Assembly Standing Committee on Human Services

Good afternoon. I call this hearing of the Assembly Committee on Human Services to order today. Once we have established quorum, we will have 24 bills on the agenda. Five bills are on consent. Please note that we limit testimony to two witnesses in support and two witnesses in opposition. Each witness has two minutes to testify. All additional witnesses will be limited to stating their name, organization, and, if they will present one, their position on the Bill.

I also want to note that we are accepting written testimony through the position letter portal on the Committee's website. Now for a little housekeeping. File item number four, AB 2224 Santiago, was amended on March 122024 so that it now also falls within jurisdiction of the Assembly Committee on judiciary. Should the Bill pass out of this Committee, it will be referred to the Assembly Committee on Judiciary. File item 22, AB 3145. Brian has been pulled by the Committee and will not be heard today.

Thank you. We do not yet have a quorum, but I do see that Assembly Member Addis is here. So if she would like to present file item three, and we will hear the bells of Subcommitee whenever you and your witnesses are ready, summer at us. You can come. Hi.

Well, thank you, Chair and Members, I want to say thank you to your staff, to my staff. We've all been in a lot of conversation and doing a lot of work on this very important bill. And Members, today, I'm here to present Assembly Bill 2206, which is the Child Care Accessibility Act.

And as a former teacher of students with special needs, I would say childcare for children, young children with special needs, is one of the most important things that we can do. And now more than ever, finding adequate childcare for many families is a constant struggle. With sky high costs, workforce issues, and not enough open slots to go around, families truly feel like they're out of options. And when it comes to families of children with disabilities, these issues are only exacerbated.

So with these realities in mind, we do need a legislative fix to improve access for children with disabilities to childcare and access for their families. AB 2206 revises clearly outdated code and regulations to streamline the process for child care facilities to enroll children with disabilities.

Currently, California's regulations create a confusing and uncertain process where child care facilities must obtain a new fire clearance permit prior to enrolling a child with a disability, and this can take up to two to four months, and during that time, these families are without childcare. The process also has to be repeated every single time there is a new child that's going to be enrolled if that child has a disability, regardless of when the last fire clearance permit was approved.

So this law, AB 2206, will exempt child care facilities from the requirement to obtain the revised clearance every time a new child is enrolled. To be clear, we are not eliminating any need for the facilities, the child care facilities, to obtain a fire clearance permit. We're simply exempting them from arbitrary regulation of obtaining revised clearance for every new application. So with me here today is Dr. Mary Ann Dewan of the Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools.

And, Doctor, before we do your testimony, let's pause for one second and establish quorum, please. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Now that we have a quorum, and just to clarify, Assembly Member Addis, do you accept the Committee amendments too?

Yes, we do.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Please proceed. Two minutes.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Mary Ann Dewan, County Superintendent of Schools for Santa Clara County. Good afternoon, Chairperson Lee and Members of the Committee. We are pleased to co sponsor Assembly Bill 2206 in partnership with the Santa Cruz and Monterey County superintendents and want to extend our deep gratitude to Assembly Member Addis for bringing this bill forward, which prioritizes the right to accessible childcare for children with disabilities.

Families of children with disabilities have far greater difficulty finding a childcare provider and are three times more likely to experience job disruptions because they are unable to secure reliable childcare. Disproportionate access to child care limits the young person's early learning and social emotional growth opportunities and contributes to the academic achievement gap for children as they progress through school. Although many preschool and child care providers want to serve children with disabilities, they have to navigate extra barriers and regulations in order to do so.

One such regulation, as was described, requires providers to receive a revised fire clearance each time they want to enroll a child who is non ambulatory, which includes children who use crutches, wheelchairs, or walkers, and this process can take an average of three to six months. Meanwhile, the child and their family do not have access to childcare or early learning services.

This bill would remove these barriers and allow child care providers to be automatically inspected and approved to serve non ambulatory children during the regular fire clearance process. Instead of having to request a clearance each time, this bill would ensure that child care providers can directly enroll and begin providing services to non ambulatory children and their families immediately. I urge you to join the Santa Clara County Office of Education and respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you so much. Do we have any members of the public in the hearing wish to testify in support of this bill? Please come forward to the microphone at this time. All right, do we have any primary. What? Oh, okay. How do I reset it?

On behalf of the County Superintendents Association, strong support and proud to be a co-sponsor.

Thank you. Now, do we have any witnesses in opposition to this bill? Please come forward. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the Committee. Committee Members, do you have any questions? Comments? See none. All right, somebody Addis, do you want to close?

Just that I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

All right. Thank you. Removing barriers to access to childcare for families of children with disabilities is a laudable goal. However, providing provisional care to these children while the status of an approved fire clearance is underway puts children with exceptional needs and potential safety hazard facilities and exposes these children to fire related injuries or death. We cannot increase access to childcare for these children at the expense of their safety. This bill. This. This bill.

I appreciate you working with the Committee on the amendments for this bill. And so I want to thank you for working with us on that one. I recommend an aye vote, if amended. Do I have a motion and a second on this bill? It has been moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on this bill.

The motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Education Committee. [Roll Call]

That bill passes four to zero. We'll leave the bill open for absent Members. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I see Assembly Member Wicks is ready to go. File item two. Whenever you're ready and your witness is ready, you may begin.

Thank you, Mister chair and Members. First, I want to thank the hard working Committee staff for their work on this Bill. Always appreciated. California is currently the world's fifth largest supplier of food and other agricultural commodities, producing nearly half of our nation's fruits and vegetables. However, more than one in five, about 8.8 million people, currently struggle with food insecurity. Hunger and lack of access to nutritious food are exacerbated by racial and economic inequalities, with 40% of black households and 30% of Latino households being food insecure in the state of California, one of the richest places in the world.

A food desert can be defined as any region in the country with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. Many households within these regions are low income and have inadequate transportation to and from their closest food retailer. In 2021, for example, 65% of San Francisco and San Jose metro area neighborhoods were considered food deserts. 65% of San Francisco neighborhoods were considered food deserts. In Fresno, over 20% of the residents live in food deserts.

Furthermore, it was also estimated that over 1 million Californians now live within food deserts and 45% of those residents are considered low income individuals. AB 1961 will require the strategic Growth Council to establish and convene the End Hunger in California Master Plan Task Force. This task force will recommend future strategies to address access to healthy and culturally relevant food for all Californians. We recognize that addressing barriers to access to accessing adequate, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food require a comprehensive approach beyond short term fixes by convening experts, stakeholders, and community leaders.

We look forward to crafting a holistic plan that tackles the root cause of food access and insecurity, thus creating important solutions. I want to thank our sponsors, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Western States Council, California Food and Farming Network, and GRACE/End Child Poverty California. And with me here to testify today are Jassy Grewal from the UFCW Western States Council and Andrew Cheney with GRACE and California Food. Sorry, End Child Poverty California. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Two minutes each, please.

Good afternoon Chair and Committee Members. My name is Jassy Grewal, Legislative Director with the United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council, here to testify in strong support and as a proud co-sponsor of AB 1961, the End Hunger in California Act. UFCW is a union that represents workers in our food sector, from farmworkers to grocery delivery drivers. Sadly ironic, the workers who grow and deliver food face higher levels of food insecurity than the rest of the US workforce.

Even though food surrounds grocery workers, over three quarters of grocery workers are food insecure based on the US Department of Agriculture's Food Security Assessment tool, that is seven times higher than the US average. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 72% of agricultural workers reported trouble paying for food. Food desert communities lack the resources to attract large grocery store chains, leaving residents with convenience stores and fast food restaurants as their primary food sources.

However, it is not just the lack of access to food that is driving families to experience hunger. The cost of food has significantly increased. It has been over 30 years since food was this expensive, and consumers now spend over 11% of their disposable income on food. In 2022, food prices increased nearly 10% faster than any year since 1979. In 2023, food prices increased by 6% and today, food prices remain 19% more expensive than before the pandemic.

There is not a silver bullet that will end hunger in California. Which is why AB 1961 establishes a broadly inclusive task force that will work to develop statewide goals, strategies and solutions to tackle the inequalities that exist within our current food system, improve access to nutritious and affordable food in all communities. UFCW would like to thank the Assembly Member for authoring this important legislation and respectfully request your aye vote on AB 1961.

Thank you, chair Members Andrew Shane from GRACE/End Child Poverty California, doesn't help to change jobs twice in one year for people to understand where you're at, so thank you for your time. Simply put, planning works. We saw during the pandemic that we nearly eradicated hunger, only to see it predictably and shamefully rise back as we saw the end of many temporary policies. And so we know that hunger is a policy choice.

It is something that we can use public policy to bring to bear and end it once and for all. Just a few highlights on why we need to keep the pedal to the metal on public policy as much as the Legislature and Governor have done. We are leaving billions in federal dollars on the table. In CalFresh alone, we are nearly last at 71%.

We are leaving $1.8 billion in 100% federally funded benefits. Which when circulated in our economies with the truckers and the retail workers and the rest of our vital food economy, that's as much as $1.8 in ROI for every $1 in benefits, meaning that 1.8 is nearly $3.3 billion just in CalFresh. In WIC, we're even lower participation at 65%. And we have new programs like Summer EBT, the first new federal entitlement in a generation. So we know that there's much we can do.

And where does California need to fill the gaps? For example, there are harsh federal exclusions for college students, which the Legislature has done much to try and address within the CalFresh program. And we've seen the power of school meals for all where we have nearly 45% of students who are experiencing food insecurity would be ineligible under the federal rules. And that wraparound approach is needed. And there's precedent for the effectiveness of this whole of government planning approach.

AB 1520 by some Member Burke established the End Child Poverty Task force and plan and led to recommendations which we continue to fulfill to this day. And I would offer that the support of the multi stakeholders, of families, of farmers, of workforce representatives, anti hunger and anti poverty organizations show the support for the vision brought forward by Miss Wicks. We thank you and ask for your aye vote. Thank you so much.

Now do we have Members of the public who wish to come to find support of the Bill? Please come up to the microphone.

Yes. Kevin Aslanian, Coalition California Welfare Rights Organizations, strong support. Thank you.

Annie Chou with the California Teachers Association and support.

Hi, Beth Smoker with the California Food and Farming Network, a proud co-sponsor and also naming stronger California and equal rights advocates and support. Thank you.

Savannah Jorgensen with the Lutheran Office of Public Policy, California and strong support.

Good afternoon. Denise. Choice lot, California Coalition for Youth in support. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Now, do we have any Members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the Bill? Please come forward to the microphone. Seeing no one, we'll bring back to the Committee. Community Members, do you have any questions, comments? Senator Ortega?

I just want to thank the author and you know, for bringing this food forward. I think the part around making sure that we have retail food establishments that provide healthy food in communities of color is essential and something that we don't talk enough about. I grew up in Oakland in a part where we did not have a grocery store, but we had five liquor stores within three blocks of each other and we had five fast food establishments.

So, you know, being able to get healthy food is also part of that conversation. And I appreciate that being part of this Bill. So I move the Bill second.

The bills are moving seconded. All right. Senator Wicks, would you like to close?

Thank you and just appreciate the comments, Miss Ortega. And would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Well, I appreciate you bringing this Bill forward and addressing food insecurity. I am recommending an aye vote. The Bill has been moved by Senator Ortega and seconded by Senator Calderon. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Three to zero. We'll leave that Bill on call. Thank you. All right, I believe we have Assembly Member Alvarez here to present file item five. So whenever you're ready. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate the opportunity, Members of the Committee, for Hearing on AB 2241. Again want to thank the Chair for the work that was done on behalf of the staff or the staff that did the work and also the Chair for communicating with me and with our office. We have amendments that the Committee has proposed and will be accepting the Committee's amendments.

This bill is about families that rely in California on public benefit programs, many of them who have to work jobs that have obscure hours or difficult or challenging schedules that at times they count the the times that don't work out with established county social service offices and when they are open and available to the public.

The families that are affected the most are the ones who do not have the luxury of having flexibility in their work and in their jobs to get time off to be able to continue to receive these public benefits. And so this bill is focused on that. When households fail to report requested information or provide an update about a change in their income or in their address or other personal information in a timely manner, sometimes their public benefits can be negatively impacted.

Even if they don't have any substantive changes, they just aren't able to report the information as requested. The failure to report these changes can result in the relinquishment of the public benefit program that they are entitled to and that they are participating in. So we are hoping that through this bill, we can help to streamline and identify ways that government can be more responsive to the needs of real people.

We do not want to force beneficiaries to jump through hurdles to obtain the assistance that they need for their basic needs. And this bill will ensure that beneficiaries are directed to a reasonable alternative method for resubmitting their information if the county deems the form of submission as insecure. AB 2241 seeks to create a streamline and provide beneficiaries with guidance on how they may submit that information so that they can continue to receive their benefits that they are entitled to.

The concern I want to identify and acknowledge the concern of overpayment, which still exists. And we are certainly working on an amendment and language that will address that issue so that beneficiaries are not penalized. I'd now like to turn it over to our two witnesses. We have Chris Sanchez on behalf of the Western Center Law and Poverty, and Kevin Aslanian from the Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organization.

All right, thank you. Two minutes a piece, please.

Christopher Sanchez with the Mesa Verde group representing the Western Center on Law and Poverty, one of the organizations who is proud to be a co-sponsor of this important piece of legislation. Clearly, it's no surprise in the 21st century that public benefit recipients would send an email to ensure that they're in compliance.

We know that the recipients of these services are trying to meet their basic needs and have access to these needs because of the hectic lives that they live right now and how they're trying to support their families. It is for these reasons that we ask the Committee to vote aye at the appropriate time.

Yeah. Kevin Aslanian, Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations it is very hard for people on CalWORKS and Calfresh to go through the application process. And there's a lot of barriers. And one of those barriers is an ability to get the information to the County Welfare Department. Sometimes they put it on the online and BenefitsCal, which is a portal, but it never gets to the worker. Other times you go to give it to the welfare office, put it in a box.

It never gets to the workers sometimes. We get complaints about that all the time. And we have a, we passed out a chart that shows that more than 50% of CalWORKS applications are not denied because they're ineligible. But they denied because they didn't meet the bureaucratic county business practices or something else. They were totally eligible. And for food stamps is the bill we were just talking about.

It comes to between 70 and 65% of people are denied food stamps and go home hungry because they can't meet those procedural requirements and the barriers to reporting. There's also another problem is that the welfare system, if your income goes over a certain amount, you have to report that to avoid overpayment. And if there's an overpayment, then the county gets to collect that. When they collect it, they get a reward, a bounty of 12.5%.

In fact, last year they got 5 million, this year they got 4 million. So we want to make sure that these overpayments do not happen and also to make sure that people could report changes. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much. Do we have members of the public who wish to testify in support of the bill? Please come forward to the microphone now. All right, do we have any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the bill? Please come forward. Oh, please come up to the desk, please. Two minutes, please.

Hi, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members. I want to thank your staff for excellent analysis, thank the author for accepting the amendments. Amanda Kirchner with CWDA. We are in an opposition to the bill is currently in print. Our legislative committee will be able to review these amendments next week and see if it will remove our opposition.

But I do want to say that because of our privacy and security agreements for our systems like CalSAWS and some of the others, we have had our county cited when we have had breaches and they haven't met those security agreements. So we think the encryption standards are a good way to go forward. So appreciate your work on this and thank you.

Thank you. Now, do you have members of the public wish to testify in opposition to the bill, please come first, the microphone. All right, we'll bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? All right, Vice Chair Essayli.

I just want to understand the opposition is you believe that if people are allowed to submit information electronically in general it's not secure or just by email?

So our privacy agreements that we're required to follow because of FNs and other federal regulations and state regulations with our agencies, require a certain amount of encryption to be acceptable to use because of the personal identifying information. So email, as long as it would be encrypted, we believe would be acceptable under those standards. But that is a very high standard for most of those systems to meet. And so to the extent that CalSAWS can allow for it, we're fine with that, but not sure that all of the email systems would be available to do that.

Okay, well, whether it's by email or portal or something, I think this bill makes sense because I think it's 2024 and I don't know that most people still rely on hard copies for stuff. So I appreciate efforts to modernize government and reduce barriers for people to get access to benefits are otherwise eligible too, so I'll be supporting it today. Thank you.

All right, any other questions or comments from Members? If not, I'll invite the author to close.

Thank you. And to Mr. Essayli's point, we are trying to find ways to make sure that those that do qualify receive benefits, but obviously address the concerns which the Committee very appropriately outlined of privacy concerns. And so we will make sure that that continues to be a priority. I know some other Members of the Committee have also expressed that so ensure the privacy is addressed, but also that we are a more updated system for government to function better. Thank you. Appreciate your aye vote.

Thank you so much. And thank you for working with our Committee staff on figuring out some amendments to this bill. Expanding the options to submit information needed to verify eligibility for public social services is key to eradicating poverty. But at the same time, as we modernize and ease the friction system, we don't sacrifice people's cybersecurity and their privacy as well. So I'm glad we worked out some good amendments here.

I'm recommending aye as amended votes and the bill has been moved by Assembly Member Ortega and seconded by Assembly Member Calderon. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item five, AB 2241. The motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Five to zero. It's out. We'll leave the roll open for absent Members. Thank you. Madam Secretary, would you please read the bills on consent? We'll go to the consent calendar while I have a second.

[Roll Call]

Consent calendar is passed out. We will allow for absent Members to add on at the end of the hearing. We are currently waiting for authors, so if staff are hearing this and your Member has a Bill to present in human services, please send them down. We are waiting for authors right now.

Assembly Grayson is here, so if you are prepared to take a fathom 17, please come forward. zero, yes. Phylum 14 and 17. Which one would you like to start with, Senator Grayson?

May we start with 2686? AB 2686. All right, I'll start with 2774. How about that one?

That sounds like you're all right. Sounds like you phoned a friend. AB 2774. Item 14.

They pulled rank, and I'm good with that. All right. If I may?

Yes, whenever you're ready.

Super. Good afternoon, Mister Chair Members. I'd like to thank the Committee for their important work on this Bill and would like to also accept the Committee's suggested amendments. AB 2774 establishes the childcare for Working Families Task Force and requires that the task force to submit a report that recommends future comprehensive strategies aimed at addressing challenges faced by working families in accessing flexible, affordable, and quality childcare options. Affordable childcare is, unfortunately, out of reach for many Californians.

In fact, California was ranked the least affordable state for center based infant care in the nation, and just 14% of the state's eligible infants and toddlers have access to subsidized child care. The lack of affordable child care has also become a barrier to work, especially for mothers who disproportionately take on caregiving responsibilities when their family cannot find or afford childcare.

Californians children need a safe place to learn and grow while parents are at work, and childcare is an essential component for the livelihood of workers and communities. I want to acknowledge the incredible and thorough work that our state has done and continues to do, namely with the Blue Ribbon Commission and the Governor's Master Plan on early care and education.

I do believe that we must continue to build upon this work and continue to prioritize investments in order to build a comprehensive, high quality system that is accessible and affordable to all. So, further, there is a great need, as we all know, for a new task force to take a comprehensive assessment of current economic realities of California families, especially in the post COVID era.

Through the task force, AB 2774 will seek to address the challenges that working families face in accessing flexible, affordable, quality childcare options.

All right, do you have any witnesses in support? No. Okay. If there's any members of the public who wish to come forward and sign support of the Bill, please come forward to the microphone. All right, are there any witnesses in opposition to the Bill? All right, see? Oh, Assembly Grayson, just to confirm, you're accepting the Committee amendments, correct?

That is confirmed.

All right, thank you so much. All right, I'll bring it back. To the Committee. Any questions or comments? Question from Vice Chair. Okay. Yes,

Assemblyman, I appreciate your efforts to address childcare. I know for many parents, it's a huge issue. My question for you is, would you be open to, including in the strategies here, abilities for moms or parents who want to stay at home with their kids, to be able to afford to do that?

Because I think that's something that we often overlook, is just finding childcare services. But often there are parents who would love to stay at home and care for their own kids. But financially, that's very difficult. So is this something this group would do or would you be open to?

I think my office and I as well, have a reputation for always having an open door and open minds willing to always have that conversation. And of course, as you know, this being the First Committee that this bill's been heard in, there's plenty of room for conversation as we move forward.

Okay, well, if that's something you're open to, I'd be happy to engage and support it now.

We would be happy to have a conversation.

Okay. Thank you. All right, I'll invite the author to close.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you for your consideration.

All right. Thank you for working with us on this Bill. And thank you for offering a Bill to establish task force, develop comprehensive strategy and solutions to address the affordability and accessibility crisis facing our state's childcare system among families that is crucial to addressing inequitable access to child care. I'm recommending aye as amended to the vote. The Bill has been moved by someone Ortega and seconded by a Senator Calderon. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on AB 2774.

Roll Call

That Bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for absent Members. Someone. Grayson, you want to do volume 17? If you have permission from your staff.

Absolutely. Do I have permission?

Yes. I got the head shake. Yes. We're all good. Mr. Chair, if you don't mind if I just place this here as a prop, as I present. Thank you very much. And waiting on our witnesses to come up here. And again, once again, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members. AB 2941 codifies the California Parent and Youth Helpline and strengthens guidelines which organizations are eligible to operate the helpline.

In 2020, California established the California and Parent Youth Helpline, which provides free and accessible mental health resources to parents and youth all across the state. Since its inception, the helpline has received over 87,000 calls, texts, and live chats and has helped provide over 73,000 referrals to comprehensive resources and also operates weekly online support groups for parents and caregivers.

The helpline has been operated by Parents Anonymous, recognized as one of the only culturally responsive programs in the country that enhances mental health, mitigates the impact of adverse childhood experiences, and it helps ensure child safety resources for a diverse array of families. AB 2941 will help strengthen the helpline by ensuring that it can continue to maintain weekly support groups and require that the organization that operates it is culturally responsive and has a track record of administering such a program. I will, through the Chair, have my witnesses self-identify, self-introduce today.

Thank you so much. Two minutes per witness, please.

Thank you. I want to thank Assemblyman Grayson for introducing AB 2941 and to you, Chairman Lee, and distinguished Members of the Committee for taking up this important issue. We are a sponsor of the bill. I am Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin. I'm the CEO and president of Parents Anonymous for the last 32 years. Yes, I was a child when they appointed me and we are one of the oldest family strengthening organizations in California, headquartered in Los Angeles since 1969.

I'm here today representing the 13 million parents, children, caregivers, and youth, which may include you, who are in need and need to access evidence-based services for emotional support for any issue they face on the California Parent and Youth Helpline, which they can call, text, and live chat. Right now in 240 languages, we can answer calls and text and live chats, and that's everything from emergency, I don't know if I want to live today, I'm so anxious, I've been picked on at school.

You name it, we've addressed it with trained counselors. This unique program also connects people on a continuum of services to free weekly support groups that are available. It's important, as the Assemblyman said, that the organization that runs this is culturally responsive. It's not about blame and shame, so that people can ask for help freely and get that help to build on their strengths.

Research demonstrates that even during the pandemic, children were flourishing better than the average in California, and parents were improving their protective fetchers as a result of these services. As he said, we've given 60,000 referrals, 800,000 clicks on our website to get resources, and we've talked to more than 90,000 people to date. Independent research also shows that we're using well established techniques to help people deal with stress, depression, anxiety, you name it, we address it. We don't turn anybody away.

And even the research shows that in the first few minutes by independent researchers, first few minutes of a helpline call, parents anger diminishes and their sentiment rises over time. And that's going to be in published research. So I urge you today to pass AB 2941 to ensure that there is a first responder and a life saving program for all California parents, children, and youth. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member Grayson and Chairman and Committee Members. My name is Antonia Rios. I am honored to be here today to share my personal story of strength and positive change as a proud Latina and indigenous mother of seven, grandmother of four, and a kin provider who experienced many childhood traumas and sought help and services from the California Parent and Youth Helpline and the Parents Anonymous online groups. It saves lives.

It saved my son's life, my daughter's life, and a 6th grader's life from my son's school. My son and I have had the privilege to share our story with others on Spectrum One News during the height of the pandemic when everybody was isolated, feeling lonely, and frightened. My son at this tender age of 11 was searching ways to kill himself due to his ADHD medication being changed.

Without the trained counselors on the California Parent and Youth Helpline, and caring and compassionate group facilitators in Parents Anonymous groups, he wouldn't be alive today. And his story is not the only one. My children and I are one of millions of diverse California parent, children and youth who call, text and live chat the helpline and attend free weekly Parents Anonymous groups to build on our strengths as a family.

I am resilient today and my family is thriving together. Because of the amazing emotional support we have received from the California Parent and Youth Helpline and Parents Anonymous groups, we believe that asking for help is a sign of strength and that the Legislature needs to pass AB 2941 so that the California Parent and Youth Helpline and Parents Anonymous groups. Can I have one second? Okay, thank you.

Can continue to support families and prevent child abuse and neglect and ensure a positive future for generations to come. Now help us on a phone call, text, or live chat away. I stand here today 18 years, two months, and 24 days clean because of this amazing organization. I plead with my heart, body, and soul that you pass AB 2941 today. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Now, do we have members of the public who wish to testify in support of the bill? Please come forward to the microphone.

Mr. Chair, Members. Rick Rollens, representing the Association of Regional Center Agencies, ARCA, in support of the bill.

Thank you. And do we have any members of the public wish to testify in opposition to the bill? Please come forward. Seeing none, I'll bring back to the Committee. Any questions or comments from the Committee Members? All right, Assembly Member Essayli.

Just a quick question. I know a few years back, we created this new hotline, 988, which is supposed to be kind of the new thing now for people to seek mental help. Are you guys tied into that, or is this like a separate thing?

It's totally separate, but we connect with them. So many people see 988 as focusing on one thing, suicide ideation. We have parents. All you have to do is type in parent help to your phone right now, and our number will come up. So we're here for the broad based issues, including when people are suicidal. We're not eliminated, and we coordinate with them all the time. If there are mobile psych teams, we coordinate with them.

If they're in your communities. If there are police who need to go out and do a wellness check, we connect with them. We don't leave any parent, child, or youth hanging in any circumstance, or even a grandma who's calling or an abuela or an auntie who might be struggling in a nursing home and want to know why their grandchildren haven't come to visit them. We don't leave anybody behind. So our scope is broader but relatable.

Okay. I think my comment is just more that it'd be nice to find a way to sort of tie all these things so there's a one stop shop. Everyone knows 988 is easy to remember. It's like 911, but for mental health. So it'd be nice at some point. I know that's beyond the scope of this bill, but to get everything in one place, I think it's hard for people to know there's all these resources. So with that, I'll support it.

Thank you.

Assembly Member Ortega? All right, bill's been moved and seconded. Assembly Member Grayson, if you'd like to close.

Respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you very much for your consideration.

All right. Thank you so much for bringing this bill forward and supporting parents and families of all stripes. As noted in the analysis, the existing family urgent response system that is proposed to be eliminated in the budget is still invaluable to our current foster youth, and this should not supplant that need. So thank you for bringing this bill forward. I am recommending an I vote and the bill has been moved by Assembly Member Ortega and seconded by Assembly Member Calderon. Madame Secretary, please call the roll.

File item 17, AB 2941. The motion is do passed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

The bill has four votes and it is out. We'll leave the roll open for absent Members. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And I think I saw Assembly Member Low. If he wants to come present his File Item--File Number--File Item Number 11: AB 2544 by Low.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and colleagues, for allowing me to present Assembly Bill 2544 to help reduce background check barriers for prospective employees, and with me today, I have additional witnesses in support: Ms. Shilton and also Ms. Maguire. I respectfully ask for an aye vote, and we'll turn it over to our fellow colleagues to present.

Thank you. Two minutes per witness, please.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Adrienne Shilton with the California Alliance of Child and Family Services. We represent nonprofit, community-based organizations across California that are serving children and youth and families in public systems. We are the proud sponsor of Assembly Bill 2544 today. This bill will significantly help with our workforce shortages and also help support and address the needs of our foster youth.

AB 2544 will allow for prospective employees in licensed children's residential programs who have lived out of state within the past five years and awaiting the out-of-state check to be hired prior to the complete background check completed, as long as very specific conditions have been met: one: that the program has submitted a request for the out-of-state check.

Two: the applicant has been cleared for all other aspects of the background checks, including Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigations, and the Child Abuse Central Index, through our state's guardian program, and then we have also added very specific language into the bill that prohibits the applicant from having unsupervised contact with the residents until that completion of the federal check has happened. So the applicant must be under supervision until the complete caregiver background check has been--has been done.

In our survey of our members' short-term therapeutic residential programs, which programs provide critical therapeutic interventions for foster youth with high needs, they really display how acute this challenge is. The average time that it takes to clear a prospective employee coming from out of state is 71 days. Some of our agencies report receiving up to 30 percent of their potential hires from out of state. So we are losing critical staff who just simply cannot wait that long. So we ask for your aye vote today. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and Members. My name is Alyssum Maguire. I'm the Executive Director of Progress Ranch. We're a mental health agency. We provide mental health services as well as care and supervision in residential programs for some of California's most vulnerable children and their families. As a person responsible for kids who have been abused and neglected, I can tell you that my first priority is always safety. There's just no doubt about that. That's why AB 2544 is so, so important.

Our staffing ratios, by regulation, are one fully trained staff per three kids during the daytime, and that level of staffing is extraordinarily difficult to accomplish because of a workforce shortage in our field. In fact, this shortage of workers, among other things, has driven us, has driven many agencies like ours to close beds and actually not have those services available anymore. In order to keep our kids safe, we need to have enough qualified workers to properly supervise and support them.

So while many of the qualified applicants that we receive have worked in another state over the past five years, or they've studied in another state, they've gone to college there, what we see is that we can't really move forward with most of them because they're out-of-state, and we just can't afford to wait the six weeks or in some cases, the six months that it will take for their background checks to clear to be able to start working.

And we urgently, for safety reasons, need to hire these positions and get them filled right away. So you can't wait six months to bring someone in for that. Because of this, we have screened, in the last three months, about 40 applicants. We've just screened them out just because they're out-of-state. Haven't even interviewed them. That's about 26 percent of the applicants we've received. So you can see it's quite a significant challenge.

If you please, wrap up? If you please wrap up, please?

Sorry. Let me skip forward here. AB 2544 exceeds our internal safety measures by requiring the out-of-state staff cannot be left alone with children until their out-of-state abuse and neglect registry comes back clear. So they'd still need to pass all the same clearances that our California staff do, in addition to the other, and they would be left supervised.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, are there any folks in the hearing room, members of the public who wish to testify in support of the bill, please come forward to the microphone.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members, Connie Delgado, on behalf of Newport Health Care, operating 44 residential treatment facilities in California, in support.

Thank you. Do we have any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the bill? Please come forward. Any opposition? All right, well, let's bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? All right. Invite the author to close.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you for bringing the bill forward. The bill has been moved by Assembly Member Ortega, seconded by Assembly Member Calderon. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File Item 11: AB 2544: the motion is 'do pass to the Assembly Public Safety Committee.' [Roll Call].

Four to zero. That bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for absent Members. Next, we're gonna have Assembly Member Maienschein come up to present File Item 15. When you're ready.

Thank you very much, Mister Chair and Members. As an advocate for human rights and equality for all Californians, I present AB 2802, which seeks to create more gender inclusive options for housing arrangements within transitional housing placement, or THP programs. THP programs serve as a lifeline for current and former foster youth over 18 suffering from homelessness, offering them temporary relief and crucial support services tailored to their needs.

However, when implementing these programs, providers often encounter challenges in placing youth stemming from exclusionary and discriminatory practices present in certain counties. These challenges arise from rigid, binary, gender based rules for housing arrangements. It's important we acknowledge the harsh realities faced by many transgender, gender, nonconforming or non binary and intersex individuals in the state. The statistics are staggering, between 2019 and 2023, the number of nonbinary and gender questioning people experiencing homelessness surged by at least 183%.

Currently, the designation of housing vacancies as male and female creates barriers for individuals, siblings and co-parenting youth who wish to live together but who do not share the same gender identity. AB 2802 aims to rectify these disparities by allowing foster youth in transitional housing to share rooms with roommates, siblings or co-parents who do not share the same gender identity with the approval of the provider on a case by case basis.

In doing so, this Bill promotes flexibility and gender identification for room assignments, accommodating the diverse needs of all California residents irrespective of their gender identity or expression. This is not just about legislation, it's about upholding the values of compassion, inclusivity and equity. By supporting this Bill, we take a significant step towards creating a more just society where every individual, regardless of their gender identity, feels value and support. I respectfully request an aye vote.

With me to testify here in support is Adrian Schulten of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services and Levi Nunez of Penny Lane Centers.

All right, thank you. Two minutes per witness again, please. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Shared Members Adrienne Shilton with the California Alliance of Child and Family Services. We represent nonprofit, community based organizations across California, many of whom are operating the transitional housing placement programs. We are a proud sponsor of Assembly Bill 2802, which would allow for providers and participants to make the best matches in these transitional housing programs to allow for this gender flexibility. These programs serve a diverse population of youth, including LGBTQ youth, pregnant and co parenting youth, and sibling sets.

LGBTQ youth and parenting youth are overrepresented in our foster care system. According to the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, about 30% of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ. According to the National Foster Youth Initiative, almost 60% of girls in foster care become pregnant by the age of 19.

Despite the unique needs of this population, some counties are requiring transitional housing placement participants to be of the same gender when sharing a unit or a room together, and this poses difficulties to our gender expansive youth, co parents who wish to raise a child together and also siblings who are of different genders.

So by implementing this policy statewide that allows for providers and the participants to jointly decide on the best placement and roommate options for the youth, we will be able to better accommodate the needs of our foster youth. This is really a youth homelessness prevention Bill for a very vulnerable population and we are very proud to support and ask for your aye vote.

Good afternoon, Chair Members Levi Nunez with Penny Lane Centers, a family centered mental health agency that works closely with the Department of Children and Family Services. I have experience as a transitional age youth who has aged out of foster care. I now work as a peer navigator and advocate for LGBTQ foster youth and homeless transitional age youth.

I'm championing AB 2802 because I have personally been affected by the exclusionary practices regarding gender and programs which prohibited me from identifying as male to secure housing in order to avoid homelessness. A few years ago, I was homeless and couchsurfing. I was accessing resources from a drop in center who was also providing me with housing case management. I had been waiting on housing for a few weeks with no response.

After getting kicked out of the place I was staying at while trying to hold down a full time job, I was ready to give up with all my possessions in two backpacks and a large Ikea bag, I had no hope. The housing case manager who was trying to pull strings to get me housed on a Friday night told me that because I was so early in my transition, preoperative, anything.

I could use my identity to my advantage to get housing quicker simply because I was assigned female at birth. The amount of isolation, unwanted sexual advances, inappropriate questions, stress, dysphoria, and confusion that I had to undergo in order to receive permanent housing supportive services is not something I could have handled without weekly therapy, case management, drop in centers, paid focus groups, allies, and many phone calls to the National Suicide Prevention hotline.

I was in that transitional housing placement for six months, and I don't know if I would still be here today if I had not received permanent housing supportive services to continue to access mental health services. I believe that as the needs and norms of our foster youth change and shift with time, our policies protecting them have to as well. We need to hold space for all youth, especially the ones that don't have conventional experiences. Their lives depend on it.

AB 2802 allows for youth like me to have equitable access to housing regardless of perceived gender or gender identity, so others won't have to go through the same hurdles as I did in order to receive life saving transitional housing placements. Cumulative data from a report made by the alternative family services shows that young men who were in foster care were 82% more likely to become homeless.

This is not, it's not news that foster youth face homelessness at a higher rate than youth who live with their parents. But I'm here today to tell you my story and why I would like to highlight the gender bias that our young men and gender expansive youth often face when it comes to supportive housing services in our system. AB 2802 is a homelessness prevention Bill, and we urge your support today.

All right, thank you so much. Now, if there are folks in the room who wish to testify in support of the Bill, please come with the microphone. Witnesses in support.

Kristen Power with the alliance for Children's Rights in support.

Kim Lewis, representing Aspiranet in support.

Jenny Choislaw on behalf of California Coalition for Youth in support.

. All right, thank you. Now, are there any folks in the room wish to testify in opposition to the Bill? Please come forward. Any opposition to the Bill? See none. I'll bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments from the Committee? All right. Assembly member Essayli.

Martin Radsovich on behalf of San Diego Housing Commission in support

Thank you. I just, I have some concerns only because when it comes to siblings, I get that.

I think it makes sense to keep family units together, but I'm a little concerned about having young women potentially sharing rooms with unrelated biological boys. So I'm concerned about that. So are you, do you have any concerns as well, or I mean, I just think if having a young girl in foster care, potentially sharing a room with someone who's transitioning or still biological, could pose a safety issue.

And Mr. Essayli, I'll start and then maybe I can turn over the sponsors. First off, we're talking in the non siblings. I mean, obviously it's mostly talking about siblings and the non siblings percentage wise, a very small percentage. Cases that really, at the tail end of this, we're trying to avoid homelessness is going to be decided on a case by case basis with consent of all the parties. So not against anyone's consent, a supervisor has to be on site. So certainly understand that.

And not in any way putting that down. But having said that, I think here between the fact of consent of all parties involved, the fact that there are very specific rules in legislation, by the way, as to what involves people being removed from that housing, and then finally with having on site individuals, I think it accommodates those concerns.

Okay. Is the consent in practice? Because I don't remember reading that in here.

That, yeah, consent is in practice, and these are. this is about providers working with the youth to make the best matches, considering safety, considering youth choice, considering the other, you know, individuals who are in the housing unit. So these are. These are made with like that in mind, and as Mr. Maienschein explained, the provider is on, is on site.

All right, invite the author to close.

I appreciate the feedback. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair and Members, and request an aye vote.

Thank you so much. Can we get a motion for the Bill? Those are moved. I'll second. Thank you for working with us on this incredibly important Bill, and thank you for sharing your testimony as well. You know, our community, LGBT youth, are especially over represented in homelessness, unfortunately. And these are one of the important issues to keep our young LGBT folks housed. So I will be recommending an aye vote on AB 2802. Madam Secretary, please call the roll file.

Roll Call

Well, it says, good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members.

Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. That Bill is on call two to one. We're going to return to file item order, and we're going to go take file item 6, 2255 by Assembly member Joe Patterson. If he's ready. You may begin when you're ready. Great.

I'm here to present AB 2255 which is honestly a pretty simple Bill, but right now, the adoption assistance program for individuals in foster care only applies to those adopted after the age of 16 and generally can only last until they're 21 years old, if they're actually extended. And that does create a disincentive, I think, kind of a gross disincentive to help individuals who are in foster care become successful.

We don't need to rehash, you hear it all day long in these committees, but the difficulties that children and becoming adults, they're overrepresented in homeless populations and prison populations. And the adoption assistance program is a way to assist those children through this well and become adults through this program, irrespective of when they're adopted.

And so both my Chief of Staff and also my friend and fellow elected in Placer County, Sean T. Landing, who's a county supervisor, could express some of the concerns with the existing program, which is well intended. But really, if we can give an opportunity to assist more, that would be, that would be obviously a terrific situation. So I will turn it over to the expert county supervisor, Shanti Landon.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. My name is Shanti Landon. I serve on the Board of the Placer County Board of Supervisors, but I'm here today as a parent and a mom. My husband and I are parents to five children. Four of them are adopted from foster care. One of our children, who I thankfully have permission to share his story, was born prematurely with methamphetamines in his system. He came to live with us at six months old after being placed in three different foster homes.

As our son grew up, he struggled with impulse control, focus, and common sense, decisions that came a lot easier to his peers. Although he attended private school and had loving, supportive parents at home, when he turned 18, he was far from being an adult. Our son was physically and societally an adult, but emotionally and maturity wise, he was still not.

For example, when he went to get his driver's license at 18, he didn't know his Social Security number and decided that he would just make up a number and put it in. When he received bills for driving on toll roads, he didn't understand how to pay them, so he just decided to not pay them until he started receiving collection notices. He meant so well.

His heart is so pure, but his actions mirrored that of a younger child who was still in foster care without the guidance of an adult. Our story is not unique. I have spoken to hundreds of adoptive parents over the years whose adult children are in the same boat. They are old enough to make decisions on their own, but struggle with basic daily activities like applying for a job, holding a job, paying bills, finding permanent housing, and more.

Sadly, many of the services and programs that are available for youth who have aged out of foster care are not available to kids who have been adopted. Some children even conclude that it would be better not to be adopted so that they can continue to receive benefits until they're 26, instead of having those services cut off at 18.

If our son had continued to receive financial support, such as AAP, that could be directed to food, housing, or education until the age of 26, he could have maintained access to critical support services as he transitioned to adulthood. This could have made a dramatic difference during those years. I'm not here today for my own kids since they have already crossed the threshold into adulthood.

But for the many, many adoptive families who are now walking that difficult road, removing the minimum adoption age requirement for AAP funding and increasing the eligibility age up to 26 years is an investment that will pay dividends for years to come. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Now, do we have any folks in the room who wish to find support of the Bill? Please come up to the microphone.

Adrienne Shilton, on behalf of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, in support.

Thank you. Now, do we have any Members of the public wish to testify in opposition to Bill? Please come forward or come up to the desk.

Good afternoon. Amanda Kirchner with CWDA. We are currently opposed to the bill as in print. We had a great conversation with the author staff on Friday afternoon. We think it's just a little bit overly broadly drafted for what the intent is, which we believe is to extend those who are currently receiving AAP out past 21 to 26. The way it's currently drafted, we think incorporates more kids that would have been out of care and then brought back in.

And so we'd like to sort of tighten up some of that language and would note that it would result in additional workload costs for us to expand out that population and that we believe there's some automation concerns with our current CWS system and able to actually do those payments outside of the current AAP guidelines that go up only to 21. So happy to continue working with the author on those issues. But right now for the bill as in print, we do have concerns.

Thank you. Now, are there any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the bill? Please come forward. Seeing none. Questions and comments from the Committee Members? Assembly Member Gipson.

Thank you very much. To the opposition, you said it's broadly drafted. Can you give me specifics? I kind of like the bill as it is. I'm just curious.

Of course, sir. So right now, AAP, if you're adopted under 18, you get AAP until you turn 18, if you have a physical or mental disability that can be extended out to 21. The way we believe the bill is currently drafted is that if you're adopted post 21, so you'd be outside of extended foster care, then this would allow for those folks to then receive AAP after that fact.

So we wouldn't necessarily be able to track those children and youth because they would have been outside of our system, possibly adopted afterwards, and then brought back into the system to give them the AAP. So that's why it's really outside of the scope of what we think they're trying to do, which is simply extend AAP past 18 up to 26.

So you don't oppose the bill, you just want to make sure you capture, have the ability to follow, to be able to make sure those kids who are outside the time is tracked and receive the benefits. Am I correct?

So the underlying policy of AAP we're very supportive of. But I would note this is a Policy Committee, we will have fiscal concerns because this is a realigned program. And so that means that we have to get the funding upfront for the state, for this additional population before we would be able to implement. So if that funding gets identified with us in the budget, then we'd be happy to implement as they're envisioning. But right now, that hasn't been identified.

So you sound like you do agree with the bill.

If there's funding, yes. To the intent of what they want to do, that's what. If it's identified for the funding and the rest of the programmatic issues that we have to address, we could be supportive. Counties are happy to give AAP to the families that qualify.

Okay. Thank you.

Are you complete, Mr. Gipson?

Continue? Sure. I want to say thank you to the author. I don't know if the bill has been moved, but I would like to move the bill. Looking at the even just in the space of foster youth and being able to extend it. Even right now, for a parent to carry a child, can carry a child on their benefits up until age 26, I think it's reasonable for that to even to be extended to 26 years of age.

I want to commend one of your witness for her testimony and taking on children that are not biologically yours, but giving them the home and the nurturing that you have up until they aged out. I think it's a very noble thing to do because our children, especially those who are adopted, those who foster, really are having a difficult time. And we want to provide the kind of nurturing and loving home that we want for our own children, our own biological children.

And so you and your family have done that, stepped up. I have family members who are not blood related, but they wear our last name and we love them just the same and appreciate them and giving us the opportunity for them to come into our home and to be part of our family. And for you to do that, it's really commendable. And I want to thank the author and ask the author if he would consider me being a co-author of the bill.

Definitely.

Thank you.

Thank you. And Assembly Member Essayli.

Thank you. First off, I read your opposition letter. Your opposition is based on that it would cause IT issues to implement. I just, I find that we're talking about, we're talking about kids here who are experiencing extremely difficult life circumstances. These are our kids. They're the state's kids. They're wards of the state, and we're trying to get them into loving, caring homes. And your opposition is worried about IT issues. I just think it's so tone deaf and it really misses the mark.

You guys need to be serving these kids and removing impediments and not throwing up things like IT issues, so. And then you also said the bill goes beyond what they're trying to do. No, I think they know exactly what they're trying to do. They want to extend coverage up to age 26.

Because if you're considering adopting a foster kid who's 16 or 17, and you're only going to get a year of assistance from the state, that creates a financial disincentive to adopting older kids who are the most probably difficult to find homes for. So I support this, and I don't want to hear anything about fiscal. We spend so much money on so much crap in this state that we can prioritize money for foster kids. So you know, I respectfully disagree. And I like to thank the author and I'd like to move the bill as well. I like to move the bill.

Yeah, I'll count that as a second.

Oh, did you do it already? I missed it. Sorry.

Mr. Essayli, are you complete? Are you complete?

Yeah. Okay, I'm done. Thanks.

All right, I'll invite the author to close.

Great. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to my colleagues here. You know, it's my pleasure to bring such unity to this Committee and, but look, in reality, I think I do. You know what Mr. Essayli said and is this is intentionally a broad bill. That doesn't mean that I'm unwilling to look at ways to narrow it if necessary, if we really have to, but we're going for the home run.

Because the reality is if we can incentivize more loving people to take on children that are most likely to become homeless, then we ought to do that. And if there's IT issues and things like that, we can, you know, nibble around the edges. But that certainly should not be a reason why we're not helping foster kids. And so with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote, and looking forward to work with anybody who has input on this bill on how to make it better. Always. And thank you, Mr. Gipson, for your comments, by the way.

All right, thank you so much. Expanding benefits to families for a longer period of time is part of a larger discussion of how to best support current and former foster youth and families who have adopted these youth. Thank you for bringing this bill forward, especially as the conversation continues to evolve. Please keep my Committee staff involved. And I look forward to seeing a bipartisan, Republican-led effort to have more government spending. I'm recommending an aye vote on this one. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item six, AB 2255. The motion is do pass to the Assembly Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]

Four to zero. That bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for absent Members. All right, Assembly Member Wendy Carrillo, come up when you are ready to present file item 7, 2383.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. First, let me begin by saying that I accept the Committee amendments, and I am proud to present AB 2383, which will ensure that middle-income families with developmentally disabled children are informed about available programs they would like to qualify for, allowing their child to receive Medi-Cal without their parents' income taken into consideration.

Developmentally disabled children are those with an acute or chronic health condition that requires things like therapeutic intervention and skilled nursing care during all or part of the day. Amongst these conditions are severe lung disease requiring oxygen or ventilator, spina bifida, heart disease, neuromuscular disease, cystic fibrosis, and seizure disorders. Support for medically fragile children and their families is critical to maximizing quality of life and allowing families to be whole.

Families may have limited amount of time with their child or may struggle to ensure their child can participate at school and in age-appropriate activities. Financial strain and navigating care can be especially acute for middle-income families that are above the normal threshold to receive Medi-Cal. State waiver programs allow families that normally wouldn't qualify for Medi-Cal to receive it for their child, helping cover the cost of care and offer care coordination support. This gives families more time to actually be a family.

But there is an information gap that leaves these waiver programs that could dramatically improve a family situation underutilized. This bill would create a training for hospital and Regional Centers to staff--Regional Center staff--to ensure they have up-to-date information about what waiver programs are already offered so they can share that information with families that would likely qualify. This training would be created with the work of the Department of Social Services and the Department of Health Care Services as well as with stakeholder input.

Here to talk more about the need for this bill and answer any questions are Elizabeth Spencer of the Westside Family Resource and Empowerment Center, and Cindy Rubin, mother of Darby, who this bill is named after. This is Darby's policy, Darby's law, so I'll pass it on to you.

Thank you so much. Two minutes per witness, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. Thank you. My name is Cindy Rubin. This is my son, Dylan. I'm here to support AB 2383, a bill I affectionately refer to as Darby's Legacy. My daughter was Darby Jean. She lived a full 15 months before passing away.

During her short life, I spent an unnecessary and unbelievable amount--majority of my time in desperate search of programs to assist her in our family unit, rather than having the ability to dedicate my energy and enjoyment to the brief time we knew we would have with her. In many regards, I feel cheated out of the motherhood I should have had with her, not because of her medical diagnosis, but because of the subpar knowledge of professionals we came in contact with.

They lacked the ability to inform and to guide us on the most vital avenues available to immediately qualify Darby for the supportive care she was entitled to from birth. As parents of a child with a rare diagnosis, we had no idea what we didn't know, which was very unfortunate for us. My husband and I consistently asked meaningful questions about services, only to be met with blank stares. That gap cost us eight months of my daughter's lifetime until I found the right people.

I found the right people to circle the wagons around us. California options we were eligible for already existed here, and had we met with staff who were better equipped with programmatic knowledge from the hospital setting, not months later, would have avoided us from circling the drain just to find a way to help our daughter. Sadly, our story is just one among many California families. The needle has not moved an inch.

Totally avoidable barriers. 2383 will allow a clearer path to services for disabled children, implement mandatory ongoing education, require a minimum consistent standard of training on programs and waivers so that those privileged enough to work with these very special children and their families is current. Time is borrowed, and this thorough knowledge base is crucial. I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Committee Members, my name is Elizabeth Spencer, and I'm here in support of AB 2383: Darby's Legacy. I am the Director of the Westside Family Resource and Empowerment Center located in Culver City. I was first introduced to the Rubin Family in December 2017, and while I didn't know a lot about services in South Pasadena, I know enough about California and the systems of care in Los Angeles County that I was optimistic I could help.

At the time, the Rubins had gone down to one salary and Cindy and John were providing round the clock 24-hour care to Darby with no outside assistance or help. I knew that Darby had been readmitted to the hospital twice since birth and that she had been made eligible for Regional Center services through Early Start. I immediately asked if either the hospital or Regional Center had discussed putting Darby on one of the California state waivers.

What I would eventually learn is that while Darby was born at one of LA County's largest birthing hospitals, not a single staff member, from the physicians to the social workers and care coordinators, knew of the existence of the waivers. I also learned that the Early Start service coordinator and her manager did not know that Darby could be elevated to status two and would therefore qualify for the DD or Developmental Disabilities Waiver.

Either of these would have provided the much-needed in-home services, copay assistance, and medical equipment that would have bought brought relief to this family much earlier. It's important to note this family ordered a pulse oximeter off Amazon. I don't for a second believe that either the hospital or the Regional Center chose not to tell the family of these options. I do absolutely believe they truly did not know, and that is unacceptable.

California has some of the most robust programs to support medically fragile and/or developmentally disabled infants and children in the country. They already exist. We must make certain that hospitals and Regional Center personnel have the information to share with families. That's all we're asking, and I appreciate your time and ask for your support.

Thank you so much. Now, are there any members of the public who wish to testify in support of the bill? Please come to the microphone.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Now are there any folks who wish to testify in opposition to the Bill, please come forward. Seeing that, let's bring it back to the Committee. Any remarks, questions from any Committee Members? Assemblywoman Ortega?

I just want to thank the author and the family for sharing such a beautiful, heartwarming, but yet, you know, tragic story that we need to work on as a Member of the Rare Disease Caucus and you know, someone who's working on disability issues, I applaud your willingness and your strength to come before us today to move this forward. So I moved the Bill.

All right, I would like to invite the author to close.

Thank you Mister chair and appreciate the comments. Assemblymember AB 2383 is a narrow training requirement that will make a big difference for families that are eligible for, but currently uninformed of waivers available to allow their developmentally child to be covered by Medi Cal. Again, these are programs that already exist that the state has funded. There's available resources, but there is a lack in communication at hospitals and at Regional Centers so that families really get the most care.

I want to thank the Committee staff for working with my office as well as the sponsor, the arc of California, and former Member, Assemblymember Jim Frazier who made the call directly to me to make sure that we were able to move this policy forward. This Bill has no opposition. And on behalf of Darby, her family and her older brother Dylan, I respectfully request and I vote, thank you so.

Much for bringing the Bill forward. Salvage Rio and Dylan, I think you're giving Mister Gibson a run for his money on the bowtie game, so you're showing him up over here. I appreciate you sharing your story and what you've been through. And I have an eye recommendation on Darby's law and Madam Secretary. oh, the Bill was moved by Asemblymember Ortega, seconded by Assemblymember Gipson. Madame Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That Bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for absent Members.

Thank you so much.

All right, Senator Arambula, you are next. Request for file item 1025. 10. You may begin when you are ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. I would like to begin by thanking the Committee staff for the conversations and I will be accepting the Committee amendments today. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities should have access to quality and timely dental care to prevent dental disease. Access to preventative dental care is critical for the prevention of chronic illness. Deferred or avoided oral health treatment is linked not only to tooth decay, but to depression, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory infections, and adverse pregnancy outcomes.

People who have complex medical, physical, cognitive, or behavioral health challenges are the most vulnerable to delayed dental care in our state. This community oftentimes requires extra time and attention for routine and preventative care.

Yet there are not enough oral health providers with the expertise to serve these patients effectively. This has led many patients with disabilities to be placed on wait lists that are months or years long, or to simply go without routine dental care.

Specifically, AB 2510 establishes the Oral Health for People with Disabilities Technical Assistance Center to provide training and educational materials to expand the use of alternative methods other than sedation or general anesthesia for providing oral health services for people with disabilities that are not currently widely understood across our state's Regional Centers. In support of AB 2510 today are our two lead witnesses, Pat Hornbecker, the Board President for the Arc, and former Assembly Member Jim Frazier, the Director of Public Policy for the Arc of California.

Thank you. Thank you for entertaining this bill. This is my son, Joseph. He is 43 years old. He has Angelman Syndrome, and I'm a retired dental hygienist. So this is right in my up my alley. I have cleaned his teeth myself for most of his life. It takes three of us to do, and most people would be sedated 100%. But when I needed fillings done or anything else, even my brother and father, who were the dentists I worked for, referred us to the nearest dental school.

I live in San Francisco. I am lucky enough to have been able to go to UOP. That was great. But Joseph was put on a waiting list for two years just to be assessed. I knew what he needed. I could see it. I knew as a professional. But he was on a waitlist for two years to get an assessment.

And in those two years after the assessment, they said, well, he's not urgent because he's not in pain, so we're going to put him on another waitlist to get treatment. That treatment took him another three years. It was four to five years before he ever received any treatment. He needed total sedation. Absolutely, that was required.

But the reason the list was so long is because most, maybe half of the people on that list could be treated by dental professionals who knew how to use different kinds of interventions, preventative work, ways of prepping the patient in order to receive less intense treatment or having to go to an emergency room.

The cost of going to emergency rooms for many of my patients over the years was, you know, it's $4,000 just to walk in the door, and parents just could not find people to provide services. The dentist who did my son's treatment ultimately is the only oral surgeon in Northern California, and I happen to live in San Francisco, so that was lucky for me. Do you know what the families do in Redding or what they do anywhere else?

They have to come and sit down, drive all the way down to the city to receive some treatment. He was in the hospital all day and he ended up losing the teeth you see. He lost all of his lower teeth, and that's criminal. We need to be able to shorten these wait lists. And what this bill will do, it will create virtual dental homes and use trained dental hygienists like myself to be able to provide community care.

All right, thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members. The Little Hoover Commission, the LAO, the California State Auditor have all weighed in on Medi-Cal dental, and they've all stated several shortcomings for the Developmental Disability Committee in the Medi-Cal dental program. You know, there's no registry on the DHCS or Smile California website for dentists that serve the developmentally disabled community that accept Medi-Cal reimbursement. That's criminal in itself.

We cannot have our developmentally disabled families who have to search for all of these unnecessary promises that were made by the state of California and make it even harder on them. There's only 330 Medi-Cal dental clinics statewide. If you take that, the 15 million residents in California that are on Medi-Cal dental, that's 45,000 plus participants per clinic. We only have 137 registered dental hygienists in alternative practice. What we're trying to promote, that's down from 191 in 2018.

Many counties have zero dentists taking on new patients, and there is 31,000 new Regional Center clients coming online this year. You know, it's really frustrating. You know, I was here in 2012, 2013 and here we are in 2024, and we're saying the same thing over and over and over. What did the Lanterman Act mean? Was it a promise of false hope? Was it something that we said that we were going to do? But we're not. We're just kidding.

With several counties having zero Medi-Cal dental providers at all, we have to do better. And I hope this bill really does forward that finally. Mr. Chair, Members, I request respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Now, do we have any members of the public wish to testify and support the bill? Please come forward.

Mr. Chair, Members. Rick Rollens, representing ARCA, Association of Regional Center Agencies. And as a parent of a 34 year old son with autism who is nonverbal, I can tell you from personal experience, it's a tragedy for parents to have to live with a situation where child can't tell you what's wrong. And in many cases it's the teeth. And we've suffered for many years and we really hope that this bill does move forward and we seriously address the problem of dental care for people with developmental disabilities. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Jennifer Tannehill with Erin Reed and Associates, on behalf of the California Dental Hygienist Association, really want to thank the author and sponsor sponsors for taking on this issue. Medi-Cal dental, especially for the developmentally disabled, has just been a really, really difficult thing for them to access. And so we just look forward to working with you as through the process.

Thank you. If we can stick to just name and affiliation, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Dr. Paul Glassman, associate dean for Research and Community Engagement at California North State University. Having worked with Regional Centers in this population for 45 years, we now have a comprehensive solution that we know can reduce the number of people waiting in those long lines by more than 50%, which will make the lines much shorter for the people who actually need it. I urge support of the bill.

Thank you Alison Ramey, on behalf of the California Dental Association in support.

Thank you.

Chris Grogan with the Prion Company, on behalf of Children's Choice Dental Care in support.

Thank you. Now, do we have any opposition to this bill? Please come forward. Any members of the public wish to testify in opposition to the bill? Seeing none, let's turn back to the Committee. Any questions? Comments? All right, I'll invite the author to close.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, for the lengthy discussion today. It's important for us to honor the Lanterman Act and to make sure we can deliver upon it. This bill will take us a step in that direction. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Assembly Member Arambula. Just to confirm, you accept the Committee's amendments, correct?

That's correct.

Great. The bill was moved by Mr. Gipson, seconded by Assembly Member Ortega. I just want to say that dental health is important to overall well being of a person. The health complications relative to lack of access to dental care can be deadly. And I want to thank you, Dr. Arambula, for working on a bill to ensure individuals with developmental disabilities have this vital access. I'm recommending aye as amended. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item 10, AB 2510. The motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Higher Education Committee. [Roll Call]

Three to zero. We'll keep that on call now. Assembly Member Bryan, you have two items up and I appreciate your patience. Which bill do you want to start with?

Start with 3217.

3217, that's file item 24. So whenever you are ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues. I'm here to present AB 3217, a simple bill that would ensure that county welfare agencies are consistently using best practices for family finding while considering placement options for foster youth in their care. Over and over again, research has shown that when a child enters foster care, placing them with a relative or a loved one who they know improves the outcomes for the child.

Children placed with their kin have fewer placement disruptions, school changes, and are less likely to run away from home. They're more likely to report that they feel loved and supported during their time in foster care. According to data from the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, however, there are counties in California that are falling behind compared to their peers when it comes to placing foster children with their kin.

For example, one major county has a 22% placement rate, which is drastically lower than the state average of 34% and the national average of 35.5%. AB 3217 is a straightforward bill that puts forth two different requirements to ensure that counties are meeting family placement expectations. First is it will require that counties that fall behind the statewide average consult with the directors of the top three counties on best practices.

For the purposes of this bill, this requirement can easily be fulfilled through an email or even a phone call. This should not and is not an onerous responsibility. Second, it will require those same counties that are falling behind to agendize the topic at a County Board of Supervisors hearing. This will provide the accountability and necessary transparency to hold welfare county welfare agencies accountable for improving the conditions of life for the children and the families in their care.

When California assumes custody of a child, we are responsible for minimizing any further trauma that a child could face. This bill ensures that we are doing all that we can to place young people and foster care with loved ones rather than strangers in times of instability and distress. Joining me today to provide statements and support are Lorreen Pryor and Sade Ajayi, a former student of mine at UCLA.

All right, two minutes per witness, please.

All right, thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Members. My name is Sade Ajayi, a Sacramento County former youth, the GEMS Program Director for United College Action Network, UCAN, Justice2Jobs organizer, and the Essence of Black Girlhood Project Director, and an incoming 1L law student at Howard School, University of Law. Thank you for allowing me to speak in support of the vitalogy of this bill. I was five years old when my sisters and I were removed from our home.

We were moved to four different strangers' homes, and then within one year in total was because there were no homes for us. Living with strangers made me feel like I did not belong. It made me feel like I was incompetent. If we did not fit into their family structures, cultures, and traditions, we were removed from the home. I lived in a constant state of hypervigilance from abuse, instability, and racial microaggressions.

Eventually, I felt relief after being placed with my aunt in a home that felt like mine. It was a relief because I could relax. For the remainder of five years of foster care living with my aunt, I could let down my guard, which helped me begin focusing on healing my trauma and allowed me to focus on being a kid, whether that was school, friends, or community cultural connection. The familiarity made me feel seen, safe, and empowered.

Being around family gave me hope that I was a step closer to being reunited with my mother. As a young black woman and former foster youth, I know firsthand the longing and disempowerment foster youth children face, what trajectories and exploitation, particularly foster youth of color, often experience, and the persistent anxiety that becomes a constant in a traumatized youth's life.

All this bill does ensure that the foster children and their need to be placed with families is not forgotten but is instead a topic of ongoing conversation at the highest level. Respectfully, on behalf of the foster children, who are literally children of the state, this is not too much to ask. Please vote for AB 3217. Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Members, Lorreen Pryor, President and CEO of Black Youth Leadership Project. In 2013, as a staffer in this building, CPS came to my home with the intent to remove my child. They made several accusations while they had me detained in my kitchen as strangers rummaged through the drawers in my child's bedroom and whisked her out the front door without leaving any cards behind or instructions of what to do next. My daughter was legally kidnapped under the guise of protection.

My mother, who was licensed through Sac County as an emergency foster home, drove to the Children's Receiving Home to get information and to see if they would release my baby to her. Instead of doing so, they fabricated abuse allegations against her as well and placed my daughter into a foster placement, where she ended up being sexually assaulted. After that assault, CPS then moved my daughter to another foster home placement and cut off contact with our family entirely.

Former Assembly Member Tim Donnelly found out about my story and got the media involved. After two months, CPS ended up returning her to our home, but the damage was already done. I am of the opinion that forced removal from parents is extremely traumatic and that kinship placements should be prioritized. Had CPS done their jobs, followed the law and their own policies, my child would not have been subjected to sexual assault under the supervision of complete strangers. I respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you very much. Now, do we have any members of the public in the hearing room wish to testify in support of the bill? Please come up to the microphone.

Mr. Chairman and Members. Ed Howard, on behalf... I'm Senior Counsel at the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law, pleased to sponsor this important measure, and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Good afternoon. Lynn Berkley-Baskin, Justice2Jobs Coalition, asking for your aye vote. Thank you.

Susanna Kniffen with Children Now in support.

Thank you. Now, do we have any witnesses in opposition to the bill? Please come forward. Either one. You could stay. We got Roman. Yeah. Come on.

Thank you, Mr. Bryan.

Of course. Good to see you.

Amanda Kirchner on behalf of CWDA. Once again, we very much appreciate the author's intent with this bill. We are absolutely supportive of all family finding efforts. We just feel this is actually duplicative of ongoing efforts that are currently happening through the Centers for Excellence and UC Davis to do best practices. We have 17 counties that have currently opted into the $150 million worth of funding for family finding. We have three more that are awaiting approval.

But there are some barriers for us to tap into that funding, one of which is that you have to have a designated staff person. And we know, especially for our smaller counties, that can be difficult because they share job duties because there's so much going on.

And then you also have to put up a 50% match for any of the funding that you draw down, which can also be a barrier for our counties to access that funding if they don't have additional reserves to put above their own. But happy to continue working with the author, as always. Really appreciate his interest in this issue. And that's just, we feel it's duplicative, and so that's our current opposition.

All right, thank you. Now, do we have any other members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the bill? Seeing none, let's bring back to the Committee. Questions or comments from Committee Members? All right, I'll ask the author to close.

Thank you. This is a really, really important issue and has been for a number of years across California. It's why we have put up money and budgets past to do all that we can to encourage, motivate, and inspire best practices for our young people. But we are still letting our children down. And the reality is we're not letting our children down equally across the state. Some places are letting our children fall far through the cracks, while others are even beating national averages.

All this bill is asking is that those who are finding tremendous success in family placement rates confer with those who are not and share the trade secrets to do what's right for our children across all of California. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you for bringing the bill forward. It's important to ensure that all foster youth are being given the same opportunity to be placed with relatives, regardless of the county that they live in. The bill can help ensure that best practices for placing youth with relatives are shared. I'm recommending an aye vote today. The bill was moved by Assembly Member Ortega and seconded by Assembly Member Gipson. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item 24, AB 3217. The motion is do pass to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

The bill's on call, and we will leave the roll open. Would you like to go on with the file item 16?

Assemblymember Bryan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues. I want to thank the Committee staff for their hard work as always, we'll be accepting the Committee amendments today. I'm here to present AB-2906, a Bill that would redirect thousands of federal dollars to our state's most vulnerable young people. Millions of dollars statewide. AB-2906 builds on years of work from advocates to expand and strengthen SSA benefits for foster youth.

Specifically, it requires counties to notify the youth and other appropriate stakeholders about the status of their SSA application and benefits, and requires counties to use survivor benefits to pay for the child's current unmet needs and conserve the remaining funds for the child's foreseeable future. Survivor benefits are federal Social Security funds that your loved ones pay into, but sadly, if your loved one passes away, they are ineligible to receive them. Foster youth who lose a parent are often eligible for those survivor benefits.

However, in current practice, when county placing agencies apply for those benefits on the youth's behalf. They often fail to notify the youth, their loved ones, and their attorneys that they are doing so. Instead, after the youth qualifies for those federal benefits designed specifically for them after their parents have passed away, counties automatically apply for themselves to be the representative payee and use the money to recoup the cost of the child's care.

Essentially, agencies are charging eligible foster youth for the cost of their own care and for the care of their peers. Despite federal and state law explicitly placing the financial responsibility of foster care on foster care agencies, AB-2906 will end this archaic practice. In California, we have already stopped billing parents for their child's time in foster care, so why are we still billing children for the cost of their own care?

Survivor benefits can amount to thousands of dollars, which for foster youth could be the difference between going to college or becoming unhoused. With AB-2906, California will be joining several states, including the progressive Nebraska, Oregon, Arizona and others that have recently enacted legislation to cease or limit this archaic practice. Here to testify with me are Kristin Power with the Alliance of Children's Rights. My new friend James Wood, an impacted former foster youth, and his adoptive father Wayne, who's going to be standing by his side.

Hi, my name is James. I am 16 years old. I'm here to testify about my survivor's benefits. I was about 10 years old when CPS took me away from my mother and when I got back with her, sadly, I only had one year before she passed away. And when I got put back into CPS, I think I was very lucky to be in the foster home or adopted house that I am today with Wayne and Cook.

CPS management had told me that I would be getting my back pay from my passed-away mother, but when I got adopted, I was told I would not be getting any of that money. I was disappointed that I would not get none of the money because I was planning to spend it on transportation, gas, sports, and education. If you ask anyone, I think it's very disrespectful to promise someone something and take it away, especially when it's a kid with a deceased parent.

Thank you for letting me talk about my experience and I hope you will consider using AB-2906 to change the law so that no other child will lose their benefits to pay for foster care.

Thank you so much.

Mr. Chair. Kristin Power with the Alliance for Children's Rights. Assemblymember Bryan spoke eloquently to the purpose of the Bill, I just want to add that I was recently contacted by a small county in rural Northern California on this issue, and it was very clear from the communication that they were desperately trying to do what was right for the young person they were calling about. But they really needed clarity to ensure that the survivor benefits were not used for the cost of the child's foster care placement.

So it really underscores the need for the Bill to ensure that we have clarity in law regarding these benefits. Thank Assemblymember Bryan for his leadership on this issue and ask for your aye vote.

All right, are there any members of the public who wish to testify in support of the Bill? Please come forward to the microphone.

Hi, Sally Ching with the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color. Co-sponsors and in support

Kim Lewis, representing Aspiranet. In support.

Susanna Kniffen with Children Now. In support.

Ed Howard. Children's Advocacy Institute. In support.

Denee Choice Law, California Coalition for Youth. In support. Thank you.

Ann Quirk. Children's Law Center of Sacramento in California. Very proud of James. Very proud co-sponsor of this Bill.

Great. Are there any witnesses in opposition to this Bill? Please come forward. Are there any members of the public who testify in opposition to the Bill? Okay. All right, let's bring back the Committee, questions and comments. Assemblymember Gipson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the author for bringing this. I know we've had conversations, even with the County of Los Angeles over this matter, and I was not aware. And thank you very much for one, having your keen eye on this subject matter that needs to be fixed.

Certainly when you look at someone who passes away, the least we can do as they pay into is making sure that a survivor, in this case, James and others like him, are able to draw down to the point where they can use these resources to help further their lives. And I think this is a huge inequity. This is a huge problem, and glad that you offered this Bill to correct the problem that exists in California.

So with that, I would be honored if you will allow me to be a co-author of the Bill. And I want to move this piece of policy because I think it's the right time and then you're in the right place for it. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments saying none. I'll invite the author to close.

There are a lot of traumas in the child welfare system. Children don't often end up there for happy reasons or reasons of abundance. If your biological parents paid into Social Security and passed away, and that's part of the reason you were in the child welfare system. You deserve the same survivor benefits we all are entitled to if we are in those situations. It is unconscionable that counties across California are drawing down those benefits for these young people and then not giving it to them.

We had a chance to fix this last year with a Bill that was sponsored by LA County, sponsored by San Diego County, and it was vetoed by the Governor. And it was wrong. It was a mistake. This is a year to get this right. A good year budgetarily or a bad year in the budget. We can't let our children fall through the cracks. This isn't even our money to begin with. This is their money. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Brian, for bringing this Bill forward. It's so important that foster youth are allowed to keep their survivors benefits and that they're not used to reimburse the county for the cost of their care. So I appreciate your passion on this issue, and you're right. The Governor got it wrong last year. So let's fix it this year. This Bill has been moved by Assemblymember Gibpon, seconded by Assemblymember Ortega. I have an aye as amended vote recommendation. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

Fill item 16, AB-2906. The motion is do-pass, as amended, to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

That bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for absent Members. Thank you. We're gonna return to file item order. So that means it's file item 4, Santiago, AB 2224. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to present and thank you for your work on this bill to help us to improve it. Very simply put, special immigrant juvenile status, commonly known as SIGS, provides limited immigrant relief for vulnerable undocumented children who are young, who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned by either one of their two parents. We are simply seeking for benefits.

First, this population to be able to get benefits while they're going through the process of establishing a residency here in the United States. Similar to what this body helped us to do last year with T visas, U visas, and S visas. But the difference was that that population receives the benefits. All because they are underage,they do not receive this benefit, and that's what we're trying to get to. So I appreciate the ability to present. We have one witness.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Rachel Prandini. I'm an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center where I support advocates statewide in helping their young clients apply for special immigrant juvenile status, or SIJS, which is a special humanitarian path to immigration status. I'm here today in support of and as a co-sponsor of AB 2224, which will help vulnerable young people in California who are eligible to get immigration status, attain stability more quickly, and avoid labor exploitation.

SIJS is only available to young people who are under the age of 21 who've been abandoned, abused, or neglected by a parent and for whom a state juvenile court has determined it's not in their best interest to be returned to their country of origin. Currently, young people who are eligible for SIJS face a protracted process and a wait time of several years before they can actually apply for their green card.

This is because of both bureaucratic delays at the federal level as well as visa caps that exists under federal law. While young people with SIJS wait to apply for their green card, they're not currently eligible for any public benefits under California law. And this is in contrast to people applying for other humanitarian pass status like the U visa or the T visa for victims of crime and trafficking. This leaves young people in a very vulnerable situation.

For example, a client I'll call Susie was abandoned by her parents when she was a baby and was in and out of foster care for most of her life. Although she qualified for and was seeking SIJS, she was not yet eligible for work authorization or public benefits because of her immigration status. As a result, she was left in an unstable living situation with her two small children.

So while myself and other advocates work with Congress to seek an end to the visa backlogs that create this long wait for young people, there are important steps that the state of California can take to support this population. So AB 2224 will help young people in this situation by making three changes to California law. So first, it will ensure that young people who are pursuing SIJS can get public benefits while they wait for their green card.

Second, it will ensure that young people actually receive a copy of the state court predicate order from the state juvenile court on the same day that the court issues it, which will get at delays that exacerbate the young person's wait time with federal immigration agencies. And lastly, it will clarify that under current law, a young person's parent can be appointed as their guardian if they're between the ages of 18 and 21. So I respectfully request your aye vote on AB 2224. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Do we have any members of the public who wish to testify in support of the bill? Please come to the microphone.

Priscilla Kudos here on behalf of the California Faculty Association in support.

Now, do we have any opposition to the bill? Please come forward. Any opposition? All right, let's bring it back to the Committee. Questions, comments? Assembly Member Essayli, you have questions?

Yeah, I just had a question. I was concerned some of the language may be broad. It says it expands the eligibility to individuals who made or are preparing to make a request for an order from the Superior Court. So is there any time constraints on how long one can prepare to make an order?

I'm happy to take a look at it, but I'm having a hard time understanding the concern.

I mean, if they're taking five years to prepare to seek the court order, I mean, there just needs to be some timeline.

If you're referring to the benefits, we would hope that they'd be able to request the benefits as soon as possible. Happy to take a look at preparation of it, but hope that addresses it.

Yeah, I don't think, you know, I won't be able to support it today, but if that language gets tightened up, I might be able to. But it just. It's on paragraph C. I'm just reading from there where it says, you know, individuals who made or are preparing to make a request. So I'm just concerned that's very, very broad.

If I could add also that young people really don't delay in making a request because this is a time limited option. You have to be under 21 when you apply, and the longer that you wait to obtain a state court predicate order, the longer delay you face at the federal level because you will get a place in line for a visa that's much further back. So we really don't see people sitting on these applications. It's super time sensitive. As soon as someone's determined to be eligible, the delays happen in court, and then when you get to the federal level.

Okay, I appreciate you answering my questions.

All right, I'll ask the author to close.

Respectfully ask for an aye vote. And thank you, Mr. Chair and Members.

All right. I appreciate you bringing this bill forward. Streamlining procedures, expanding eligibility criteria, and ensuring the provision of essential services to non citizens who have experienced abuse, neglect, or abandonment, including those seeking special immigrant juvenile status, represents a crucial step towards addressing the needs of marginalized populations. Thank you for bringing this bill forward. I'm recommending an aye vote. The bill has been moved by Assembly Member Ortega, seconded by Assembly Member Gipson. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on AB 2224.

File item four, AB 2224, the motion is do pass to the Assembly Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]

That bill's on call. Thank you. All right, let's move to Assembly Member Wilson. You lucked the timing. File item nine. It's good timing. Whenever you're ready.

Okay. Thank you. Oh, there you go. I'm like, sorry. No, it's okay. It's okay. Well, good afternoon, Mr Chair, Members. I'm pleased to present AB 2459, the bill aimed at helping foster youth retain mentorship. I would like to start by thanking the Committee staff for their work on this bill. It is very much appreciated. I will be accepting the Committee's amendments to refine the provision of the bill that pass on the youth information to a mentoring agency.

Also, to make sure that we are protecting the best interest of the child, we are taking amendments that clearly state that we are not mandating mentor services, but merely asking. As written now, AB 2459 would require the social worker to ask the child whether the child would like to participate in a mentoring program and include written verification of the child's consent to pass on their information to a mentor.

The bill would authorize a court to refer the child to participate in a one-on-one mentoring program through a nonprofit organization that meets specified criteria and has conducted appropriate screening of mentoring volunteers. A well-matched mentor who may have experienced similar traumas and has shared interest with the youth can build a trusting relationship and improve their views of possibilities that can lead to a happy and productive adult life.

Research continues to find that mentored youth are less likely to engage in risky behaviors such as substance abuse, skipping school, and hitting others. Youth facing risk who have mentors are more likely to attend college, participate in sports and other extracurricular activities, and are more likely to take on leadership roles in schools as well as volunteer in their communities.

Having this one-on-one mentoring would be literally life-changing for the kids in the juvenile system and would help to break the cycle of reoffending, giving them a chance at an optimistic future. With me today is Kathy Van Osten, representing Big Brothers Big Sisters to speak more about the importance of AB 2459.

Hi, Mr. Chair. Is this working? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Chair and Members, Kathy Van Osten. I represent Big Brothers and Big Sisters of California, and first I want to acknowledge and thank our author for her diligence in bringing mentoring to youth in foster care. I know you're all familiar with the plights of the children and youth in foster care. Mentoring is an amazing tool that we have available to us, and there are many foster children now who do have mentors.

And as we learned what happened through the pandemic for Big Brothers Big Sisters, you had a number of children entering foster care during that period because parents lost jobs, tensions got heightened at home, and they had existing relationships with mentors, but when they went to foster care, mentors couldn't get information about where they were or where they had been moved.

We had one young woman, one young girl who was moved 11 times in one year and that relationship ended up being fractured and basically just went away, which is more damaging to youth because it just reaffirms the fact that they can't trust adults. You know, they've been burned by adults over and over again, and so it actually does more damage than the mentoring can do good.

So as we were looking at a way to resolve this issue, the other thing that came to mind is we know that foster youth are an at-risk population. They're one of our most vulnerable populations. They suffer academically. They, you know, they suffer by the transient nature of foster care, and we thought about using the system--pardon the expression--to actually provide a mentor for youth who can do nothing but benefit. Mentors can open their eyes, encourage them to think broadly, you know, shape goals, go to college, and so forth. So--

If you could wrap up, please?

I'm happy to. I always get sidetracked. So anyway, I'll just make it short. We ask for your aye vote.

All right. Now, do we have members of the public who wish to side in support of the bill? Please come with the microphone. Do we--all right. Oh, in support of the bill?

Actually, on behalf of California CASA, we don't have an official position on the bill, but we had very positive conversations with the sponsor and author's office and look forward to continuing those conversations and reviewing the recent amendments. Thank you.

Do we have any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the bill? Opposition to the bill? Seeing none, let's bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments from the Committee Members? All right. I'll invite the author to close then.

I thank you, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you so much for bringing the bill forward and working with the Committee on the amendments together. I am supportive of ensuring foster youth have the opportunity to be involved in mentoring services. Mentoring services can have a positive impact on youth who are receptive to these relationships. Approaching mentoring in a trauma-informed manner includes allowing the youth to decide what is best for themselves, such as group or one-on-one services in which organizations work for their needs.

Thank you for accepting the amendments that center on the youth's needs. The bill has been moved by Assembly Member Ortega and seconded by Assembly Member Essayli, and I'm recommending an aye as amended vote. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File Item Nine: AB 2459: the motion is 'do pass as amended to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.' [Roll Call].

Three to zero. That bill's on call. Next, we will go to File Item 12 by Zbur: AB 2650. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members. I'm proud today to present AB 2650 which is sponsored by the licensed Adult Residential Care Association, otherwise known as LARCA. Licensed adult residential care facilities play a vital role in the state's housing response, providing housing, food, and medication management to vulnerable populations, including individuals receiving public benefits and those diagnosed with severe mental illness. However, the current state of these facilities is in crisis, as many are closing due to limited funding.

When these facilities close, residents without family support face the risk of falling into homelessness, incarceration, or institutionalization. Indeed, doing everything we can to assure that adult care residential facilities remain healthy and open should be a key focus in our efforts to address homelessness. Current law requires the collection of information for facilities that accept people with severe mental illness and who receive public benefits.

However, the number of residents with severe mental illness who occupy beds in these facilities and are eligible for SSI benefits is not disclosed and is not known. This presents a significant financial challenge because resource allocations to these facilities are frequently determined on a per day, per bed basis. In response to this pressing issue, AB 2650 proposes a strategic solution by mandating the Department of Social Services to collect and publicly report specific data on these facilities.

This comprehensive data set includes critical information such as the number of facilities catering to residents or with SMI or receiving public benefits, detailed bed counts, and data on residents relevant backgrounds. The bill is a preventive study bill that seeks to understand how we can best address the challenges licensed adult residential care facilities are facing so that we can take the steps to assure that they don't slip through the cracks and that the residents don't fall into homelessness.

With me today is Salonika Smith from LARCA, sponsor of the bill, and Barbara Wilson, founder of the Mental Health Hookup and a LARCA board member, to provide additional information and assist with questions.

All right, thank you. Two minutes each witness, please.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members, Committee. My name is Salonika Smith and I am the Director of Member Services for LARCA, the Licensed Adult Residential Care Association, representing more than 400 state licensed adult residential care facilities in Los Angeles County. These facilities provide crucial community based housing, care, and services for those diagnosed with a serious mental illness, otherwise known as SMI, or are receiving public benefits. I want to begin by by thanking you for holding this hearing on Assembly Bill 2650.

It's a crucial step to better understanding and supporting the most vulnerable populations in state licensed facilities. These facilities are our last line of defense against homelessness, incarceration, and institutionalization. Many are on the brink of closure, and one of the critical shortfalls to understanding the challenges they face and ultimately supporting operators and the residents they serve relates to data collected on these facilities and their residents.

We need to collect AB 2650 data to strategically direct services and resources and keep seriously mentally ill or public benefits residents housed and off of the streets. LARCA is proud to sponsor and support AB 2650 which addresses the critical data shortfall in the current framework and makes changes to better understand and assess this crucial permanent supportive housing solution.

Data collected under AB 2650, specifically the number of residents occupying beds in licensed facilities in the state who fall in the serious mental illness or public benefits categories, is key for the state to direct and target support to facilities and residents that are the most vulnerable to closure and ending up on the streets or worse. We thank Assembly Member Zbur for his leadership on this issue and for standing with facilities and housing providers who keep vulnerable residents in stable, community based housing. We would appreciate this Committee's support for AB 2650. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Committee Members. I'm Barbara B. Wilson and I'm proud to stand alongside my colleagues in the mental health community in support of Assembly Member Zbur's AB 2650. I am a retired licensed clinical social worker, mental health counselor, and a decades long advocate for licensed adult residential care facilities which are crucial housing and supportive service providers for those with serious mental illness and who are receiving public benefits only.

These are the people who often fall through the cracks at the bottom of our social safety net. I was also involved with AB 1766, Bloom Bill, which set up the current data collection framework by which we understand and direct resources to licensed facilities. That framework contains some significant gaps which AB 2650 fills and fixes. As you may know, AB 1766 mandated the collection of information for facilities that accept SMI of residents and whose only source of income is public benefits.

It also established notification requirements when these facilities close. However, critical information like the number of residents that occupy beds in facilities that are SMI and are receiving only SSI and Social Security SSP public benefits that was not collected. This is a huge problem because resource allocations to facilities are often made on a per bed, per day basis. Therefore, this missing information, which AB 2650 would provide, renders the current framework useless in many ways.

We need to know how many beds are actually occupied by the most vulnerable populations to provide direct support and assistance to keep folks housed and off the streets, and also help families who, many of whom our aging parents and who are afraid to die. Facilities are closing fast and we need strategic and targeted help to those most in need to be honest with you, when AB 1766 passed without the collection of this information, many of us involved were surprised and disappointed.

If you could wrap up, please.

Sorry. Just please do this. I'm grateful to Assembly Member Zbur for advancing this critical fix and thank you all for giving us this time.

Thank you. Now, are there members of the public who should testify in support of the bill? Please come to the microphone. Any opposition to the bill? Please come up to the microphone. Seeing none, let's bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? All right, I'll invite the author to close then.

So I think, in closing, these facilities are closing very rapidly, and when they close, it actually forces people that are in vulnerable positions into either other kinds of institutions or out onto the streets. And I originally had considered trying to bring a bill that would have provided Calfresh benefits to residents of these facilities, but knowing the budget situation this year, realized that that was sort of a non starter.

And so this bill is really one that will give us the data and the tools to understand the populations in these facilities more, and hopefully next year or the years ahead as we're sort of looking at our strategy with respect to homelessness, we will understand the roles these facilities plays and will give us the tools we need to understand how to spend money strategically to address the issue of homelessness and protect these vulnerable populations. So with that, I ask for your aye vote.

Thank you for bringing bill forward. The bill has been moved and seconded and I am recommending aye vote. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item 12, AB 2650. The motion is do pass to the Assembly Health Committee. [Roll Call]

Four to zero. That bill is out, so we'll leave the roll open for absent Members. Next, we'll go to File Item 18 by Assembly Member Ramos: Assembly Bill 2948, and you may begin when you are ready.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and Members, for the motion and the second on that. Today I'm presenting AB 2984, which would allow tribal children who are adopted in tribal court to be eligible for the Adoption Assistance Program. AAP is a federal program under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, which provides funds to facilitate the adoption of children who would otherwise remain in long-term foster care.

Eligibility for the program's benefits requires evidence that the child cannot or should not be returned to the home of the child's parents per a petition for termination of parental rights. Because tribes typically do not terminate parental rights as part of the tribal adoption process as recognized by the Indian Child Welfare Act, children transferring from state jurisdiction to tribal jurisdiction may not meet all elements of the three-part special needs determination required to receive those benefits.

According to the Department of Social Services, clarity in the eligibility criteria is necessary to ensure that tribal children who are adopted via proceedings in tribal court may receive AAP benefits. With me today to answer any technical questions and offer brief testimony is Debbie Diaz Williams, a representative from the California Department of Social Services.

Good afternoon. Debbie Diaz Williams with the California Department of Social Services. While the Department does not have any official position on the bill, I am happy to answer any questions you may have, and we look forward to the bill moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Now let's move to the Committee room. If there's any members of the public wish to testify in support of the bill, please come up to the microphone.

Afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Alex Alanis, on behalf of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Adrienne Shilton with the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, in support.

Thank you. Now, do we have any opposition to the bill? Please come forward. Seeing none, any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the bill? All right, let's bring it back to Committee. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Seeing none, I'll invite the author to close.

Thank you so much. Mr. Chair and Committee Members, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you for bringing this bill forward. It's always important to ensure that our child welfare policies include tribal youth. I'm recommending an aye vote, and the bill is probably moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on AB 2948.

File Number 18: AB 2948: the motion is 'do pass to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.' [Roll Call].

Four to zero. That bill's out. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

So we will be moving to our final bill of the day. That will be right now? Oh, wait, actually, there's one more. Sorry. I'll wait one moment. One second. But if staff are watching, we are approaching our final two bills, so if you're members on Human Services, this is the time to come and we can run through the rest of them.

Yeah. All right. Well, I will take the privilege of presenting my own bill, file item 21, AB 3031. And I will be handing the gavel over to the Vice Chair, Assembly Member Essayli.

All right. Well, thank you, Colleagues. First, reluctantly, I must accept the Committee amendments suggested on page five of the Committee analysis. In the name of diversity inclusion for LGBT community, I would like to turn the opening comments actually over to my supporting witnesses. Today we have Allie Hughes with Baymec, which is LGBT advocacy group from my home county, and Craig Pulsipher with Equality California.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much. My name is Allie Hughes, and I'm the secretary to Baymec. Just as Alex said, we're an LGBTQ plus organization working in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo counties to advance the progress of LGBTQ plus persons. So, as you may know, the state of California does not currently have a commission advising on policies that relate to the wellbeing of adult LGBTQ plus persons.

California's queer community deserves a space where our voices are elevated and empowered, as well as the opportunity to work with the Legislature to address issues that particularly affect our community. California's LGBTQ plus community is beautifully diverse, representing every single culture, religion, background and ethnicity within our state.

With hundreds of anti LGBTQ and Anti Trans bills introduced in other state legislatures across the country, this Commission will offer invaluable opportunities for the community to work directly with the Legislature to create policies that positively elevate the LGBTQ plus community and work to address issues that are negatively impacting us. Creating and protecting spaces for LGBTQ plus people are necessary as we strive to create a better California for all. Thank you for your time.

Good afternoon. Craig Pulsipher, on behalf of Equality California, proud co-sponsor of this bill. As you all know, because of the work of this Legislature and activists up and down the state, California has been a nationwide leader in the fight for LGBTQ civil rights, passing laws to protect and improve access to gender affirming care, create safe and supportive schools for LGBTQ students, and establishing the strongest non discrimination protections in the country.

But even with the progress we've made, our community continues to face enormous challenges, and we appreciate the Committee's thoughtful analysis highlighting some of the most pressing issues impacting our community. Notably, hate crimes and violence against LGBTQ people are on the rise, with 29% more hate incidents motivated by sexual orientation bias and 55% more hate crimes motivated by anti Trans or anti gender nonconforming bias between 2021 and 2022.

LGBTQ young people in particular, continue to experience significant mental health challenges, including higher levels of depression, anxiety, suicide, and nearly a third of LGBTQ young people report homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives. And at the same time, right wing activists and school boards are moving to reverse hard fought civil rights protections for our community, including banning essential health care for Trans youth and banning LGBTQ inclusive books in curriculum.

All this against a backdrop of growing attacks on our community nationwide. With nearly 500 anti LGBTQ bills introduced across the nation this year alone. In this dangerous moment for our community, the establishment of a statewide LGBTQ Commission is not only an important demonstration of California's commitment to LGBTQ Californians, but it will also have enormous practical benefits, empowering our community with an independent representation to advise the Governor and Legislature on policy and regulation, identify statewide needs, and help lawmakers in implementing supportive policies and programs.

AB 3031 is an important and timely measure to ensure that California is living up to our values of acceptance and inclusion and making sure that every LGBTQ person in our state can live safely and authentically as their true selves. And I respectfully urge your aye vote.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in support who would like to register?

Good afternoon. Josh Gagger on behalf of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in support.

Alison Ramey on behalf of the California Dental Association in support.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses, do we have any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none, do we have any members of the public in the hearing room to testify in opposition? Okay, so bringing it back to the Committee. Any comments or questions? Yes, Ms. Calderon.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I'd just like to thank the author for bringing this bill forward. I think the work of this Commission will be really important to help elevate the voices of the 2.7 million members of the LGBTQ community in California. And I would love to be added as a co-author.

Thank you. Ms. Ortega.

I would also love to be added as a co-author.

Anyone else? I was going to make a comment, but I can allow you to close first.

You're presiding now.

Okay. I just will say that I support the intent of the bill. The only thing that gives me pause is the characterization of some of the activities of school boards and others where I do think there's a genuine disagreement about some policy considerations about, you know, parents being kept in the dark on some decisions that are being made on campus.

It gives me pause that those type of policy disagreements are being labeled or characterized as attacks on a particular group, which no one supports, that nobody has the intent to harm or hurt anyone. So I'll probably just lay off today. But I am generally in support of eradicating any form of hate towards any group members, including the LGBT community. But I just want to say that on record. And with that, Mr. Lee, you may close.

All right. I appreciate the comments today in the Committee. This is one small, important step to institutionalize the feedback and voices and lived experiences of LGBTQ plus people in our entire state. It's a small thing, really, to make sure that our state government works with the unique needs of the LGBTQ community, whether it be through hate crimes, through our unique healthcare needs, or even our housing needs. As we heard even earlier today, LGBTQ foster youth, unfortunately, are overrepresented when it comes to even homelessness right now.

So there are lots of ways in which the state government ought to work better and pay more attention to lived experienced LGBT people. And respectfully, it doesn't matter what the intention of people have, so long as their actions undermine the existence and the rights of LGBT people, they will feel attacked because that is what it is at the end of the day. So respectfully ask for your aye vote. And I appreciate all the new co-authors on the bill, too. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lee. We have a motion and a second. Motion by Ms. Ortega, second by Ms. Calderon. Were there amendments? You already accepted the amendments?

Yes. Yes.

Okay, thank you. All right, Madam Secretary may call the roll.

File item 21, AB 3031. The motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Three to zero. Your bill is on call.

We only have one bill left, but if Members. All right, thank you so much. So we'll have one bill left to take care of today, but if Members of the Human Service Committee would like to return, we'll run through the. There we go. Return. Assembly Member Weber, when you're ready, you may start presenting file item 13.

All right. Good afternoon, Chair and Members. I am here to present AB-2671 a Bill to protect our children's health and home daycares. In California, there are approximately 38,000 childcare licenses, including both child daycare facilities and daycare homes. We had a Bill from Assemblymember Holden back in 2018 that required child daycare facilities to test their drinking water for lead contamination. The testing is underway, and to date, 50% of the licensed centers have tested their waters in accordance with the license directives.

However, the lead content results are actually very alarming. One in four centers found water lead levels in excess of the allowable limit, and lead in some centers was far above the legal limit. Some facilities, the lead levels are more than 100 or even 2000 times the legal limit. And remember, the CDC has stated that there is no safe level of lead, especially for our children.

Lead exposure can lead to harm a child's health and cause well-documented adverse on effects such as brain damage and other damage to the nervous system, slowed growth and development, including learning and behavior problems. In California's 28,000 licensed, family childcare homes are not required to address drinking water lead levels at all. Given the startling lead levels in childcare water, we can safely assume that childcare homes have water lead levels so similar to those in childcare centers.

Studies have shown that filtering water first with certified lead removing filters is a cost effective method of ensuring that water provided to children in childcare and school settings is not above the legal limit. This approach is referred to as filter first.

For these reasons, AB-2671 requires a licensed family daycare home to only serve water to children or to use water in food preparation for the family daycare home that has been filtered with a point-of-use water filtration device certified to meet National Sanitation Foundation and the American National Standards Institute standards for Water Safely and it explicitly claims to remove lead levels.

The Bill also requires that family day care home to maintain records and receipts demonstrating that water filtration device has been maintained and the filters have been replaced. I want to thank Committee consultants from both human services as well as ESTM Committee. My office and the sponsors have been working closely with the committees to work on amendments that will be taken in the second Committee.

Those specific amendments are still being worked out, but we are continuing to commit to having these conversations and ironing out some of the kinks in this Bill. But with me today are the sponsors of the Bill, Rebecca Marcus and Susan Little.

Good afternoon Chair and Members. I'm Rebecca Marcus on behalf of CALPIRG. CALPIRG is a statewide public interest group that works to protect public health and defend consumers.

We're proud to co-sponsor AB-2671 which will ensure children in family daycare homes are provided lead safe drinking water. California has already taken action to address lead contamination in schools and child care centers, but there is a glaring gap that remains in family daycare homes, which were exempt from the previous legislation to address lead and child care centers. With the estimated 28,000 licensed family daycare homes across the state, California is leaving a lot of young children without access to clean, safe drinking water.

As the Assemblymember mentioned, it will require family home daycare centers, as part of their licensing, health, and safety conditions, to filter drinking and cooking water with these certified filters. Rather than waiting for more testing to show that our kids have been drinking lead and only fixing outlets after lead has been detected above a certain level. AB-2671 will expeditiously ensure that water provided to children in these licensed home is free of high levels of lead.

This approach also avoids the potential of testing missing lead contamination, as lead concentrations in water are highly variable and lead may not be detected one day and then will be detected another day, filters are highly effective at removing the lead from drinking water, even with the high levels of contamination in Flint, Michigan. And EPA analysis documented that these certified filters proved effective.

Finally, AB-2671 redirects federal funding currently received by the Department of Social Services that were used by the soon-to-wrap-up childcare testing program to be used to help family daycare homes pay for filters to keep our children safe from blood. We urge your aye vote.

Thank you, Rebecca. My name is Susan Little. I'm with the Environmental Working Group, and the Environmental Working Group is a nationwide organization that works to protect both the environment and public health, especially children's health. We are one of the co-sponsors of AB-2761 and I just wanted to reiterate, I know the Assemblymember had talked about the lead test results that came out of the child care center testing, but I want to reiterate that that testing was very comprehensive.

It was done under very controlled methods, established by the Department of Social Services, in consultation with the Water Board, and required all faucets, potable faucets, in the centers to be tested, to be tested by certified third party water samplers, and also to be run through a certified labs. And so it's pretty tight data that we got out of that. And out of the 6,500 centers that were comprehensively tested, 1,700 found water that did not meet the allowable limit.

And to give you an idea, I know the Assemblymember mentioned this, but to reiterate, there were 259 centers up and down the state that found lead levels between 50 and 1,000 parts per billion, which is essentially 10 to 200 times the allowable limit. And there were even nine centers that found lead levels above 1000 parts per billion. And then also a center discovering lead levels over 11,000 parts per billion.

And to put that in perspective, the American Academy of Pediatrics says there should be no more than one part per billion lead in children's water. So given those astounding results and the very comprehensive nature of that testing and that data, we really felt like we needed to move forward and look at the remaining childcare facilities that are not required to do anything to address lead in their drinking water. Also, what was concerning that came out of the childcare center testing is that.

If you could wrap up, please.

Of course. The public contractor that was contracting the Sacramento State University, that did about a third of the sampling, found that in 28% of the cases when they were remediating the outlets, 28% of those outlets, they were not able to lower lead levels below the allowable limit by just replacing faucets and doing fixes to the internal plumbing. And so that's why, again, we're back to asking facilities just to go directly to filtering their water. So this Bill will, of course, ensure. So thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Do we have any folks in the room who wish to testify in support of the Bill or members of the public? Yes, please come to the microphone. All right. Do we have any opposition to the Bill? Please come up now.

Kimberly Rosenberger with SEIU and UDW, CCPU collaboration. We are not opposed, but we do have concerns, and we are optimistic that we can work those out with a sponsor and author, but we share the intent. We represent family childcare providers that often operate out of their homes or apartments, and they are in the communities that are targeted in this Bill.

We would like to see a resolution that doesn't put the cost burden on providers that are already working with very narrow margins and may put them to the breaking point where they're not able to operate. We think there's a solution. We'll continue to work with them. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Any other members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the Bill? Seeing none, let's bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? None. Then I'll invite Dr. Weber to close.

I once again want to thank the Committee staff here and also with the next Bill, and we'll continue to work with those who still have concerns. But I think at the end of the day, we need to make sure that our most vulnerable, which are our children, are safe and not drinking water that contains lead, which we know has significant, long-lasting health implications. And with that, I respectfully ask your aye vote on AB-2671. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Weber, for bringing this Bill forward. As we know, there's no safe amount of lead consumption for a child whatsoever. And it would be a real shame for children to continue to be consuming water at their own daycare facilities that would have long, irreversible damage to their bodies. But due to the timing of the Committee hearings. The Bill still needs a bit more work to be done that was not able taken up in this Committee. So I look forward to continue working with you to seeing acceptance on the agreed-upon amendments in the second policy Committee. Environment Toxic Materials, which I had the honor of used to be chairing of.

So I look forward to continue working together to make sure our children have safe water at their daycare facilities. I'm recommending an aye vote. The Bill was moved by Assemblymember Gipson and seconded by Assemblymember Ortega. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on AB-2671.

File item 13, AB-2671. The motion is do-passed to the Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. [Roll Call]

5-0. That Bill is out.

Thank you.

Congratulations. Madam Secretary, if you could open the roll once more for absent Members to add on. And we'll do that, whenever you're ready.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. All right, Madam Secretary, please open the roll for the absent Member.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Business before the Assembly Human Service Committee is complete. The hearing is now adjourned.