental mistreatment and have applied for special immigrant juvenile status, and migrants who have faced persecution in their home country and have applied for asylum.

This Bill would grant access to life changing services that would allow some of the most vulnerable people coming to this country to have a safe place to live, access to food, health care, and employment support while they wait for their applications to be processed. Currently, one of our clients awaiting an asylum interview lives with a family friend in Los Angeles. Our client fled violent persecution due to their sexual orientation and at the young age of 20, finds themselves struggling to cover their living expenses.

Today, AB 325 would allow them to receive much needed support, such as mental health and medical services. Moreover, they would qualify for nutritional support, which would further relieve their current situation. Like our client, we see similar stories every day. For these reasons, we respectfully ask for your. I vote in support of AB 325.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Members. My name is Cynthia Gomez, state policy advocate with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, CHIRLA.

CHIRLA is proud to co sponsor AB 325 and are grateful for the leadership of Assembly Majority leader Reyes. In 2006, California enacted SB 1569 to provide state and local benefits to qualified immigrants. Access to these services became critical lifelines for vulnerable immigrants who are often fleeing persecution, violence, or neglect. However, currently there lacks access to these services during a time which an individual applies for adjustment or relief of status, and when that is granted.

During that time, vulnerable immigrants go without the assistance they need and qualify for, forcing them to remain in dangerous living situations. As it stands, qualified immigrants must wait to obtain notice of approval of their application from federal USCIS, and delays in processing means that qualified immigrants are going without the access to benefits for longer periods of time.

AB 325 clarifies that qualified immigrants would be able to receive these state and local benefits as soon as they submit their application with federal USCIS, and ensures that vulnerable immigrants do not go without the resources and services they need as they wait for approval of their application. By moving this Bill forward, we're bridging a gap and continuing our commitment to providing support to immigrants in our state. We thank you for your consideration of this Bill and appreciate your support on AB 325.

Thank you very much. Now, we will have. Is there any public support in the hearing room at this time?

Good afternoon, Member.

It's been moved and seconded.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair Members. Christopher Sanchez with the Western center on Law and Poverty. Proud sponsor and here to answer any technical questions.

Thank you.

Kevin Asda and co sponsor, strong support. Thank you.

Adam Reese with the loyal immigrant justice clinic in strong support.

Good afternoon. Jared Call with Nourish California, also in strong support.

Thank you. Next, Are there any public support on the phone line at this time?

And once again, press one, then zero if you'd like to show support. Line 24, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. Johann Cardanas with the California Pan Ethnic Health Network. And we support AB 325. Thank you.

Next we go to line 16. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Line 16. Possibly your mute button is on. Moving on. We have no further inq.

Okay, then we move on to. Any opposition. Any opposition in the hearing room at this time? Seeing none. Is there any opposition on the phone line?

If you'd like to show opposition, please press one, then zero at this time. 1,0. And we have no one in queue at this time.

Okay, we will bring it up to our Committee Members. Are there any Members who have any questions for the author?

Move the Bill.

Assembly Member, would you like to close?

I respectfully ask for your I vote.

We have a motion by Assembly Member Rambula. A second by Assembly Member Brian. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

AB 325. The motion is do passed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

The vote is seven to zero. The Bill is out. Thank you very much. Next here. Are there any other Members here at this time for their bills? I don't see any other Members. While we're waiting, I forgot to make a note that we limit testimony to two witnesses in support and two witnesses in opposition. Each witness has two minutes to testify. Any additional witnesses may add on by starting their name, stating their name and affiliations. I say that because don't be trying to get crazy in here. All right, while we're waiting, why don't we open the roll for any add ons at this time? Madam Secretary.

On the Committee rules. [Roll Call].

Next up, we have. We have AB 393 by Assemblymember Rivas. Welcome. And it looks like you have a one witness as well that will be joining us by phone.

Yes, correct.

You may start when you are ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, members. And Mr. Chair, I want to start by thanking Jessica for her work and thoughtful analysis on this bill. AB 393 would develop a standard process for general childcare programs to identify the dual language learners that they serve. This bill will require these childcare programs to report key information about dual language learners to the state in order to make informed policy and program decisions.

60% of children in California, from birth to age five, live in households in which a language other than English is spoken. Despite the state's acknowledgement of linguistic and cultural diversity as assets, there is no consistent manner of identifying DLLs in California's early learning and care system apart from California's state preschool programs. This impairs the ability of state policymakers to make informed decisions over resources and other critical elements of early learning programs that could be leveraged to nurture and develop the early linguistic assets of these children for their benefit and the greater benefit of California.

It's important to identify and foster dual language learners when they enter childcare services because when at-home languages are not fostered, a child can become completely monolingual, choosing to respond to English within six or eight weeks of starting preschool. Research shows that achieving fluency in multiple languages benefits children by broadening their cognitive flexibility, enhancing their ability to learn, and giving students the opportunity to become multilingual so that they are competitive in the global workforce.

In 2020, the Governor released the master plan intended to transform the state's approach to early childhood education. The master plan provides a roadmap to address racial and economic inequities and calls for legislation to require developmental assessments both in English and in children's home languages, among other things. In 2021, I authored AB 1363, which took the first step of implementing the master plan by requiring the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to develop a standardized process for California State preschool program providers to identify dual language learners.

AB 393 builds on the progress made in AB 1363 in achieving the goals of the master plan to support our children who are dual language learners by first identifying them. Today I have with me to provide testimony Jessica Gutierrez, program manager in the Early Learning Department at Fresno Unified School District.

Ms. Gutierrez by phone.

Yes, good afternoon. Jessica Gutierrez, program manager for Fresno Unified School District Early Learning Department. California is rich in diversity, and we must take the essential steps to celebrate our dual language learners linguistic and cultural diversity assets. AB 393 builds on landwork legislation by expanding asset-based DLL identification across the early learning and care system, enabling them to access the necessary resources and support. Our experience in Fresno using the tools to identify DLLs become an invaluable part of our early learning practice.

It has also greatly benefited our children, families, and teachers. Teachers interview families for about 20 minutes, embedded in existing family engagement structures during which they engage in rich dialogue about the child and family. This interview establishes a collaborative partnership between teachers and families and helps inform their programs and how they can celebrate the benefits of the home language and bilingualism. AB 393 is a critical next step in establishing a foundation for the cradle-to-career data system.

It will inform state resource allocation decisions that builds upon their linguistic skills and needs that will support their long-term success. This bill will ensure that DLLs have positive outcomes and provide them with the support they need to be successful in a global economy. AB 393 supports the governor's vision and the master plan for early learning and care to establish DLL identification support system. For these reasons, I strongly support AB 393 and respectfully urge your aye vote.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Do we have any additional public support in the hearing room at this time?

Good afternoon. Jennifer Baker, representing the California Association for Bilingual Education, one of the bill sponsors in support.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. And Members Malik Bynum with Childcare Providers United, a partnership between UDW and SCIU here in support.

Good afternoon. Josefina Ramirez Notsinneh with Children Now, strong support.

Do we have any additional public support on the phone line at this time?

First we go to line 28. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Christina Salazar with Californians Together, proud co-sponsor and support.

Next we're going to line 26. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Dr. Jackson and members. Eva Rivera, on behalf of the children's Partnership in support of AB 393.

Next we're going to line 30. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Good afternoon. Luis Molina, Policy Analyst with Early Edge California, proud co-sponsor and in support.

Next we're going to line 27. Please go ahead.

Hi, Raquel Morales, on behalf of the Education Trust West in support.

And next we're going to line 29. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Chair Jackson and members of the Committee. Tasia Stevens calling on behalf of Catalyst California in support.

And we have no further in queue at this time.

Thank you. Do we have any public opposition in the hearing room at this time? Seeing none. Do we have any public opposition on the phone line at this time?

Please press one, then zero if you'd like to show opposition. 1, 0. And we have no one queuing up at this time.

Thank you. Now to our Committee Members. Do any Committee Members have any questions or comments at this time? It's been moved. Seconded. Ms. Bonta

If I can just provide a comment in great support. I think you've identified such a critical issue of making sure that we have an opportunity to have our dual language learners identified early and supported so that we can actually recognize and value all their language assets as opposed to in a different alternate world. So thank you very much for bringing forward this Bill. Thank you.

Any other Members at this time seeing none. AssemblyMember, would you like to close?

Thank you for this opportunity to present this bill. I was a young kid in a state preschool program where we were often punished or discouraged of speaking our native language. So I'm glad to be here in a different California of today to present this bill and let children know that speaking more than one language like those of us that are bilingual or more, is an asset. So I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much. We have a motion by Assemblymember Bryan. A second by Assemblymember Calderon. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

AB 393 the motion is due pass to the Assembly education Committee. [Roll Call]

The vote is eight to zero. The bill is out. Thank you very much. Committee Members, the business before the Assembly Human Services Committee is complete. The hearing is adjourned and in five minutes we'll begin our hearing, informational hearing.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining the Assembly Human Services Committee for our departmental informational hearing. Today we will hear from the various departments responsible for the Administration of Human Services programs under this Committee's jurisdiction. I want to thank our presenters today for making the time to share information with this Committee about the important human services work they do for the State of California.

Our speakers have been asked to provide a General overview of their 2023 Department landscape to ensure that new and returning Members have an equal understanding of the policies currently being implemented under our purview. As this Committee begins to consider new policies, it's important that we understand that the barriers the Administration is facing in delivering services as well recognize the successes being accomplished.

We have also asked for testimony today to highlight the equity initiatives throughout departments, allowing Members and the public the opportunity to see what is being done to reduce disparities and improve overall access to services. As the Human Services Committee, we have oversight over the programs that support our most vulnerable populations, and that power comes with great responsibility. The policies heard by this Committee will impact the everyday lives of our most disadvantaged Members of our communities.

We must strive to uplift these groups in a way that promotes equity throughout our safety net infrastructure and eliminate the historic stigma associated with these programs. Each one of us sitting at this dais must recognize this obligation and seek to approach our conversations in this Committee with a thoughtfulness that it deserves. As we enter this new year, I want to set remind Committee Members, community leaders, and the public that it is not enough to survive. They have a right to thrive here in California.

So at this time, I would like to invite the first speaker to join us, Dan Torres. Dan will be providing us with an overview of the California Health and Human Services Agency. Welcome.

Okay, thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Jackson and Members. My name is Dan Torres. I serve as the Chief Equity Officer for the California Health and Human Services Agency, and this is a new position at the agency, which is part of a broader effort to focus attention on the communities that have long faced health and socioeconomic disparities because of historical actors of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. I'm joined by leaders of four of our departments today that will be speaking soon.

It is our pleasure to be with you this afternoon to provide an overview of the many critical human services programs that they offer and lessons learned from Covid and efforts toward achieving equity for the people that are served by these programs. And I'll start by providing a general overview of our agency and our strategic priorities.

The California Health and Human Services Agency oversees 12 departments and it has five offices that provide a wide range of services in the areas of health care, mental health, public health, substance use disordered services, income assistance, social services, and assistance to people with disabilities. More than 33,000 public servants work in CalHHS departments and offices throughout the state. At California Health and Human Services Agency, our North Star is to make equity not just a word or concept, but the core value of our work.

In the last few years, the agency has been working closely with our departments to coordinate efforts to address systemic inequities. We have developed a set of strategic priorities based on the experience of the pandemic and in reflection of longstanding inequities in California communities. Among the strategic priorities, we are working toward creating an equitable pandemic recovery that strengthens our safety net programs to lift families out of poverty.

We're working to make sure that a person's race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other identities do not predict health and life outcomes. We're working on building a healthy California for all by expanding access to health care, leveraging technology, innovating the health care workforce. This also involves promoting preventative care delivered in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.

CalHHS is working to integrate health and human services so that programs work more closely together to address the upstream social determinants of health, food insecurity, housing needs that disproportionately impact communities of color. We're aiming to improve the lives of the most vulnerable, including people experiencing homelessness. We are working to provide more opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to prepare for and compete for jobs.

At CalHHS, we're also advancing the well-being of children and youth to improve outcomes for children living in poverty, foster care, and in the juvenile justice system by addressing adverse childhood experiences, education needs, improving access to a full continuum of services, and we're building an age-friendly state by reducing health inequities and disparities, preventing and addressing isolation, expanding dementia awareness, and geriatric care. And soon you'll hear from my colleagues at the Department of Social Services, Community Services and Development, Child Support Services, and Developmental Services.

And my colleagues will be providing much more detail about their programs, lessons that they've learned from the pandemic, and the work that they're engaging in now to achieve equity for the people that they serve. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Members, any questions at this time? Just a few questions. As the Chief Equity Officer, of course, one of the things that I have come across is that when you ask someone about equity, you ask five people, you get three different definitions of equity. Do you have a working definition of equity that you're using as your lens to go about your work?

Yes. That's a really good point, and that's one thing that we've also encountered, and we're working towards a common language across our departments and agencies because, to your point, a lot of folks do conflate equity, for example, with equality, and the way our working definition really is about addressing systemic barriers and removing those barriers so that aspects of a person's identity do not predict outcomes for their lives or health and socioeconomic outcomes, whether it's their race, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex. So that is part of the work for sure, making sure that we're speaking the same--in the same terminology and working towards the same goals.

What are you doing to better engage community members in understanding the equity issues facing Californians, right? Obviously, we see many of them through the data that we look at and we collect, right, but in terms of actual folks on the ground, have you began to engage with doing any focus groups or anything that allows you to hear directly from peoples' lived experiences?

Several of our departments and offices have engaged with stakeholder groups, enlisting the help of facilitators that can help open those channels of communication. One of the things that we'll be working on at agencies, coming up with a strategic plan that creates best practices for stakeholder engagement, in particular, people who are directly affected by programs and policies to make sure that we get a deeper understanding of what works and what doesn't work, and developing better interventions that can address disparities.

Any other questions at this time? Seeing none. Thank you very much, Mr. Torres, for your time. Looking forward to working with you.

Thank you. Likewise.

Next up we have Kim Johnson, the Director of California Department of Social Services. And you may start when you're ready.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Kim Johnson, California Department of Social Services, and a pleasure to be with you on this topic this afternoon. I will share with the Committee a bit about the Department and who we serve, and I will do it also through the telling of the experience of the pandemic.

And again, I think given the storm that we are currently literally in, we often use that analogy in the pandemic, that it's absolutely been a storm and that we were not all equipped in the same ways to weather it, and you have people with yachts and boats and life preservers and people with nothing at all.

And I think that ultimately, as we are addressing inequities across our programs and services, we are looking at the systemic structures that have been created that have lent us to those disparities and disproportionalities across our programs.

I also just want to say for us it's been tremendous that we look at this experience collectively and not as one, that we have a different understanding coming out of this experience about how the health of the individual and clerk at the grocery store impacts our grandmother at home, how the health of our unsheltered neighbors impacts us community-wide. So to be able to weather the storms, we must do it together to be stronger on the other side of it.

You know, I had the great privilege through the pandemic--the Governor called his cabinet and leadership into the State Operations Center of the California Office of Emergency Services, and so all of the decision makers were there for several months working in real time to make decisions, which allowed us to really accelerate the ways in which we were able to respond and provide supports in communities.

A lot of the conversation, of course, was driven by data and by many, many public health officials who were thinking about the pandemic in terms of being able to stay home, and that would be the best way to prevent, obviously, the spread of this virus.

At the same time, I was thinking about when home is not a safe place to be, when being able to not be engaged with community and school and education and the robust array of the safety net really required us to really be quite adaptable and pivot to providing resources in the home and think about our work differently.

The Department of the mission of Social Service is to serve, aid, and protect needy and vulnerable children and adults in ways that strengthen and preserve families, encourage personal responsibility, and foster independence. And again, that's the lens in which we worked way back in 2020. The Governor also created indicators on our Roadmap to Home.

And one of those indicators was specifically around addressing inequities and how we were going to have specific interventions and resources and policies aimed at ensuring that those who would have the most severe consequences of Covid-19 would be protected and be safe. And so again, Social Service had the great privilege to lead that work and out of it came many of the initiatives that I'll share with you this afternoon.

I want to say, I'm going to give the Committee a flavor of some of those programs' initiatives. They are too numerous to name in totality, and we are happy to follow up with any additional information to the Committee going forward, but I also want to say the experience and continued work is extraordinary. It has been shaped and developed through community and voice, the community identifying to the state and us asking the question on what the biggest gaps were and the barriers to service, and many, many partners, both in government and with community-based organizations were part of the ability to move through this pandemic together.

I'll go through some themes in our space of what we did that lead us to where we are now. One: I will just say economic security and supports, that we recognize that both through unemployment, through, again, less access to additional opportunities for that revenue that there were many, many initiatives that were focused squarely on supporting individuals, children, families experiencing poverty in this state with additional economic supports, whether they were children and families in our CalWORKs Program or if they were part of our SSI or SSP Program, and older adults and those with disabilities, that we had economic supports specifically, again, tailored to disrupt poverty going forward. And of course, part of that basic safety net is also around food supports.

So for the individuals that are participating in our CalFresh Program, the federal government, who also is a big contributor to the ways in which we were together--through the Legislature and Governor--able to address these issues, huge. So, for example, a total of 11.4 billion dollars has been issued in the State of California in emergency allotments supporting 2.1 million CalFresh households since March of 2020.

To date, we also had the opportunity to stand up Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer or Pandemic EBT, which was specifically focused at recognizing that the children who were used to getting free and reduced meals at school weren't going to be able to do that when the schools were closed, and so Pandemic EBT was a support that provided an augmentation to, again, children and families.

That's 10.6 billion dollars in P-EBT benefits to five million children over the last several school years. Food banks--and again, just a tremendous appreciation to the food banks that we've seen or a number of new programs stood up to not only augment the food capacity and supply, but also the infrastructure of food banks that would long outlast the pandemic itself were numerous, and we cannot count the number of all county letters and policy changes that we had.

Again, much of that was through opportunities to create waivers and flexibilities through the federal government, but we really have continued to really look at what flexibilities we put in place that work through the pandemic and how we can establish them going forward. Addressing homelessness--and again, as you heard our Chief Equity Officer say at CalHHS, Mr. Torres, that we are looking at the integration of housing, health, and social services as a way in which we are much more successful in supporting unsheltered populations.

Signature example in this space is Project Roomkey, which has served over 61,000 California since its launch in 2020, and again, this was not only about literally saving lives, but it was also about really ensuring that in the emergency rooms, we weren't over inundating emergency rooms in our health care workforce with people who don't have that emergency, especially when we had limited resources in response to Covid. In Project Roomkey, to date, eight communities report successfully transitioning over 80 percent of participants to permanent housing.

19 communities are at 70 to 79 percent in their success rates, and 15 communities at 66 to 69 percent, and it's, again, an example of having an immediate resource and support that has transitioned to really further address systemic issues like homelessness in this state.

I also want to note that in our evaluation of Project Roomkey, they note that, again, this was a quick implementation, as with many of our initiatives, and that was certainly key, but also how the non-congregate shelter model represents a better alternative to existing temporary or interim housing models moving forward, and of course, the opportunities for engaging with unhoused populations were more meaningful going forward.

As we look again at children and families, again, both the economic assistance but also youth and foster care, through our Chafee funding, we were able to provide financial assistance to over 15,000 youth in extended foster care and former foster youth. We were also able to think about additional and create additional investments in family resource centers, community-based organizations across the state.

When we had families who couldn't access maybe their developmental services that they were going to but needed the wedge or the piece of equipment that allowed them to do that at home with their children, family resources were there to address those gaps and go forward. A tremendous amount of technological advancements in this space to support children and families as well, making sure that early on we had the ability to have online access of where you could access open child care and development programs, as of course they were also challenged by the events and many were temporarily closing at the time.

As we support older adults and persons with disability, I want to say that, again, using the equity lens means asking questions like: who is not going to have access to paid sick leave when they need that time if they were to be deemed Covid positive? So paid sick leave for the In-Home Supportive Services workforce, paid sick leave for the Child Care and Development workforce.

Looking at with in-home supportive services how we needed to establish a backup provider registry, that could then be another support to someone who might temporarily be out. Again, having economic recovery for this particular workforce has been critical to their success moving forward as well, stipends for those working in assisted living settings to ensure that, again, they have the resources they need to keep themselves and their families safe.

That's true also as we further immigrant integration efforts. Housing for the Harvest--again, a population of our farm workers and agricultural workforce right now being impacted, as we know in the storms, but how were they also given that opportunity to safely recover from Covid and have the resources they needed to do that?

I'll just also note as it relates to immigrant integration efforts, as these new federal resources were coming, specifically, we were asked the question: who is not eligible and being resourced through these additional benefits? And so part of that population and of our proud Californian were populations of immigrants who weren't otherwise eligible. We stood up a disaster relief assistance for immigrant program for that very need to address that gap and again use community-based organizations to support.

We also recognize that now, while it's been some time, but there were significant fear in immigrant communities related to many of the policies the former federal administration had put forward with public charge and other components. So having that trusted messenger and community-based organization on the ground to work with communities was critical and continues to be critical as we support populations and certainly as it related to vaccine outreach and just building awareness of what was occurring.

These partners were key. As it relates to supporting our tribal governments and tribes, we now have new food assistance programs specifically dedicated to support the nutrition needs of communities and tribes. We have set-asides in our resources that we've invested in for supporting unsheltered populations. We have new--as we've grown and looked at keeping families together and have new resources for family finding, engagement, and support, we have a set-aside for tribes to work on that as we work to continue our work in California to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act.

And again, it was universal. So even in disaster relief, today I can tell you we have mass care and shelter responsibilities and have nearly 600 people last night that were supported across 30 counties in this space, but we have new resources around offering non-congregate shelter.

And now we know that the technical assistance we need to provide to make sure that if there are other pandemic or contagious viruses, how we're keeping people safe in disaster as part of our lessons learned. So again, universally, we continue to apply both what we've learned going forward.

I will underscore--as the Chief Equity Officer mentioned--language access, that whether it's understanding and sharing outreach about our programs that provide cash assistance, food assistance, housing supports, or whether it's about how to keep you and your family safe in Covid, that we must, as California, make sure that information is being shared in languages that represent the communities here in California, and that's a huge priority that we continue to work for. I also just want to lift up the care economy and the workforce more broadly.

Again, I mentioned, right, Child Care and Development providers and early learning professionals never closed, right? For those who stayed open, they stayed open and became a very rich and robust support to families. The in-home supportive services continued, and so we have to continue thinking through how we're providing supports to ensure their stability as we move forward on rate reform in the child care space and continue looking at permanent backup systems and in-home supportive services, for example.

We also have to look at our own state workforce and our county Human Services Agency and community-based organization workforce to be able to be on the ground providing those support. So a lot is happening in that space to shore up and strengthen us going forward. We've together--the Legislature and Governor--invested in many, many more things related to housing.

And of course, we have master plans in early learning, master plans in aging that have set a course for us to work together on these advancements going forward. So for the Department of Social Services, we established an Office of Equity in 2019.

And it was right on time because everything that I just shared with you in terms of pandemic response, having core leadership embedded in our organization to help our teams ask the right questions, to have the data to be able to inform us on the directions we needed to go, proved to be essential in the ways that we invested in communities through this experience, and we're glad to continue that further. We similarly, as with California Health and Human Services Agency, have the same definition of equity.

We have had the privilege of being part of the Government Alliance for Racial Equity, which is supporting government in really understanding how to look at all of our policies and programs through a racial equity lens. We have ambassadors throughout the organization based on that experience and the training we've received. Data dashboards are critical.

At the same time the Office of Equity was stood up, so was a research automation and data division and a chief data officer so that we're making inequities visible so that we can track our progress over time on how we're addressing disparities and disproportionality across all groups. And of course, now we have a Governor's executive order that mandates and directs departments to be focused in this space.

So we have been working to draft and develop equity plans across our organization, and we'll be continuing to engage communities to make sure we're taking the right steps to go forward. So I'm happy to answer any questions, Chair. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Obviously, the pandemic has fundamentally shifted some of the issues that Californians are facing. Certainly how we do things in society has shifted in terms of how we expect to work, deliver our services, and go about our daily lives. We also saw a lot of weaknesses, though, in our society that you talk about there being a storm. Well, it was the perfect storm, right? With an increase in our public health is not the best in California, right?

Many has had some pre-existing conditions: high blood pressure, obesity, all those type of issues. Obviously, health care being one, housing, peoples' housing situations. If you lived in a bigger house, you were generally safer than having to share room with multiple people, right? Having access to sick leave and those type of things.

And of course, the big one: child care, and how the weaknesses and all those things was the perfect storm for a pandemic just like this to be able to take advantage of all those things and wreak havoc in our society. When we look at from the purview of everything that the Department of Social Services has in their purview, number one, what were some of the weaknesses that you saw, and what are some things you're doing to begin to rectify those weaknesses?

Because the unfortunate fact is that we're going to have more pandemics more frequently, and therefore, we don't know how bad these pandemics are going to be. So while we at least know the devil we have now, what are we doing to strengthen those weaknesses that we've seen in the past?

Sure. Thank you for that question, Chair. I'll say part of what's true for the Secretary of Human Services Agencies and me as the Director is that it's critical that we are thinking through all of our programs from a person-centered whole family lens, that while we do have funding silos, that we as California have built a robust safety net unlike any other.

And, in fact, when the safety net components are put together, when you have food assistance paired with cash assistance paired with housing assistance paired with behavioral health supports and wraparound, that you have an experience that you're knowing that trauma-informed approaches are how you experience services in the array that we're having, that we do better together. So part of it is that the integration of these things is key, whether it's about applying to obtain services.

So we've been doing a lot in terms of being able to connect people to that whole array right out of the gate as opposed to one at a time, and then I, again, would say that so much, speaking again to the data, while you're absolutely correct in terms of what Covid essentially unveiled the disparities even more, we also saw a tremendous drop in poverty during the pandemic, right? We had a change.

If you're looking at the California Poverty Measure, from 17.6 percent to nine percent between 2019 and 2021, that was the child tax credit, and the safety net supports that. The CalFresh emergency allotments that I just shared, right? So I believe that the investments that we've made over the last two years, together with the legislative body and the Governor, have been specifically informed by what we are learning. We know we needed more investment in housing.

We know affordable housing is a huge piece that we have to continue to invest in to make these connections happen. We know that the resources that I'm mentioning on CalWORKs grants increases that, again, having additional cash assistance provides greater stability. I mean, again, I think much--we now have the great privilege to administer over 50 billion dollars at the Department of Social Services, local, state, and federal resources combined. It's unprecedented.

These investments are historic, guaranteed income where we're looking at not having conditions attached to receiving additional support when you're experiencing poverty. All of the investments we've made have been built and informed by the experience that we just lived through in the pandemic. And I think we are now delivering on those outcomes, which is the key component, I think, is next.

And again, I think making sure we're doing that in a way that continues to be informed by community and that we are publicly sharing those data dashboards and that information in a way that we can all understand our progress together is key at moving forward. I'll again underscore the workforce.

We had to adapt at the state level and at the local level in terms of the modalities that people were reached, State Hearings Division, for example, for us, where people get due process if they feel like they have been inappropriately terminated from benefits, went to virtual, and it's been much more successful. And actually, in fact, participants would prefer it virtual. So how are we changing our practices moving forward, again, informed by what we've learned and where those gaps were going forward? So the investments, the ways in which we do business and the ways in which we share our progress over time and outcomes.

And obviously, we've had historic investments in our safety net, and in many cases, sometimes we've thrown more money than we can actually process when we're trying to get some of these programs going. So obviously, there's been some delays and some program implementations. Can you help us understand more what is causing these delays and how we can help the Department to be successful?

Sure. Thank you. It goes back to that workforce and capacity component that I'm referencing. I'll use the example of child care subsidies. The Governor and Legislature have put in a marker to have 200 child care subsidies within five years as part of our investments. And the Governor, in his January 10th budget, is proposing to delay the 20,000 subsidies that would have otherwise occurred in budget year for a year to allow for the existing subsidies that we put to date to be fully utilized.

Part of that we together identified that the organizations who are responsible for doing that outreach and enrolling families into these subsidies need additional resource, so we've put 20 million dollars to the alternative payment programs to ensure that they can staff up and have the resources they need to do that work effectively. Also the resource and referral programs and consumer education, another ten million ongoing to provide support for them to do that consumer education and that critical choice of identifying the child care options that are available.

So I think it's true that we have paired the workforce piece. We've tremendous workforce investments in social work and in health care and behavioral health, but we've also seen it takes more time than maybe any of us would have anticipated to actually fill those vacancies, to actually recruit those new hires, to get people into these fields to do the work.

And really, truly, it has been extraordinary over that time, so people understand and recognize kind of what it takes to work in the field, and we want to continue to kind of gain that excitement about joining in social services and people-serving careers going forward. So we have a lot of investment in that space or workforce, but it's also the capacity-building components of community-based organizations that's key.

I understand that the Department is having some difficulty processing applications through the Guardian system. Can you talk a little more about what the Department is doing while waiting for the system fix or replace? How are staff providing technical assistance or support?

Sure. So our Guardian process within community care licensing--and again, a place I want to, again, have called out a few different ways in terms of their response, but we are in a place of recalibrating in all things in licensing. We had created infection control modules and really, we're getting back to kind of the core visits, the business of inspections, et cetera.

Part of that background check process is we had a new system that launched right before the pandemic called Guardian that does the background check process for a number of different settings to support. We have had a backlog in that area. Part of the ways that we have addressed that backlog is redirection of staff. So we've put new staff in other parts of the Community Care Licensing Division. We've redirected them to focus on this space. There's been legislation passed that supported what we call simplified exemptions.

Basically, there are two pathways as individuals are applying. One pathway, if there's nothing in your background, it's the simplified exemption path, and by the recent legislation that passed, more people are going into that space--in that group is clearing within three to five days. That's 90 percent of the applicants clearing three to five days. So if there is something in someone's background history, that's the place where we're seeing a delay.

We have to actually manually review those files, get the information from the Department of Justice in terms of the background that we're seeing to follow up to determine whether or not they can be cleared to work in the setting they've applied for. Part of the solution is a new system. To your point, while we're working on that, we are redirecting staff and seeing how the recent policy implementation is changing and speeding up our processing going forward.

Now, our next question is just something for... I think that in many cases, two things. First, I want to talk about, and Mr. Torres, you can chime in on this, is understanding at this time who our most vulnerable populations are in California, right? To make sure that we understand that we see them, we hear them, and we're looking at how we can make sure that their specific and unique needs are being taken care of.

What has the last three years shown us in terms of who are our most vulnerable populations in California?

Sure. All of our departments have been tasked with looking at their programs to answer that very question, who's being left behind, and who needs more support to get parity with other communities that are being served by the same programs. So that is a process that our departments are engaging in now for a strategic plan. But just our observation, as Director Johnson has identified, we've seen disparities by race. Language has been a huge determinant of disparities.

And so that is one of the reasons why we are engaging in the language access planning process. And pursuant to the Governor's executive order from last fall on equity, we're putting forward recommendations for language access improvements later this fall so that folks have access to information and better across the board with our programs. But I think in the service delivery, I think that's also a key place where language access can improve equity. So I'll leave it at that.

Sure. No, I mean, those experiencing poverty, whether they be a child, a family, older adult, those with a disability, certainly are at the top of the list, core to the array of services we provide. I'll also note that obviously children involved in the child welfare system and especially in foster care, are certainly at the top of the list. And a number of kind of focus that we've had has really about what more we can do to keep families together.

So it's the preventative end of all things in that space. But it's also identifying the youth who have the greatest and most complex needs, how we are addressing the gaps. And that's been a primary priority and focus of ours in terms of where we're putting our time, those that are unhoused, and again, for all of the reasons related to health and wellness and future outcomes, again, and that's how we were able to target that population in the project Roomkey experience.

But broadly, those are the vulnerable populations, and disparities in disproportionality varies, but many, in most cases, they are people of color. Also in child welfare system, I would highlight that's also disproportionate number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender plus populations in that space. Even in our Master Plan on Aging, we have some specific interventions in the equity space there looking at older adults and how we are thinking about the housing and support needs of that population, other interventions and supports that we have.

And of course, that work is primarily led by our Department of Aging. You know, people ask me sometimes, what are you doing to address inequities? It's kind of hard for me to say that what we're not. I mean, that is the core work that we do by virtue of our mission.

Absolutely. I mean, obviously not only the compounding effect, right? That if you're African American and trans, right? It just compounds the barriers and the lack of services that are specifically to them. I want to highlight our Pacific Islander brothers and sisters who in the pandemic, a lot of times we talked about African Americans and we talked about Latino populations, but we always forgot sometimes to mention our Pacific Islander brothers and sisters who are experiencing some of those same things.

The things that keep me up at night are our seniors and our single mothers as well, right? How are we going to make sure that we can uplift them in a more way? How can we expand more eligibility in many cases? Now, some would say this is not the year to start talk about expanding eligibility, but I'm just going to say it until we are prepared. But obviously, we talked about CalFresh, right?

When it comes to seniors already and also about single mothers and the idea being that those who requested the most out of renters' assistance, single mothers, right? Especially if you're a black single mother. So just want to make sure we do that. But I'm very grateful for you also uplifting those with the diversity of languages as well. Obviously, we're starting to see what the future of California is going to be getting to look like.

I remember going to San Diego and looking at some of the immigrant facilities to help those who have crossed the border, right? And what does that say? We got to get ready for more French speakers, right? People from Haiti coming over to California, right? Russians are starting to come more frequently over the border due to the international crisis that we have in terms of Russia and Ukraine.

And so obviously we just know that California will continue to be and get more diverse as the years go by. Therefore, we need to be able to project into the future when it comes to those things as well. Glimmers of hope, Ms. Johnson. Glimmers of hope. You have a set of recommendations coming out. Do you want to talk about not specifically what the recommendations are but what the recommendations will be addressing in broader terms?

In many cases, people see this big behemoth of services and departments and all those things. But I think it would be great to let the public know also that, hey, we are thinking about how we can fix some of these things. You want to talk a little bit about some things coming for the future?

Sure. Thank you for that opportunity, Chair, and maybe I'll just also building on your point around seniors and access to food supports, for example. It's not always a matter of additional resource, although again, we just had made these historic commitments. It's also pivots that we made early in the pandemic to have more retailers to allow for online food access, right? Having food come to the home. And again, there's a lot of, again, kind of specific examples that I could share.

Border response was a huge piece, too, that I also appreciate you lifting up. As you think about the population, as you think about the program, we are doing a lot in terms of moving forward. So, for example, for children and families experiencing poverty in CalWORKs, and for us to continue setting course to have no families experiencing homelessness in California, that integration that I referenced earlier is key.

We know that part of the historic challenge that we've had is a looming federal outcome called work participation rate, a single metric by which we are assessed on our success. And so we have convened several meetings with workgroup members to think about what their recommendations are, their consultation to us as the Department on how we can transform the CalWORKs program. And so we have a report due to the Legislature next month that we'll be sharing that share our recommendations in this space.

But ultimately, I would just say whether we're talking about children and families in CalWORKs or we're talking about in-home supportive services providers, universally in our programs, we are engaging communities to help get us to the next space. Backup providers was a COVID pandemic piece for in-home supportive services. We made that component permanent in the program. How are we, again, no matter what program, what piece, moving forward?

And so there's just a lot of hope, a lot of things to be hopeful for, whether it's the outcomes of the guaranteed income pilot, how we're transforming CalWORKs, how we're looking ahead at IHSS, how we're providing technical assistance to the millions of individuals in our childcare settings, adult and senior care settings, children's residential, how we're looking at preventative efforts moving forward for child welfare and keeping families together, the $150 million investment in that space around to your earlier conversation in the Committee, keeping families together and with kin and the outcomes that we see are so much more significant.

So I would just say there's tremendous hope because we are investing in the right things based on what we are hearing from community, based on what the data is sharing with us, based on our evidence practices, and it's robust and we're on course to do better in terms of any next experience we have with pandemic or otherwise.

Thank you so very much for that. And thank you very much for your time. Appreciate you. You thank next we have Dr. Andre Lockett and Kristen Donadee. Donnadee Donnade. There we go, With the Department of Child Support Services. Welcome.

Thank you Chair Jackson, for having us here today. It's great to have the opportunity to speak to you more about our program and how we are focusing on addressing disparities, particularly during the pandemic. I'll tell you a little bit about our Department first. We are a smaller Department. We are also known as DCSS, the Department of Child Support Services. We are the single state agency designated to administer the federal title 4D. It's part of the Social Security Act Child Support program.

The mission of our program is to support the well-being of children by providing services to establish parentage and collect child support. For context, our departmental funding is two-thirds federal and one-third state General Fund. State 40 programs can vary in terms of how they're organized. In California, we are administered here at the state level and the direct services are provided at the county level through our local child support agencies.

It's important to note that child support is a key factor in lifting families out of poverty. Our federal office notes that 750,000 people annually are lifted out of poverty by doubling their average income that they receive through the child support. In federal fiscal year 2021, child support programs nationwide collected $32.7 billion in support. California collected or contributed $2.8 billion to that total, and we are second highest in the nation.

We manage over 1 million active child support cases and serve over 2 million unique dependents in our state for both the state and federal collections. The great majority of that support is paid directly to families, so very little of that is retained as recruitment. Relevant to our discussion today, I want to talk about a couple of our initiatives. In March 2020, we took immediate action to review all of our automated enforcement actions.

We are required by federal statute and regulations to have a series of state statutes or state laws in place to utilize a number of enforcement actions, and these include the intercept of federal and state tax refunds as well as levy of bank accounts. But in most instances, states are permitted to establish the criteria in which it is appropriate to take actions like the levy on bank accounts. So we had already had a project underway to review our bank levy process.

So we accelerated that project, and we immediately altered in March 2020 our process of levying bank accounts to better target this enforcement action to only the appropriate cases. This action focused on reducing harm to the parents who were ordered to pay support while balancing the needs of the children and families who relied on that support. We were able to finalize the changes to our statewide computer system to automate these goals, and that resulted in a decrease in the number of bank levies sent by over 95%.

So we went from over 600,000 bank levies annually. While we did that, we maintained a consistent level of collections from that source. Reconsidering when to send bank levies in such a dramatic fashion resulted in an incredibly positive impact to parents ordered to pay support.

We estimate we've been able to reduce the bank levy fees charged by their banks by over $20 million annually while maintaining, like I said, that level of collections from that source, which are desperately needed by the families to whom we pass it through. The next initiative I would like to share about relates to the CARES Act stimulus funds. So when we got word in early 2020, so March and April about the possibility for this type of stimulus relief, we carefully watched the final language.

There's a nuance that we're familiar with in child support because we are required to intercept federal tax refunds. In 2008, there were two different stimulus funds released from the Federal Government. In one, we were required under the Child Support Program to intercept those funds. And in the second iteration, the stimulus funds were exempt from that type of intercept. So it was down to the very wire we finally received the CARES Act language. Unfortunately, we did have to intercept those funds for child support.

However, there was a nuance in federal law from a 2005 act. It's the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. We often call it the DRA, which we love our acronyms. The DRA provided states an option to essentially move ourselves to the end of the line with regard to those federal tax refunds. California and most states at that time in 2020, prioritized the state recoupment of funds.

So even if the family was no longer receiving aid, if they had assigned obligations, those federal tax refunds would apply first to the assigned support. And so we worked closely with the Administration and the Governor. He signed an Executive order in April 2020, which permitted us to stay execution of one line of our code of civil procedure, which allowed us to pass those funds through first to the family to the extent if they also had assigned arrears, but they were not currently assisted.

For context, I want to share that in May 2020, our IRS intercept collections were almost $270 million. Well, when we look at comparable made months in 2021 and 2022, that averaged out to about $31 million in each of those years. So just exponentially larger because of those intercepted funds that we had no choice to intercept. But we were able to prioritize the support to families in need at that time.

Coinciding with the termination of that executive order, in June 2022, the Legislature passed a permanent statutory change to elect that DRA option under federal law. So it does not waive any support due to the state, but it says we will be at the bottom of the list for that. We will always prioritize support owed to the family first, regardless of where it comes from.

Next, the Human Services Omnibus budget for state fiscal year 21-22 included statutory authority and some budget augmentation for us to update a 20-year-old collectibility study.

So this is reviewing child support arrears owed both to families and to the government, and reviewing to see if they are collectible or if we should cease collection on them. Also as part of that Bill, it altered a state statute which requires us to cease collection of certain arrears owed to the state if the parent who's ordered to pay that support fits in one of four categories with regard to their sole source of income.

So that includes a parent whose sole source of income is a combination of SSI, SSP or SSI, SSP, and SSDI, so the disability portion, or if they receive CAPI, so a state benefit very similar to SSI, or if they receive VA disability benefits in an amount at or below that SSI SSP level. So those are mandatory, and we're currently identifying those cases so we can cease collection of any arrears owed to the state.

There's a separate portion where there's a list of criteria we are required to consider when determining whether those state-owed arrears are enforceable. We are working diligently to complete the collectibility study. We're working with a University on that which will provide recommendations and give us a framework in order to analyze those criteria as laid out by the Legislature. Lastly, the Administration proposed in state fiscal year 22-23 a statutory change that would take another option available under DRA, that federal law.

This is the pass-through of arrears that we spoke about recently at the budget hearing. So this permits us to pass through any arrears that are collected towards assigned obligations, pass them through to the family instead of retaining them as recruitment to the government. Generally, that recruitment is about 50% federal, 47 and a half to the state General Fund, and two and a half to counties. If we pass it through to the families in its entirety, the Federal Government will waive their share.

We estimate that to be $187 million annually. That will be net new funds to these families. We've done some research in terms of the families who fit into this category as being formerly assisted. We believe that most of these families have an income of less than $40,000 per year, 57% actually. We had no reported earnings for these families at all. So we think it's very important to be able to pass these funds through. Furthermore, 18% of those cases identified themselves as Black and 39% as Latinx.

We note that both of those communities were also disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and we felt it was especially important at that time to work to implement this federal option. A further change proposed in the Governor's Budget and ultimately signed in the Omnibus on September 27, 2022, expands the relief offered to parents paying support who are incarcerated. This change to an existing law removed a sunset date, and it also made it applicable to any period of incarceration after the time of signature by the Governor.

And this gives an automatic suspension of the child support obligation during a period of incarceration when the person is not otherwise able to pay that support. So this is very important because there are notice issues in terms of being in and out of incarceration where you might not necessarily, the child support agency might not know. We are not allowed to retroactively modify the support, but this law allows us to automatically suspend that support so we're not obligating for further support.

This relief is rooted in equity, as you know, that many communities of color are disproportionately impacted by incarceration. In terms of our local child support agencies who provide direct services, our LCSA staff prioritized a focus on review and adjustment of orders that were accruing current support where they saw a change in income, for example, we're informed if somebody is receiving unemployment benefits, and we would seek to modify that order as appropriate.

So we were able to prevent accumulation of arrears through this careful review of the cases. They also focused on access to justice, working with their courts to allow for video court hearings and things like that. In addition, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion is a departmental priority. Dr. Andre Lockett joined our office in November of this past year. As our Chief Equity Officer, we are focusing on current practices and ensuring that policy language driving our child support activities promote and advance DEi.

We recently released an RFP seeking a full equity audit of both our existing policies as well as our decision-making processes. So we're very excited to see that rollout. It does fall right in line with our federal office as well. They forecast an upcoming grant opportunity to do a very similar study nationwide for equity. Thank you very much for your time. We can take any questions you might have for us.

Obviously, working in a Department, you have a diverse group of folks. What are some techniques used when folks may not agree with your definition of equity?

That don't agree with our definition of equity? I think we're working very hard to build our capacity as a Department, both for our state staff, the county staff as well. So I think that's something Dr. Lockett and I are working very closely on with this audit. We're going to do an exhaustive kind of survey process and training, working very closely in that space.

We're also working to monitor through the data available to us and monitor decisions made by our staff and make sure that we understand what's happening in our caseload and why.

Historically, child support policies have disproportionately impacted b\Black and brown families. Interest collected on past-due payments make it almost impossible to catch up. Studies have shown that the majority of noncustodial parents make less than 15,000 a year. Once a child support debt is accumulated, it is difficult to climb out of, much like our good old credit cards. Until recently, the money the state garnished from wages did not even go to the children impacted, but the state and Federal Government.

While just last budget year we raved California keeping this money, there is still serious equity work to be done, though, when it comes to those things. Can you describe more how the Department is looking back to correct these inequities to ensure families are able to be reunited and not perpetuate the cycle of poverty?

Absolutely. Thank you, Chair Jackson. So I will clarify that most of the funds we collect go to families. So out of that 2.8 billion, it's only about 200 million that's retained as recoupment. So the great majority of the funds, the child support we collect goes straight to families in California. As you mentioned, the pass-through of arrears is something rooted in equity that we wanted to make sure we pass that money through to families.

We are also working closely with our partners at social services to meet the report requested from the budget committees to review the potential of passing through all child support for families who are currently assisted as well. We strongly believe that child support should go to the family that should come to you first, and then our safety net can assist as well.

We also are very proud of our debt reduction program, which is the refinement of the compromise of arrears program that was authorized in statute over a decade ago. So this permits the state to compromise any arrears owed to the state. If the parent ordered to pay support is not able to pay all of that support, or as you mentioned, with interest, it gets out of hand. The interest statute is one of general application, not necessarily only related to child support.

So it's a complexity that has come up at budget hearings in the past or policy hearings on that matter. With regard to that, we released a revised debt reduction program that models itself off IRS debt forgiveness or tax forgiveness, where we look at the cost of living in the area where the participant resides and the size of their household.

And so we've been able to, with this reinvigorated program, resolve a lot of child support debt that's owed to the state for a lot less than is owed. So I would be happy to prepare some numbers on that and share with the Committee if you'd like.

That would be helpful, of course, when we start talking about... meaning these are not just survival programs, they should be empowerment programs, meaning when you're going through these programs, you should be better off before as opposed to some type of stagnation. So look forward to continued conversations on how we can continue to work on these issues.

I should note as well with the pass-through of arrears program, that federal option provides two options, and California proposed, and it was approved to retain the assignment of those arrears that were passing through because that retains the option to resolve through that debt compromise program, which can often be for much less than what was owed there.

Fantastic. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. Next up, we have Carla Castaneda, Department of Developmental Services.

Welcome.

Thank you. Carla Castaneda, Department of Developmental Services thank you for the opportunity this afternoon to share an update of a number of our initiatives that have been implemented to improve service access and equity and reduce disparities, but then also share how we address some of the changing needs during the pandemic. Ah, the Department of Developmental Services is responsible for administering the Latterman Developmental Disabilities Services act. We do that through contracts with 21 Regional Centers, so those are located throughout the state.

They range in size from serving a few thousand individuals to nearly 40,000 individuals per regional center and the number of individuals served in the system. In the current year, we're looking at a little over 400,000 individuals, and we're projecting that that will increase to a little over 421,000 individuals next year. In addition to the Lanterman Act services, there's a program for infants and toddlers to help them when they're at risk for developmental disabilities. This is for children from zero to three.

So at three they would transition to other services. And some of the proportion of children that isn't there put a 58,000 to 60,000 children served in the program, of that 400,000. The issue, of course, of access to services has been something that has been a lot of conversation, a lot of research over the last couple of decades. In 2016, we established a research unit to help monitor some of those trends.

It was a small team, so of course, lots of work to do still, even with the few years that it's been in operation. But a number of initiatives came through to support that. So in the current year, we have $22 million that was allocated for 75 projects, and that would support approximately 30 languages and 16 ethnicities, doing a number of things like providing education and training to help self advocates, to help with mental health ambassadors.

This also allowed us to create the first Native American navigator program. So in prior grant cycles, there had been smaller navigator programs in the recent budgets that was expanded statewide. So an opportunity, as some of the conversations earlier mentioned, having the individuals with experience in the systems being a trusted source for families and individuals to access other services.

We also had a navigator program for individuals who are, they're called deaf plus, which means they are deaf or hard of hearing, but they also have a developmental disability. So that's a new program in this current grant cycle. Another navigating program we have is in the early start services, so again, helping those infants and toddlers, but focused on African American infants in the neonatal intensive care units, so trying to get them as early as possible. And some of those supports to help them.

Another focus of the grants this year was developing a more culturally responsive workforce, so helping to provide training programs and bringing in more individuals to the system. We were also looking at streamlining behavioral health treatment for foster youth and then additionally connecting self advocates who are Chinese or Vietnamese with their aging caregivers. So you heard that in other departments as well, looking at that combination of the life cycle and overlaps of care.

Specifically, though, in the recent years, what the COVID-19 pandemic did was forced us to look at how we were providing services and of course focused on making sure people had their immediate needs addressed. So early in the state's response, we were providing flexibilities. So some of the activities like individual program planning or eligibility determination was done in person, and a lot of us were staying home and we were avoiding congregate settings, so those were allowed to be done remotely.

Certain other activities or fees were waived during this period and those were reviewed monthly. So to the extent of flexibility was no longer needed, such as delays for training, delays for audits. Those then were pulled back and others might have continued. One of the flexibilities that we implemented was expanding participant directed services, so individuals selecting their own provider. This came from a lot of work group discussions. We heard that from stakeholders and families, particularly during a pandemic where you're limiting your exposure to other individuals.

The participant directed services allowed them to maintain those safe connections, but also get the supports they needed. This was actually one of the flexibilities that became a permanent change through regulations. We also, because there had been a lot of when folks were exposed or when they were actually diagnosed during some of the early waves, it was harder to get staff to different locations.

So one of the things we looked at was actually providing an overtime rate so that folks could isolate together the providers as well as the individuals. And then of course, those were done early on. But as the pandemic continued wanting to help with the transition, it went longer than folks initially anticipated. So there were certain services that were unable to operate the way they had traditionally. So in August of 2020, we had looked at establishing alternative nonresidential services.

So this allowed providers to provide a different service than what their program designs are originally vendored, as that was particularly helpful for providers who provided in person services as well, like day programs where everyone went to a larger setting, or even the transportation that got them to those settings that was no longer needed at the time. So this allowed them to either coordinate delivery of services, coordinate resources, or provide a different type of service to support individuals.

Of course, those conversations with stakeholders continued and wanting to establish some certainty in an uncertain environment, not knowing how long flexibilities would last, seeing the month to month extensions. One of the things that we did was in last year's trailer Bill provided a little certainty that had those alternative non residential services authorized through December of 2022.

After that, of course, still kind of in a little bit of uncertain environment, knowing that the public health emergency was ending soon, looked at providing some extensions through the end of the calendar year. A couple of those include either remote services for specific activities that lended themselves to that, of course, if that's preferred by the individual and the families, but then also providing an alternative rate for transportation, recognizing that that's kind of still in a transition phase.

Of course these will be revisited again, just as they had been during the pandemic. I wanted to also mention a couple of other flexibilities that we provided kind of related to the other systems that were available.

So earlier you had heard about impacts from schools, and our early Start program does provide the services up through age three, and children typically transition to special education services with schools not available or some of them not available for certain times that we extended the authority to provide early start services past age three.

This also lent itself to as we were seeing a decline in the number of children in early start services, looking at taking any of the resources that were not used in a fiscal year and extending that to provide more outreach to individuals so that they would be familiar with early start, and even doing some of the outreach to connect families to the services, making sure I didn't forget any of the other.

I think another one that we mentioned with the transportation was looking at that also recognizing some of the staffing challenges that providers saw this year. So one of the initiatives that we have in the current budget is providing stipends to train current providers, but also for Regional Center staff to support the service coordination, a tuition reimbursement program for higher education or for a higher degree, as well as an internship program to expand the workforce.

But then also looking at, because we saw so many advances in technology and the use of that and how that might improve how individuals access services, piloting a remote services option. So DDs, of course, remains committed to the ongoing learning on how to help individuals access services, recognizing that's an ongoing conversation, but also helping to make progress in reducing disparities. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much for that overview. Obviously, even amongst my colleagues in the Legislature, there are some who have raised some concerns about Regional Centers, of course, and part of it also dealing with the fact that their nonprofit status. Can you provide a little context of context? Number one, why have we chosen to do the Regional Center approach with a nonprofit status? And could that also be a reason why it's really making it difficult for them to collect service and outcome data?

Sure, I think to address some of the collecting data. I don't think that necessarily the Regional Center construct prohibits that. A lot of that we have identified with some of the limitations of our information technology system. So another initiative we have in progress is modernizing that. Our systems were developed in the, they do have, while they're stable, they're not as flexible.

And so when we start diving into purchase of services data, we might have an overall figure, but diving into by race, by ethnicity, might discover that some of the information is incomplete. So, for example, you might see a larger amount of other as a race, instead of having a sense of our population looks like this, the Regional Centers themselves, part of that structure was really to allow for that separation on the case management side and the work with the providers.

So I don't know if that answers or happy to get more information for the Chair.

Do you believe we have a consistent statewide system of services? When it comes to Developmental Services?

We actually heard of a lot of inconsistencies. Some of that maybe there could be more clear direction or more guidance, and sometimes we might need other direct authority to do things. But especially over the last couple of years, a number of inconsistencies have been brought to our attention. Sometimes we want to have the flexibility for a Regional Center to address what the needs are of their community, but there are other things where it makes sense to have some more standardization.

So something that the Department and the Association of the Regional Centers is looking at are the vendorization processes and how those vary, which allows you to have a diverse service provider network. Maybe there's some improvements to be made in the intake process. If that varies across Regional Centers, that might make that more difficult. So there's a number of opportunities for improvement there.

Would any of these fixes require legislative assistance?

Those two I don't believe. Do. I think it's more of what is the best practice to approach and address that?

Meaning, do you have a timeline in which obviously we've had enough time to be able to understand what the best practices are right, and how we can make sure they become system wide? Do you have a timeline to begin to standardize these things, to be able to deal with inequities that we're seeing in the utilization and quality of care.

Yeah, I don't necessarily have the timeline for those improvements, but I do know that they're in progress. So happy to get back to you with a little bit more of that progress.

If you can. I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Next up, we will have Jason Wimbley from the Department of Community Service and Development. Welcome.

Thank you. So good afternoon, Chair Jackson. As you know, I'm Jason Wimbley, Chief Deputy Director for the Department of Community Services and Development, and thank you for the opportunity to share with you the information about the Department, our programs, and how we've encouraged equity and promoted services in our various programs that we administer. CSD's focus is on programs that can help reduce poverty in California.

Our programs almost exclusively serve low income individuals and families and are oriented towards assisting those considered most vulnerable to achieve and maintain economic security. Historically, the Department has been almost 100% federally funded, with the majority of funding coming from two annual grants, the Community Services Block Grant, also known as CSBG, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Grant, also referred to as LIHEAP. CSBG funds a network of community based organizations and local governmental organizations that provide locally determined anti-poverty services and activities.

LIHEAP provides an array of services designed to assist low income households manage and meet their home energy needs, such as through bill assistance and home weatherization services. Due to the limited funding nature of annual grant funding in accordance with federal requirements, LIHEAP funds are targeted to households with the lowest incomes and that include members of vulnerable populations such as young children, the disabled, and older adults.

Other programs within the department's portfolio include the federally funded Low Income Household Water Assistance program, which is a new limited term program that provides financial assistance to low income Californians to help manage their residential water utility costs, and the state funded Low income weatherization program, which provides energy efficiency and renewable energy services, such as free solar installation systems to improve the energy efficiency of low income farm worker and multifamily affordable housing and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

During the pandemic, CST worked closely with its local partners to identify and address specific challenges the communities they several are facing. One example includes CSD working with CSBG agencies to identify that, due to supply chain disruptions, PPE, diapers, wipes, hand sanitizers, disinfectant spray, and other essential items were in short supply, especially in rural communities. Using CSBG funds and leveraging an existing contractual relationship with Supplybank.org, a nonprofit which functions like a food bank to provide essential goods to under resourced communities.

Supply bank secured supply chains and partnered with CSBG agencies to store and deliver these supplies to essential workers disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, including migrant and seasonal farm workers and childcare providers. This model proved so successful that CST adapted it to distribute infant formula through CSBG agencies during recent shortages. CST was also given the opportunity to address historic levels of energy debt accrued during the pandemic through its administration of the California Ridge Payment program, or CAP.

Under the cap, CSD distributed over $1.6 billion in financial assistance to 3 million California households that struggle to pay past due electric and gas bills due to the economic impacts of the pandemic compared to other benefit programs. CAP is unique in that eligibility is based on customers having accrued a past due balance during the pandemic crisis, putting them at risk of disconnection from their energy utilities, and qualified customers receive a CAP bill credit without having to apply for assistance.

To date, there were two phases of the CAP implementation. The first was established through the 2021 state budget and distributed approximately $989 million in assistance to eligible customers through January 2022. This phase reduced or eliminated about 50% of the debt that was reported by participating utility companies accrued during the period of March 4th, 2020 through June 15th, 2021. The second iteration of CAP, established in the 2022 state budget, expanded the qualifying pandemic relief period to December 31st, 2021 and eligibility was limited to active residential customers.

The program dispersed $647 million to eligible customers to assist the complete paydown of customer arrearages reported by participating utilities. Through the successful development and implementation of both phases of CAP, the state was able to significantly reduce and in many cases eliminate the arrearages for utility customers that qualified. This made a significant impact on the lives of millions of California households struggling to afford the cost of energy and address unprecedented levels of energy debt and help to mitigate the risk of disconnection for many vulnerable households.

Now, respect to equity more specifically, the Department has always inherently been placed focus on equity as most of our programs focus on low income and vulnerable priority populations. When opportunity presents, CSD engages local communities and organizations to provide resources and information.

For example, with our low income weatherization program, the Farm Worker Program, we actually convened community events and met with the communities and convened public meetings where it was attended by community members, parties that were interested in being involved in the administration, those that were recipients of services for these services, as well as disinterested stakeholders.

Through that process, we were able to produce a very innovative program design that employed individuals from those local communities and employed the use of trusted organizations that would be able to effectively outreach and provide services to the hard to reach farm worker families that programs traditionally have a difficult time reaching. And what was essential to that was, again, the emphasis on the use of trusted organizations more forward looking.

CSD will continue to focus on program efforts to bridge the affordability gap for home, energy and water that many low income families face. And most of our programs, with exception to CAP, are administered by community based organizations and governmental entities.

So for us to move the needle on DEI, we are starting to do training to acclimate our local service providers on the importance of DEI and the role that they play in ensuring that, in how they deliver services, that they're promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, not just with how they serve the communities, but also maintaining it within their operations and staffing.

Also, our programs, mainly our federal programs, did not always permit us to collect data to help us to better assess those who we are serving and not serving. But recently there was changes that will now label us to do a better job of assessing those that we do serve under the program, and again, those that we're not. And then we're sharing that information with our sub grantees to ensure that their targeting emphasizes that going forward. So that concludes my remarks and overview.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Obviously, we have received widespread reports on high utility cost, one of those reports being a bill I received in the mail. And obviously trying to track and find folks that actually qualify to be able to get this assistance is very important. Obviously, this is a time where it seems as though no matter what utility it is, whether it's your gas, whether it's electricity, because of our weather disruptions and all kinds of things, what is us providing this service or this assistance look like in the future?

Right? Meaning with floods, with various utilities turning off in one region, the cost of being able to import energy and all those things. What other things are you looking at to help stabilize our population that are continuously going through these things?

So the first effort focuses on data. So with the California Arrearage Assistance program, we were positioned to collect information from the utilities to give us a better sense on the debt that customers were carrying as a result of the economic impacts of the pandemic. And so through that, we were able to disperse funds in a way that provided the most equitable treatment of all customers.

So we paid down the debt proportionally for all customers in the first iteration of the CAP program, and then also in the second iteration, we basically paid 100% of that debt off again for debt that was accrued during or attributed to the pandemic emergency. However, going forward, there are reports that debt continues to be a problem for many utility customers, and that's compounded by the fact that we're seeing rate increases as a result of the recent natural gas spike.

Also, the severe weather that California has been experiencing is contributing to that as so fortunately with LIHEAP, we have received some additional supplemental funds that will better position the LIHEAP program to provide services to customers that are in need. We are working with our utility partners to do a better job of trying to identify low income customers that are exhibiting challenges with paying their utility bills and they've accumulated debt and referring them to the LIHEAP program to receive services.

And one of the points I would also like to make is that during the pandemic, customer behaviors did change with respect to how they sought and applied for LIHEAP assistance. A lot of that had to do with the fact that the state took measures to protect customers that were unable to pay their bills by instituting moratoriums to prevent the disconnection of their utility services during the pandemic. And a lot of those protections are still in place and are soon to expire.

So as those protections are lifted and folks start to receive the bills, as well as are now going to be pressured to pay those bills, this is another opportunity to promote the availability of our LIHEAP assistance and other resources that are available for customers and encourage them to act and take advantage of those services that are available.

Any red flags that we might be concerned about for the future. Obviously, this is going to be a rough year, to say the least, in many aspects, and many are going to be coming to your department for relief in many cases. Are we prepared?

So we are in the process of preparing our network agencies for that. We anticipate that the coming months there will be a strong demand for LIHEAP assistance and that our agencies need to be ready to meet the public demand for services. You also touched on that this issue around energy affordability is a very complex issue, and it's one that's often plagued the state, and it's one that's a very difficult problem to solve.

When you look at the types of resources that are available, LIHEAP is just one of them. You know, many utilities offer other types of supports and assistance that can help customers manage their energy costs more successfully. And so I think part of the strategy is not just for our preparation, but to make sure that the collective resources that are available can be best utilized and we can ensure proper program coordination to ensure that we are delivering the most complete and holistic services to customers in need.

Thank you so much for your time and thank you all very much for your time. I really appreciate and looking forward to working with all of you in the coming months as we go through our traditional process to be able to continue to prepare for the times ahead of us. So thank you very much for being here. Thank you for the invitation. We appreciate the partnership as well. Absolutely. We will now open the floor for public comment.

If you would like to make a comment, please make your way to the microphone. Seeing none in the room. Are there any on the phone line?

As a reminder, please press one then zero. If you'd like to make public comment. One then zero and we have no one queuing up at this time.

Okay, well, as we close here, we want to thank all everyone here who provided testimony. Our goal is as a state must be to establish a safety net that serves all Californians in the way they need to be served. Obviously, too often in the past we've had systems that say that we expect the public to mold themselves to how the system chooses to operate.

But it is now time to make sure that we continue with this paradigm shift of ensuring that systems mold themselves to how the people of California operate, what their needs are, and especially their diverse needs, regardless of their race, regardless of their age, orientation, location or ability. I appreciate everyone taking the time to introduce the Committee Members to the work being done in your departments to help reach that goal.

While the initiatives presented today gives me hope for a future with seamless service coordination statewide, we as lawmakers have more progress to make still, and we must bring policies forward that break down existing barriers to access and increase the lasting impact of our programs. Reestablishing a cohesive safety net system to better serve the needs of today will take time, work and thoughtfulness.

But we must not only expand the program options and service models offered to those in need, but work to overhaul the stigma that has long been associated with public assistance. Being one, myself, who has been a benefit of public assistance through my single mother, has been essential to me and my siblings as well. And that is nothing to be ashamed of. That is just to say that California is ready and able to ensure that everyone in California has the ability to thrive and be self sufficient.

The support provided to our most disadvantaged through our safety net is not a handout or charity, but a tool of equity. A tool that aims to provide every Californian with the basic needs they need to survive and an equal chance to thrive in the Golden State. I look forward to working with you all this year to push forward many full legislation that will allow us to hold that title with esteem. So with that, thank you all very much, and we will adjourn for today.