Senate Standing Committee on Human Services

All right. The Senate Human Services Committee will now come to order. Good afternoon. We are holding our Committee hearing here in the O Street building, and I ask that all Members of our Committee come present, come be presented in the room 2200 so that we can establish our quorum and begin our hearing.

We have 27 bills on today's agenda, and nine of those are on proposed consent. I know our authors and Committee Members would like to get out of here by dinner time, so we will get started. We will start as a Subcommitee right now, absent of a quorum.

I have the Vice Chair and myself here, so you are in great company. I do see one of our authors here, Assemblymember Rivas. Thank you for being here. So we'll hear item number two, Assembly Bill 799, as a Subcommitee. Have you come up to the podium, and if you have any witnesses with you today, we'll invite them here to the conference table. And begin when you're ready.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to start by thanking Heather for her thoughtful and thorough analysis of this Bill.

AB 799, the Homelessness Accountability and Results act, requires state agencies and departments administering homelessness programs to provide the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, or Cal ICH, with fiscal and outcome data from grantees and the individuals and families they serve, which will be made publicly available.

This Bill also requires the creation and maintenance of a strategic funding guide, a one stop shop for local grantees to navigate new and existing funding opportunities to make sure all potential funding sources are effectively utilized to combat homelessness.

Finally, AB 799 adds the governor's tribal advisor to the Interagency Council to ensure the unique perspectives of our tribal communities are considered in homeless initiatives. As we all know, homelessness is an increasingly growing problem in our state. In 2023, the number of people experiencing homelessness in California rose to nearly 185,000.

To address this ongoing crisis, nine state agencies collectively spent billions of dollars in state funding over the past five years administering at least 30 programs to prevent and end homelessness. Cal ICH is responsible for the coordination, development, and evaluation of the efforts of these nine agencies.

However, the 2024 State Auditor's report on homelessness found that the state lacks current information on the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs because Cal ICH has not consistently tracked and evaluated the state's efforts to prevent and end homelessness.

This audit recommended that the Legislature require Cal ICH to mandate reporting by state agencies of costs and outcomes of state homelessness programs, develop specifics of data collection, and compile and report this cost and outcome information to the public.

AB 799 was developed in response to these findings to enhance accountability standards, ensure our state dollars are used efficiently and effectively, and that our local agencies maximize their impact in their communities today. To provide testimony and support, I have Louis Brown with the corporation for supportive housing.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. As Assembly Member, Rev. Has stated. My name is Louis Brown Junior. I'm with the Corporation for Supportive Housing. We're a national nonprofit and CDFI working to advance solutions to homelessness in California and across the country.

I'm pleased to be here with you today to voice our support for AB 799, the Homelessness Accountability and Results Act. AB 799 includes three critical components that we believe will strengthen the state's efforts to fine tune its homelessness programs and address homelessness in communities across California.

First, AB 799 adds a tribal representative to the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. Indigenous people, as you know, are five times more likely to be homeless than the General California population. As tribal Members have stated before, tribal governments face unique challenges in preventing and solving homelessness.

As Members face worsening housing conditions, higher rates of homelessness risk, and less access to shelters and homeless services than people living in other jurisdictions. AB 799 will help to advance equity by ensuring that the tribal voice and the particular challenges of tribal communities are represented in the council.

Second, the Bill will foster collaboration with local governments in the state by making it easier for local governments to identify new and existing state programs and by promoting the strategic use and leveraging of these funds. Finally, without creating additional barriers to. Sorry.

Additional burdens to front line staff, for Cal ICH, AB 799 will provide greater transparency and how grantees use funds by requiring that the council annually publish how state taxpayer dollars are being used and the outcomes that those expenditures are achieving. For the reason stated. On behalf of corporation for supportive housing, I'd like to respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you, Mister Brown. Before we move forward, we want to establish a quorum assistant. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Excellent. So we do have a quorum and we will proceed. Thank you so much. Do we have any Members of the public that would like to express their support? Please come forward to the microphone. State your name and your affiliation only, please, and your position. Sorry.

Hi there. Rachel Bhagwat, ACLU California Action in support. Thank you.

Hello. Grace Koplan on behalf of Housing California in support.

Thank you. Okay. All right. Any lead witnesses in opposition to this Bill please come forward. Any Members of the public wishing to express their opposition? Okay. Seeing none, we'll bring the. Bring the conversation back to Committee. Questions? Comments? Okay, we have a motion for Senator Menjivar.

Senator Rivas, I wanted to check in with you about the status of your Bill. So this one was inactive for quite some time, and you brought it back recently. I did. Note that we have a very similar Bill in front of us here today.

Can you tell us what work you did with your colleague or the other author to ensure that your bills were congruent, not competitive?

Well, this Bill, AB 799, includes the addition of the governor's tribal representative to the Ayes, Cal ICH. It also creates a strategic funding guide for new and existing funding opportunities. It's also more targeted in what programs Cal ICH will collect data from.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions? All right, we have a motion by Senator Mengevar. Assistant, please call the roll file.

Item two, AB 799. Motion is do pass to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

So we have three ayes and we will hold the roll open for our colleagues. Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance to close. No problem. Is that all right? Okay, we closed for you.

Yes. All right. Seeing forward. And we have our author, Assemblymember Pelerin. Welcome. If you have any witnesses with you today, we'll invite them to the conference table. Yes, I do have one with me today. Great.

Wonderful.

So thank you, Chair and Senators. Children and youth navigating California's child welfare system encounter distinct behavioral health challenges associated with traumatic experiences and the system's involvement itself. Up to 80 percent of children navigating child welfare systems display significant mental health issues, a stark contrast to 18 to 20 percent--22 percent--among the general population.

Additionally, 45 percent reported using alcohol or drugs within the last six months, and 35 percent met the criteria for a substance use disorder. The lack of comprehensive statewide behavioral health data impairs California's ability to create services and supports that meet the unique needs of these vulnerable youth.

The Child Welfare System Improvement and Accountability Act, AB 636, Steinberg of 2001, aimed to improve data collection reporting on the child welfare system. The act's goals were met by the Child Welfare Indicators Project, a research project between UC Berkeley and the Department of Social Services, which has driven continuous quality improvement in the child welfare system since its inception.

While the Child Welfare Indicators Project collects holistic data on academic performance, caregiver resources, and supportive care environments, a critical gap is that the Child Welfare Indicators Project does not include behavioral health outcomes.

By amending the California Child and Family Service Review System to incorporate existing Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths--CANS--behavioral health data, AB 1907 will ensure holistic tracking, enable a nuanced assessment of needs and strengths, and promote targeted services for children and youth navigating the child welfare system, and with me to testify in support today is Karen Larsen, CEO of the Steinberg Institute.

Welcome, Ms. Larsen. You have two minutes to present.

Thank you. My name is Karen Larsen. I'm the CEO for the Steinberg Institute. We're an independent nonprofit dedicated to reducing system involvement for Californians living with behavioral health conditions. Before joining the Steinberg Institute, I was the Health and Human Services Director in Yolo County, where I oversaw public health, behavioral health, and social services, including child welfare.

I served Yolo County for over 20 years, first in the community clinic setting and then at the county level, and over the course of those years, I saw children in my child welfare system grow up and enter our juvenile and adult criminal justice systems, and then grow up a little more and have children of their own who entered my child welfare system.

And so these multigenerational patterns of system involvement play out throughout our state and throughout our nation, and we need to do something to intervene. As Assembly Member Pellerin mentioned in 2001, our founder, Mayor Darrell Steinberg, authored AB 636. Since that bill was passed, it's provided a great, continuous quality improvement framework for our child welfare systems in California.

Unfortunately, despite the bill's intent to include behavioral health data, to date, it doesn't include that type of data. And so the Steinberg Institute is proud to sponsor AB 1907, a bill that incorporates this behavioral health data into the Child Welfare Indicators Project.

As Assembly Member Pellerin mentioned, these youth face unique challenges, behavioral health challenges due to the trauma that got them into the system and the system involvement itself, and with more than 50 percent of them needing mental health services and another 30 percent meeting their criteria for substance use disorders, it's critical that we have local level data to meet their needs and ensure that the outcomes improve for them over time. I thank you for your time today.

Thank you so much, Ms. Larsen. All right, do we have any members of the public that would like to express their support? Please come to the microphone with your name, your affiliation, your purpose.

Clifton Wilson, on behalf of the California Academy of Adolescent and Child Psychology, in support. Psychiatry--sorry--in support.

Very different. Thank you. Any lead witnesses in opposition here today that would like to be heard? I see none. Members of the public? All right, we'll move the conversation back to the committee. Questions for our author? No? Do we have a motion? Okay, we have a motion by Senator Menjivar. Would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you. This bill has no opposition, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much. All right. We have a motion by Senator Menjivar. Assistant, please call the roll.

File Item Three: AB 1907: motion is do pass to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call].

And the ayes are three; no noes. We will leave it open for our colleagues to join us, okay? Thank you so much. And I see Assembly Member Reyes is present. You have the benefit of having a bill on consent, but we will hear Item Number Six, which is Assembly Bill 2033.

And then do you have some witnesses with you today? Yes. Great. We'll invite them over to our conference table. And please begin when you're ready.

Thank you. Madam Chair and Members, I present to you AB 2033, the EBT Access for Student Empowerment Act. AB 2033 does two things. First, it ensures that college students can use their free food benefits or EBT cards. And we do this by making sure that every campus has or identifies a vendor who takes EBT cards.

And if they don't have one that they do identify, they do apply to become an authorized EBT vendor.

The second is that this campus will also provide to the students easily accessible information on EBT vendors on and off campus by requiring community colleges and CSUs and requesting the UC's to provide the USDA SNAP retailer locator link, which provides up to a 25 miles radius map of EBT vendors.

A California Student Aid Commission CSAC report notes that only 127,000 students receive calfresh benefits and that one third of all post secondary students in California do experience food insecurity. While many CSU and UC campuses have basic needs centers and basic needs coordinators, this Bill requires the CSU and requests the UC to establish these centers and coordinators.

Theda demonstrates that students who experience food and housing challenges have lower gpas and graduation rates compared to students who have their basic needs. Meth Calfresh benefits are critical in helping address student hunger, and it is important that we make it possible for students to use these benefits on campus.

Where possible, AB 2033 will make it possible for students to focus on their education while having their basic needs met. Here to testify in support of the Bill are Jacob Roe, a student at Sierra College, and Anna Matthews, government relations Director with the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges.

Welcome to you both. We'll give you two minutes each to present.

Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and Members. My name is Anna Matthews, Government Relations Director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges and a proud co-sponsor of AB 2033. According to Riel College, California's basic needs report, 47% of California community college students experience food insecurity.

Half of a population is a significant percentage, and the statistic is even more staggering when you know the gravity of food insecurity. Hunger is detrimental to cognitive capacity, the ability to concentrate memory, and it ultimately undermines students ability to learn.

So long as they experience deficiencies in having their basic physiological needs met, all other priorities become secondary, including their education.

We talk a lot about education as a means of socioeconomic mobility and the desire for equitable student outcomes, but this cannot be achieved without addressing the devastating realities of the poverty that many of our students face, including food insecurity.

AB 2033 addresses the truth that food insecurity is a significant barrier to many students pursuit of higher education and impedes their progress towards their goals. Community colleges disproportionately serve underrepresented minority groups, first generation students, student parents, and other vulnerable populations.

While public assistance programs exist, a lack of awareness and accessibility on campuses reduces student utilization of these resources. By mandating EBT access points and increasing students knowledge of local resources, this Bill aims to increase participation in Calfresh and ultimately improve students ability to meet their basic needs, addressing hunger, poverty, and eliminating obstacles to student success.

This Bill is a step in the right direction to promote an inclusive and accessible learning environment for all students and bridging equity gaps and access to resources critical to their health and wellbeing. I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members, my name is Jacob Roe, a second year Community College student and President of the Native Americans of Sierra College Club. Today, I testify before you to advocate for the passing of AB 2033. This Bill addresses a pressing issue that affects thousands of students across California, including myself. Food insecurity.

As you know, programs such as Calfresh are essential to supporting Low income Californians. Despite eligibility, many post secondary students are unable to access these benefits, resulting in widespread food insecurity within our community colleges. That is preventable.

AB 2033 aims to change this by mandating that each public institution of higher education in California has at least one EBT accepting vendor on campus, students will have increased access to nutritional resources at their place of study.

Additionally, it calls for the establishment of basic needs centers and coordinators within our University systems, ensuring that students have access to the necessary resources and supports they need. As a disproportionately impacted student, I have faced various barriers within my education, at times struggling to meet even my most basic needs.

Some days I have questioned if I was going to have food to eat and at times have had to accept that going hungry was my only option. The basic needs center at my school has been an invaluable resource throughout my academic journey and has made it possible for my needs to be met, let alone sit here today.

Having access to resources the Sierra College Basic Needs center has provided is something every student deserves, regardless of their food security status. AB 2033 is essential for students like me to have a chance and achieving their goals in higher education. Please stand with us in addressing the needs of California students. I respectfully ask your I vote.

Thank you so much to you both for being here. Any Members of the public wishing to express their support, please come forward. Rebecca Gonzalez, Western center on Law and Poverty and support thank you.

Stephanie Goldman, on behalf of the Student Senate for the California Community Colleges, this Bill, thank you.

Johnny Vu with the California Student Aid Commission in support. Thank you.

Sam Wilkinson with Grace End Child Poverty in California in support.

Thank you so much. Do you have any lead witnesses in opposition of this Bill that would like to come forward and be heard? Members of the public that would like to express their opposition, please come forward. Seeing none, we'll bring the discussion back to the Committee. Questions? Question for you author.

I know with the UC's, we are encouraging and recommending them according to this Bill. Can you tell me a little bit about what your conversations have been with the UC officials about your Bill?

It's been very positive. It's just that under the way the law is written, we cannot require it of them. But it's been very positive. Very positive. Okay.

And then one of the questions that I had, but I think I found it in some of the support letters, was how are the community colleges going to implement this program with multiple sites?

And it sounds like they're excited about your Bill and looking forward to rolling it out in a uniform way so that students have access at all campuses.

We really are excited about that. The support from our community colleges, actually all of the campuses, they recognize how important this is for our students. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And I remember, you know, in my college years, the whole notion of a starving student, and we took light of that. But the reality is, to the points that you made today in your presentations, is that is the fundamental need in order for us to be successful. So thank you so much for bringing this Bill forward.

Do we have a motion from the Committee? Motion from Senator Menjivar, assistant. Oh, would you like to close?

I'd like to take the comments, and I want to thank our two witnesses. This is extremely important to have somebody from the Faculty Association and also our student to bring the student's perspective. And I want to thank them both for being here testifying. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much. All right, assistant, please call the roll.

Bill was moved by Senator Menjivar. File item six, AB 200. 33 motion is do pass to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay, we have three ayes and no no's. We will leave that open for our colleagues to come in and vote as well. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Do I see assemblymember Wicks? I don't. Right. Okay. We will move forward to item number eight, Assembly Bill 1993.

Assembly Member Kalra, you could invite your witnesses, if you have witnesses, to come forward. We'll get situated. And when you're ready to begin, please do.

Thank you so much. Madam Chair, AB 1993 would help address the housing needs of California's growing aging population by expanding the number of individuals residential care facilities for the elderly, or RCFEs, can serve by replacing the six bed cap with a eight or fewer cap.

RCFEs are community based homes that offer housing arrangements for various levels of non medical care and supervision. One of the fastest growing populations of unhoused individuals in California is our older adults, who are at greater risk of becoming homeless than ever before.

By allowing RCFEs to expand and serve more people, AB 1993 can help ensure there are more available spaces for older adults who choose an assisted living home can remain in their communities while also receiving the 24 hours non medical care they need. The RCFEs must meet the safety and building standards and licensing regulations.

For instance, under title 22 of the California Department of Social Services Community Care licensing, no more than two residents shall sleep in a bedroom. Title 22 provides a set of operational standards for RCFEs and Cdss.

Licensing Department would still need to evaluate the home to determine how many they can occupy and if they can be licensed to serve residents, ensuring these homes meet the safety and building standards to expand is a priority.

So under this Bill, RCF fees would still be required to be consistent with the Department of Social Services and Community Care licensing. This Bill has received bipartisan support, and here to testify and support is Mia Kang with the California Commission on Aging and George Kinnerian, Senior Vice President with six beds.

Thank you for being here. Please maintain two minutes for your presentation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Committee Members. I am Mia Kong, former two term Commissioner for the California Commission on Aging, and we're the bill's proud sponsor.

As a housing developer with decades of experience building senior communities, I can attest to the growing population of older Californians that need medical daily, excuse me, that need non medical assistance every day. Many older adults have financial resources that don't qualify them for in home supportive services.

Others require more care than what in home support services can provide. Others have insufficient resources to afford the extraordinary cost of 24 hours in home care. For many older adults who need assistance with daily living, a residential care facility, RCFE is their, frankly, only option in many cases.

In California, the Department of Social Services inspects, regulates and determines the number of residents the RCFE is approved for. This determination is based on the licensing skills, staff availability and building features, among many other things, and the regulations. The state regulations require that no more than two persons may occupy one bedroom.

Currently, in most cities and counties, private RCFE operators are limited by local planning and zoning laws and the number of individuals, and this sets up the number of individuals that RCFEs can serve. Currently, six beds is what is allowed for RCFEs to maintain its residential capacity.

This Bill will take it to eight beds, and the eight beds is a cap that meets the current housing demand as well as the current housing product that's out there. This increased capacity will allow for more older adults and their families to access 24 hours non medical daily assistance care.

I want to thank Assemblymember Kalra for authoring AB 1993, and I respectfully ask as committees for an I vote thank you.

Thank you to the chair and Members. My name is George Kutinarian. I serve as Senior Vice President of public policy and legislation for six beds, which is a statewide trade Association representing the small residential care facilities for the elderly, or rcfes, that serve six or fewer residents.

We're thrilled to be co sponsoring this Bill and would like to start by thanking Assemblymember Kara for championing this important public policy issue. The original statute that this Bill seeks to amend was enacted almost 40 years ago.

What was once a groundbreaking piece of legislation that spawned the creation of a six bed RCFE ecosystem comprising approximately 5500 facilities has fallen behind the times as our population has changed.

By 2030, there will be 10.8 million older adults in California, compared to only 3 million in 1991.8 million Californians 60 and over live alone, and older Californians are living longer with more chronic illnesses. Not only has California's population changed, so have the economics of aging.

With over 2 million California's age 60 plus, being economically insecure, with fixed incomes, unable to keep up with the rising costs of housing, health and care. In fact, among the unhoused older Californians are the fastest growing age group.

California's small rcfes, like the older Californians they seek to serve, are facing some of the same challenges, such as higher than ever housing costs. Just recently, the median sales price for a home in California passed $900,000 for the first time.

AB 1993 can help address these challenges by allowing RCFEs the option to go up to eight beds without being subjected to the complicated, time consuming, and highly discretionary conditional use permitting processes that are often fraught with NiMBYism that has the effect of limiting housing and care access for older Californians.

Leveraging an existing supply of six bed rcfes, many of which already have three or more bedrooms and can currently house more than six residents, AB 1993 could result in thousands of additional beds in a short amount of time.

Today, this Committee has an opportunity to take a step towards advancing innovative legislation that furthers California's public policy goal of improving access to housing for all ages and stages. We respectfully ask for your aye votes and happy to answer any of the Committee's questions. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any Members of the public wishing to express their support, please come forward with your name and affiliation.

Good afternoon. Lisa Coleman with the California Commission on Aging. Proud sponsors.

Thank you.

Thank you. Amber King with Leading Age California in support. Thank you. Heather Harrison with the California Assisted Living Association in support.

Thank you. Do we have any lead witnesses in opposition that would like to be heard? Okay, seeing none. Any Members of the public that would like to express their opposition? All right, seeing none, I'll bring the conversation back to Committee. Questions or comments? Colleagues? Senator Ochoa-Bogh please.

Hi. Welcome and thank you for bringing this measure forward. I'm in support of the Bill, but I do want to address some of the concerns and ask some clarification questions with regards to the concerns that the realtors posed.

Now one of the things that I would, you know, one of the concerns that they had was the fact that it would remove more inventory away from first time homebuyers coming into the market, if I understand correctly, is basically one of the concerns they have on that.

I would probably mention that as we have or place more seniors or two additional seniors per household, those seniors as home will now become available to the market, either to their current family Members or to new homebuyers in the market. That's the way that I see it.

So that's two additional homes that would be available per residential unit. So that's the way that I'm actually reasoning the support for this particular Bill.

The only other concern that they had, which I can't, I want a little more clarification on is the fact that in the Bill, it's my understanding that there's no language with regards to how many seniors are allowed to occupy per bedroom.

And I know that in other spaces, such as in facilitating housing for foster youth, there's a limit. Normally, there's usually a component that addresses that.

But I do want, with that in mind, though, I do want to state that I do understand that there are some residential homes whose bedrooms are larger, so they could accommodate, you know, three or four beds rather than just two. Some are really, really small, can only accommodate one.

Is there any conversation as to how to address that particular concern? Because it is. It would be a concern.

Well, thank you, Senator. On your first point, agree 100%. This Bill is really about leveraging existing housing. So those that have currently six beds could potentially apply to have as many as eight.

And so, and your other point was very well taken in that it's really allowing folks to leave their current home to go into a living environment with a little bit more assistance opening that home up to the market or to their kids and what have you.

But to the concern you just raised, I, in fact, in conversation with realtors, we actually did have an amendment in there that would have captured it, too. So, I agree with the General sentiment of the realtors. We remove that component for a couple of reasons.

One is, under the California Code of Regulations, community care licensing, there already is a regulation that it'd be no more than two residents per room. And so it would be duplicative to add it, however. And so you would think, well, why, what's the big deal of adding it then?

Well, the CDSs made it very clear that they did not want that in there because they didn't want to lose the flexibility to allow for creative sleeping space for facilities during emergencies. And so the current regulations already capsule two. I agree with that, too. I agree with the realtors that it should be just two.

You want a quality living environment for folks in these homes. But because CDSs did not want that codified because they wanted a little more flexibility in emergency type situations, and they felt it was unnecessary because the regulations already have a kappa two. That's why we didn't have that in there, even though I agree with the realtors sentiment.

So generally speaking, it's still going to be a cap of two. And CDSs, again, just did not want that codified in there in the case of an emergency, and they had to have a little bit more flexibility in emergency situations.

Questions?

Senator Menjivar, I just want to clarify. So CDSs generally will, the Licensing Department will go in and license a home and ensure there's only two adults per room. And that's just the General unwritten rule. They don't want it codified because, say, there's an emergency, you, they want to be able to put in more people in.

It's not only an unwritten rule, it's a written rule. The regulation already states that it'd be no more than two residents or better if there is a written rule.

If I can just add, it's in the California Code of Regulations, title 22. What happens, though, if it goes into statute, then the Department loses its flexibility to kind of work around that during times of emergency. If it's in regulation, the Department has the flexibility to work around the regulations in times of emergency.

But once you put it in statute, the Department actually loses that flexibility.

Can these homes, what if they violate it now? What happens if it's not a statue?

Right. So if it's violated, someone files a complaint, for example, it's Community Care licensing's responsibility to investigate it because it is in regulation. And if a licensee has violated it, then they can be cited for it.

It would be a violation.

It would be a violation. Yeah. Just because it's not in statute doesn't mean it's not a violation. Yep.

All right. Sending Member Kalra I do have concerns and questions around the quality of living environment as pertains to restrooms, bathroom laboratories, shower facilities. So currently in a home that would have six residents, now having eight. How do you balance that by not making an amendment or a change for bathroom services?

Well, as it goes through the licensing process, we still have to be approved. And so if it's a home where they, where they only have one full bath and the Department can say, you know what? This is not suitable for any home. More than six residents.

So the home is still going to be inspected for the quality of care and the quality of the environment based upon how many residents the RCFE would like to live there. So there's still that check and balance in there. It's not like as soon as someone applies to have eight residents, it just gets granted.

It's quite the opposite. The licensing authority will have to go in there, inspect the premises and see what is appropriate for the size of that premises.

You know, a three or a four-bedroom home can mean a lot of different things, depending on how much square footage it has and depending on how many full bathrooms it has as well. So, they could also say, you know what, we can approve eight if you make this half bath into a full bath.

So now you have two full baths. And so there's still going to be that oversight in terms of the health and safety of the residents.

And if I can just add that, add to that too. As part of the process, the licensee has to submit a facility sketch which includes the floor plan. So licensing is going to review the floor plan, which includes not just the, not just the bedrooms, but also the bathroom situation too, to determine that that's a suitable situation.

So currently it's a suitable situation. Six seniors and one working bathroom in a home, is that a suitable situation?

I don't recall off the top of my head what is the current regulation for the bathroom situation? But it is prescribed in regulation what the bathroom situation has to be. So if licensing determines that the licensee at eight occupants cannot satisfy what the regulations say for bathrooms, then licensing can just deny that or say, you need to.

Assemblymember Kalra's point, you need to create more bathroom space in the home to be able to do that.

Just a moment.

Assembly Member Kalra, I want to give your bill a fair chance, which means I want to see the language around this bathroom. I know I had requested it some days ago, but it has not been put in front of me yet. My concern is that we're leaving the discrepancy to CDSS to make decisions whether or not it's suitable. And I'm concerned that the quality of the living environment is important.

And I don't want us to create more beds in a home where there's clearly needs for other amenities. And so I just want to make sure that we're clear there. So we're going to be looking up right now the code. Would you like us to... Would you like us to put your bill on call and then bring it back up? We can finish closing out.

I'm happy, whatever you'd like to do, Madam Chair. If you'd like me to close out and you could do further investigation into it. I would like the opportunity, if there are concerns, certainly want the opportunity to address them, but, you know, happy to do whatever you like.

Okay, I think I found it here. Thank you for getting it for me. Okay, so I'm looking right here. Toilets and bathrooms shall be conveniently located. The license capacity shall be established based on Section 87158 capacity. The following, at least one toilet and wash basin for each six people. So if you are adding then eight people, does that mean now that the bathroom or the home must have two toilets and wash basins?

That's the way I read it. That's the way I interpret what you just said.

Okay. That's how I...

Because it's one per six as soon as you hit seven, technically, if you did seven instead of eight, it would trigger the second.

And, Madam Chair, if you'd like clarification on that, I'm happy... If your staff, your wonderful staff, who did a great job of analysis, would like to work on language to that effect, more than happy to accept subsequent amendments to your satisfaction.

Yeah, I just want to make sure that we get to a place where your bill does the good deed of giving us more beds, but doesn't inadvertently cause...

I wouldn't want to have a family member living in a place with one bathroom. I get it.

The only concern I would raise is, similar to the two bed thing, if it's in statute, then once again, it will limit the department's flexibility in emergency situations.

I understand that, but this bill is asking us to codify two additional beds without any relation to restrooms. And so if we already have language in law that limits one working bathroom and basin for six people, then we're offsetting that law by now introducing eight. So we need to make sure that we are in congruence with what's currently written. And that's my concern. So I don't think there should be flexibility around restrooms.

I think that if we are talking about quality living situations and safe environments, regardless of whether there's an emergency or not, no emergency for me would say eight people to one restroom, particularly our elderly and those who need extensive care. Okay. So those would be my concerns. We will move forward and take a vote, but I'm hoping that as, as your bill moves forward, we can make that very clear. Sounds good?

I agree with you. I think I agree with your concerns. Look, I'm the primary caretaker for my father, and we have the ability, when I'm up here on Tuesday and Wednesday, to have someone there during the day to care for them. Not a lot of people have that luxury.

And so really, we're looking out for the thousands of Californians that don't have that ability to have their loved one cared for the way that they would like. And so I agree that having a sufficient restroom capacity is part of making sure that there's a respectful, dignified place for our loved ones to live. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you so much for your closing. All right. Do we have a motion on this bill?

I will be happy to make a motion.

Okay. Motion by Senator Ochoa Bogh. Assistant, please call the roll.

Bill moved by Senator Ochoa Bogh. File item eight, AB 1993, motion is do pass to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay, we have two ayes, and we will leave that on call. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. See where we are. Do we see Assemblymember Wicks? I can't see her. Okay. All right. Assemblymember Alvarez, welcome. We'll move forward with item number nine. Assembly Bill 2075.

And Assemblymember, if you have any witnesses with you today, please ask them to come forward. Have them seated. Okay. Please start when you're ready.

Thank you. Madam Chair and fellow Senators, thank you for the opportunity to present AB 2075, the Resident Access Protection Act. I want to start by thanking the chair and the staff for working with us on this bill and going through it.

I think I'd like to take the moment just to talk about what this bill really, at the core is about, which is we've had bipartisan support on this bill, which would provide residents of long term care facilities with the ability to have in person onsite access to visitors during a public health emergency as long as they follow the same safety protocols as our required staff is required to follow.

I want to emphasize that visitation is only allowed if the visitor follows the same safety protocols as staff is required to follow.

AB 25 is a result of a working group which a couple years ago, the Legislature established and asked to review protocols during the pandemic and to develop recommendations on how to address the issue of visitation and visitation policies and practices for long term care facilities during these public health emergencies.

Like the one we had recently with COVID. This working group met five times over the course of six months and included participants from advocates, state agencies, facilities, public health officials and medical groups.

They published a report in October of last year, and the workgroup was clear in its takeaway that it is essential for a family and for a friend of to have access to residents, their loved ones, including during a state of emergency.

So at its core, AB 2075 recognizes the consequential role that loved ones, those of us who have cared for our loved ones, play in ensuring that residents of facilities receive the attention, the love, and the care that they need, which augments the role of the facility staff.

We remain committed to working with opposition to find some middle ground to ensure that we balance public health, safety and visitation rights. So to that end, on our own, unilaterally, we added compromise provisions that seek to meet them somewhere in the middle.

The provisions include flexibility for state and local authorities when handling public health emergencies by authorizing them to define how visitors can demonstrate proficiency in following all safety protocols, capping the amount of visitors that can visit simultaneously and the ability to Institute even a seven day lockout period where visitors would not have access to their loved ones and then an ability to extend that by even seven more days.

Beyond that, we've also clarified that staff will be prioritized as it relates to PPE use and loved ones can only visit if they follow the same safety protocols, including donning of PPE.

Through Committee amendments through this process, we have clarified that the Governor can supersede this act through his emergency powers authority and that a public health order that requires an evacuation notice will not be subject to this bill.

Put another way, I have provided public health officials with the flexibility to determine how visitation rights should be conducted and have established a pathway for them to prohibit visitation if they feel it's warranted.

Really, truly, more than any bill, I'm working on this session that I've authored so far, we've tried to find a way to go above and beyond to find that middle ground, and we'll continue to do that if we can get there. We want to offer solutions that will strike the right balance as we move forward.

But at the end of the day, we believe it's as important for those who have loved ones in these facilities to have access to them during these emergencies, and that is what this bill is intending to do. So I appreciate your time. With that, I'll turn it over to our two witnesses.

Thank you so much. We'll hear from each of you for two minutes each.

Good afternoon. My name is Maitely Weismann. I'm a family caregiver and co-founder of Essential Caregivers Coalition. This Thursday, a study from the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Chicago was published in Wylie Health Economics. It adds more evidence to the growing body of work that supports family caregiver access during health emergencies.

This study revealed that mandatory access for family caregivers in facilities in the pandemic was associated with a significant reduction in long term care deaths. Please keep this in mind when hearing such access being marketed as dangerous and unpredictable. Independent, peer reviewed studies continuously point to the very opposite.

My personal experience offers specific examples for why it worked to have family caregivers inside to help their loved ones during even the most uncertain times. If a staff caregiver can enter with PPE, so can a family caregiver. I've provided care for my mom, Celia, for as long as I can remember.

Since she was young, she's navigated a traumatic brain injury, incomplete quadriplegia, and a communication disorder. My caregiving continued when she moved into a memory care home, an RCFE. I augment staff care daily. I bring a spoon or a straw to her lips. Without that one type of support, she cannot eat or drink.

I also help her to bathe, dress, toilet, transfer, and communicate. I know her nonverbal cues and help others learn them. Pandemic visitor restrictions abruptly stopped all that support. They failed to recognize family caregiving as urgent and essential work. My mom rapidly lost weight, became agitated, withdrawn, depressed, and sometimes unresponsive.

Her already limited communication skills dwindled further with high staff turnover. No one noted these changes, nor the bruises, rashes, bad hygiene, lethargy, dehydration, and delirium. Increased ER visits revealed dangerous levels of dehydration, contusions, a broken clavicle, aspiration pneumonia, and recurrent C. difficile. On the first several months of lockdown that were supposed to protect her.

In a vulnerable person, unchecked dehydration can be deadly in a matter of days.

Now wrap up your presentation.

Okay. We know in a public health emergency that staff dwindles. There are waivers that allow them to not be trained, to not have background checks, and meanwhile, family caregivers have years and years. Myself, close to 30 years of experience.

We were locked out, and my mom could not drink.

I do have to wrap it up, or else I won't be able to hear our next witness. All right, we'll move forward.

I'm so sorry. Can I just say, in hospitals, the American Disabilities Act. This is the last thing.

I'm sorry. Okay, thank you. All right, we'll move forward.

Good afternoon. My name is Tony Chicotel. I'm senior staff attorney for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. We're one of the co-sponsors of the bill. Family caregivers like Maitely and nursing home residents, long term care residents went through so much suffering, preventable suffering, during the pandemic, mostly from isolation and neglect.

They just want one thing for their experience to have meant something to elicit some sort of change for the future. They want family caregiver support to be treated as every bit as important as facility staff support for the health and well-being of long term care residents.

Public health officers want the leeway to make the same exact mistakes and the leniency to have never learned the lesson. They want to be able to tell Maitely that she is less essential for the health and welfare of her mom than a staff person. A staff person who may be brand new and not certified because yeah, another pandemic policy was to suspend the certification requirements for nurses aides.

Committee analysis encourages assemblymember Alvarez to continue working with stakeholders to find a balance between resident access and the realities of a public health emergency.

The study that Maitely referenced finds that essential caregiver laws were associated with a 15% reduction in overall nursing home resident deaths, and the effects were greater in states where access was mandatory as opposed to just permissible. Incredibly, there were even fewer resident COVID deaths in states that had caregiver access.

Public health officers have offered nothing in the way of balance. They want everything. But here's what the new study's authors concluded. In their study, government officials need to consider the trade offs between protecting nursing home residents from infectious disease and maintaining necessary informal care for nursing home residents.

The use and expansion of essential caregiver laws is a successful model for finding that balance. AB 2075 is the balance. I urge your aye vote on this very important bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And we will have time for questions, so we'll be able to cover what you need us to cover. Okay. Members of the public, please come forward with your name, affiliation, and your support position.

Danita Stromgren, member of AARP California on behalf of our 3.2 million members in support.

Thank you.

Leza Coleman, California Commission on Aging, in support.

Thank you.

Hi there. Jason Sullivan-Halpern with the Long Term Care Ombudsman Association, in support.

Thank you.

Heather Harrison with the California Assisted Living Association, in support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Blanca Castro, State Long-Term Care Ombudsman, in support, and one of the co-sponsors.

Thank you.

Amber King with Leading Age California, in support.

Thank you.

Tony Anderson with the Association of Regional Center Agencies, in support.

Thank you so much. Any lead witnesses in opposition? Please come forward to be heard. We'll have you join us right here at the table, please.

And you'll each get two minutes to present.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members, Betsy Armstrong with the County Health Executives Association, regretfully here in opposition. We absolutely acknowledge the value and importance of family and visitors to residents in these facilities, and I'd like to make something exceedingly clear.

Our opposition to this measure is not because local health officials want to prohibit visitation during public health emergencies, nor do local health officials want to make the decision about whether to allow visitation during every public health emergency.

We are opposed because in rare circumstances, when the public health threat is so grave to vulnerable residents and our community, it is absolutely necessary to prohibit visitation. And the Bill does this without regard to a health officer's medical training, public health expertise, and on the ground knowledge about how the disease is ravaging their local community.

In fact, local health departments have taken steps to protect residents even before the next big threat hits, improving lines of communication, hiring infection preventionists to work with these facilities to keep residents healthy and minimize the spread of disease. These are steps that support ongoing visitation.

However, we must be mindful that future public health threats could endanger residents facility staff in our communities. Those threats could be known, like ebola or another unknown novel virus that public health will have to learn and respond to. AB 275 only allows local visitation suspension for up to 14 days.

But that may not be enough time to truly understand the nature of the threat nor ensure that appropriate measures are in place to protect residents, workers and our communities.

And I want to remind us all that the visitation limitations during the pandemic were initially imposed at the federal level, and those restrictions evolved as our knowledge of Covid-19 evolved. They also recognized that localities could restrict access where the spread of disease was still expanding rapidly using vaccination and test positivity metrics.

AB 2075 only limits local authority, not federal, not state. Public health guidance is tailored to the threat. It considers who's most vulnerable, the PPE, hospital beds and resources available, and including whether there's a vaccine or medication to address the disease. And that evolves as the science evolves.

This Bill would leave local public health with less tools to protect long term care facilities and our communities at large when the next public health threat comes. And it's not a matter of if, it is only a matter of when, it's for those reasons, we must oppose AB 2075 and respectfully ask for your no vote. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. I'm Doctor Ken Cutler with the Health Officers Association of California. Health officers are physicians dedicated to protecting their communities from harm. Health officer orders, when needed, are an effective tool used towards that end, and those orders already have a number of constraints.

They need to be constitutional, reasonable, justifiable, narrowly tailored to their objective, and have due process. Still, during the pandemic, when issuing orders that put health officers in harm's way as they faced harassment and threats. And unfortunately, I know this from personal experience, and I can assure you health officer orders were never used lightly.

There's no secondary gain from them under this. And as you can see in the analysis, much of the time period with visitor restrictions occurred under federal and state guidance. Under this Bill, Federal Government can still close facilities to visitation. Under this Bill, the Governor could still close facilities to visitation.

The only level of authority the Bill prevents from closing due to legitimate public health emergency concerns is at the local level. And the local health officer is the one most knowledgeable about public health, most knowledgeable about the local community, and most accountable to their Board of Supervisors and city councils.

The Bill does allow for seven to 14 day closure at the local level. It isn't enough time, especially since the Bill was expanded to allow on site, in person access during a declared emergency to all visitors, not just designated close family or loved ones.

It wouldn't have been enough time in March of 2020 when we were facing a new disease that we had no immunity, no vaccine, very little protective equipment and very few tests. We hope and pray never to see another March 2020, but we can't predict what the future is going to bring up. Your health officials oppose the Bill.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any members of the public wishing to express their opposition, please come forward through your name and affiliation .

Victoria Rodriguez with Nielsen Merksamer on behalf of Contra Costa County, respectful opposition.

Thank you.

Clifton Wilson on behalf of the Napa County Board of Supervisors in respectful opposition, as well as the City and County of San Francisco with the position of opposed unless amended. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yarelie Magallon with political solutions on behalf of San Mateo county in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we will bring the conversation back to Committee. Questions or concern?

I guess I'm the only one here.

So I'm looking right at you, Senator.

We'll definitely have some questions to be addressed. So it's interesting because I understand both perspectives on the issue. I think we had pretty excessive conversation in our office about that.

So after a meeting, I sat down with my legislative aide that works in this space, and so we were kind of going and crafting some questions to ask on there. I think you answered one of them because my number one question is, well, how do we come up with seven or 14 days?

Was that just kind of a, you know, legitimate scientific date, or was it just a random date? And it's rancher. That was just a random date that was thrown out there in hopes that they will come back with something more data driven timeframe. So 14 day, not enough, as you mentioned.

Is there a timeframe which you would prefer in this particular route that you said would be reasonable in that time? And then I'll go to my further questions after that.

Sure. Thank you. There we go. Thank you for that question. So, as we explained to the author's office, under existing law, local health officers can declare a public health emergency, and within seven days it has to be ratified by the Board of Supervisors or their City Council.

And then it comes, that emergency order comes up under review in front of the Board of Supervisors every 30 days. And so the board can opt to terminate that emergency after 30 days. It also gives folks an opportunity, opportunity to go before their board and express concerns about whatever restrictions may be in place during that emergency.

So that's where we thought. There's already statute that supports a timeframe from the local government perspective.

Okay. And within those seven or 30 days, say there's a great emergency, the Governor can come in and actually declare something within those seven to 30 days.

Correct.

Okay. Alright.

May I respond, Senator?

Yes. Yes

So I just want to make it clear.

I'm sorry there's a chair.

Oh, Im sorry.

It's a chair.

Keep decorum. Keep decorum.

May I?

Please

Thank you. I just want to make it clear, the days that were offered were amendments that I brought forward. This was not anything that was offered by the opposition. I heard them and their concerns, and I think they're valid that you just don't know what the next one will bring.

And in response to that, in trying to be solving problems instead of creating more problems for all of you in committees and for us, I said, well, let's wait some period of time, seven days. And, yes, I came up with those days because I thought that would give us some time.

And then we said, not only seven days, you can actually get an additional extension of seven more days just by your own order if you wish to do that.

The other part that you asked about was also an addition that I made, not at the recommendation of the opposition, but that was really through the work, through your Senate Committee on health, which was ensuring that the Governor could declare at any point that this emergency, this situation raised to a certain level that it really is that significant, that it would eliminate the access as we seek to accomplish through this Bill.

So those were two things that we thought were reasonable, that we thought made sense, and that's why we introduced those into this legislation and made those amendments.

Oh, and may I follow?

Please continue.

Thank you, madam. Madam Chair. Okay, so the next question that I have is, during the pandemic, we experienced a shortage of personal protective equipment, and as a result, PPE costs increased rapidly.

Our state had to prioritize PPE until we had enough supply across our state, which took weeks, if not months, under this Bill. What happens with visitation if PPE is not readily available? Do we have anything?

So the way the legislation is written is that all protocols must be followed by the visitors, just as required for staff. So if staff is required to have or don specific type of equipment, visitors must do the same.

If that's not available to them, then I would say that then the visitation cannot occur because they do not have the proper, as required protection as is required for others who are on site.

Okay, now, going back to my very first question with regards to the Governor being able to come in and declare an emergency, what would be some examples in which the Governor, I guess he could still come in and declare any State of emergency if it was just a regional event, I'm assuming. Is that correct?

That's correct. He has authority to do that for.

Just a regional one. It doesn't have to be

A singular county, a singular city.

Okay. Because the next thing is, I was going to ask if you could give some examples of what are some regional or local health emergencies that would not take it to the level of the state.

However, if need be, the county could always ask the Governor to come in and declare the State of emergency in that region.

Yes, I agree. I think if we had the right Governor at the right time, with the right problem, that could well work. But I think we are better protected when we have the ability to respond both locally and with the Governor.

Emergencies are considered to be local at the beginning and at the end, and they evolve over time. And California is a large, diverse state, so you can have the same epidemic and very disparate impacts in different areas.

And so a local health official may feel the need when the Governor doesn't see it, because the local health official knows the facilities, the impact on their healthcare facilities, their workforce, their capabilities, and their communities. So.

Okay. Which brings me to, Madam Chair. My last question brings me to my last question. So, in reading the concerns of the purpose of the Bill, it was noted that the rate of malnutrition in nursing homes rose from five to nearly 25% between 2020 and 2022.

One report from the Associated Press estimated that there were at least 40,000 excess nursing home deaths not attributable to Covid-19 in just the first eight months of the lockout.

So considering the fact that you have seven to 14 days with an extension of up to 14 days, noting that the Governor can come in and express a State of emergency if need be at once, the local community has done that, the next plan of question would be, what safeguards can we put in place to ensure that adequate oversight of nursing homes if the Governor or Federal Government suspends visitation rights can be put in place so that we do not witness the same abuses and neglect that we experienced during the pandemic?

Senator, if that question is for me, I would say that goes beyond the scope of what we're trying to address with the Bill today. This is only during emergencies that get called where currently, perhaps local health officials might say, you're not allowed to have visitation.

What we are saying with this legislation is that you would be allowed to have visitation with the seven days. And seven days, or Governor saying, absolutely, you know, is still an emergency.

But in terms of beyond that situation, like the Federal Government, as was stated correctly in the testimony, if the Federal Government decides that this case merits lockdowns, as we had during the pandemic, and orders that were beyond just not even visitation. We had orders, if you all remember.

We couldn't even, I can't believe I'm forgetting the name, but we were locked in where we couldn't leave our homes for some time with those orders. So this Bill does not address, if the Federal Government makes a decision on this, they would trump our Bill that we have before you today.

Okay, so not just the federal, but also the Governor. The Governor could come in and say, you know, this is a State of Emergency. Visitation rights are not granted. Exactly.

So if that were the case, there were no conversations between you and the governor's office or any public health entity to say, well, what could we ensure that we do? We ensure that there's something in place so it doesn't happen. Does that.

Are you asking, like, that there is some visitation in those cases or what are.

Well, not necessarily visitation, perhaps by a family member, but perhaps by a third entity that can come in to. To check, to ensure that there is no neglect, that there is no abuse within those lockdowns.

That's the biggest concern that I have right now, because I understand your point of view that you think that this is not reasonable but the other point is the fact that we did see that there was neglect and abuse, and this is what the Bill is trying to address.

So if there is an emergency stated by the Governor, then what do we put in place to ensure that we have oversight over facilities so that we don't see what has happened? So I'm not sure.

So again, in an attempt to address the concerns from the public health officials, who, by the way, I think I want to acknowledge the work and respect the work that they do, but in an attempt to get to a place of hopefully getting support and moving forward, we added the authority and power of the Governor to come in and declare that emergency and not allow the visitation to try and make people feel a little bit more sure that if a local emergency raised to that level of significance, there would be a backstop and it wouldn't just be an open door policy.

That was our attempt to try to contain any potential concerns that were had by them. But to your question, I don't know, Mister Chicotel, who was on the working group that spent months having these conversations, whether there was any conversation about that specific issue, he might be able to address it. If you'd like to address the question to him.

Oh Madam Chair, I wouldn't mind also

Hearing couple more minutes at the county. Yeah.

And then we'll go from there.

Yeah. Thank you. So you're getting to the heart of the Bill. Not only did we deprive residents of these caregivers, we also deprived them of their voice to some extent, because family caregivers serve this role of checking the quality of the care that's being provided and making complaints to the regulatory authorities, making complaints to the ombudsman office.

This Bill doesn't have those guardrails that you seek. I mean, we're trying to make sure that family caregivers have access during any public health emergency, in part to make sure that the quality of care doesn't slip to these levels that we saw in 2020.

But with 14 day lockouts and a Governor override, there's no way to assure that these are, what we're trying to do to strike this balance between safety in terms of infection control versus safety on the quality of care and the quantity of care to a large extent.

I'm not sure if you, you said. You want to hear from the county. They have a. Do you folks have an idea of what that would look like so that we don't commit the.

I have a comment on that, and we sincerely support visitation and never want to see it curtailed. Again, it's not our first choice. It's not our second choice. It's a last resort.

And I agree with you that there are steps that can be taken to more assure that visitation, even in an emergency, could continue in a sustained way. And so we have deployed infection control prevention out to facilities so that people can be trained faster, they can look at the ventilation there, the bed situation, do workforce training.

There are a number of steps you can take short of removing the authority where you can support visitation so that should it ever be curtailed, it would be a last resort and hopefully for a short period of time so.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're welcome. My questions might cause some other questions, so we'll move through this. So I've been looking at this Bill, and I'm wrestling with it, and I'm glad there's plenty of witnesses here to talk to us about this. Covid, we learned so much in Covid, in ways that we were forced to. Right.

And because it went on for so long, we saw the long term impacts of decisions that were being made. But ultimately, whether it was about saving lives or building protocols, I did rely on my local health public health officer for that information. And at that time, I was in schools, working in education.

So really looking at the health and welfare of children every day, and our teachers and our staff and I understood that, during the pandemic, there were areas of California that were more impacted than others.

And so the local jurisdictions were working not only with the state and with Office of Emergency Services, but across California to provide up to date communications protocols, processes for anyone who was looking for them, and to give us direction.

Now, one of the greatest areas of fault that I think I still hold onto is those who were in, those that are elderly, people with disabilities that were in residential care, that we just did not have a response.

We did not know how to ensure that that social connection, that connection to the outer world, that that was maintained. My grandson was actually born during the pandemic, and we were restricted from being in the hospital and being part of a moment in my grandson's life that will never be repeated.

But I understood that that was not only for his health and welfare, but it was also for the other patients that were in the proximity. And it was difficult, it was heart wrenching to not be able to have that closeness. But he was an infant, and he did not recognize whether or not I was there or not.

The other spectrum is with our seniors and with our elders. They do recognize that. And there is a time where you reach a mature level of age, and you look at whether or not your quality of life includes people that love you, support you, and fill you up. Right.

And so I am really struggling with any type of restriction that prohibits that level of interaction. So my question is this. So one who is responsible for licensing the facilities and maintaining oversight, is that local or state?

That's at the state level, Senator.

State level. Okay. After the facilities are licensed, if there was a complaint or a concern, does that go to the state? Does that go to the local state?

State. Every time.

Okay. All right. So, you know, I think one of the things that I like to build in policy is I like that connection between those who are doing the oversight and ensuring the quality of our facilities are also doing the regulation, because it kind of goes hand in hand.

So my question really to the counties is, how do you see your ability to continue to do the best job that you can do as local public officers, public health officers, in the event that this Bill were to move forward and there are some restrictions being done at the state, I mean, this is a heavy handed approach to local regulation.

So how can. How would you be able to continue to do your great work or not?

We would do the best we could with the situation. We hope that we would still have the authority in a situation that we can't predict who's going to be most vulnerable, what type of protective equipment is going to be needed, what type of training is going to be needed.

You could move to an infectious disease that has a mortality rate much, much higher than Covid, where a breach in protocol can make a huge difference, and it takes a team approach to put it on, take it off, monitor, etcetera.

So we would do our best to get that education out there, to get the training to the people who need it, to get supplies of equipment. We've learned a lot from COVID We have much better lines of communication with our healthcare facilities and our long term care facilities. And communication makes a big difference.

When I was a county health officer, at the beginning of the pandemic, my health Director came to me at the very beginning and said, what do you need first? And I said, we need somebody to help protect our long term care facilities.

And we hired a former health officer who had been retired, who came in and became that liaison and worked with them closely. And this is before vaccine. This is before we knew it was aerosolized, etcetera. And we had one of the latest entries of COVID into our facilities because we had those communications.

So I think we would leverage whatever tools we had available, but we would miss having the tool to take measures as may be necessary to protect health and safety. Removing this tool, I think, would potentially have unintended consequences.

I think you were going to offer us a perspective from someone who has lived experience, and I wanted to give you that opportunity because I think that's going to be a great way for us to close. Do you mind doing that?

Thank you. I'll summarize what I wanted to say. So I was inside early on, first in hospitals because of the ADA. This was all before vaccines, very early in the pandemic, and they had to let me in because my mom needed too much support for them to handle.

So they taught me how to put on and off PPE and help me with the team, part of that. And then I was able to get into the long term care facility only because they saw they needed the help as well. And in spades, they got back time for their staff, for other residents.

And so other residents did better because they had more support while I was there. They didn't have to use as much PPE because I didn't have to take it off and on while I was in one room with one resident. And I see us as a potential tool in public health.

I think family caregivers are capable and ready and willing to take the risks and the precautions to follow the same protocols as staff.

And honestly, many of us have so many years of experience that it's unusual to see a brand new staff member going in because of the waivers without training or background checks or really much of anything.

And then the family caregiver, who has many years of experience and can assist in great ways and subtle ways out of the way that they can't go in. We can follow the same protocols, and we do save. We end up saving time and money for other residents and for the facility or whomever is providing the PPE.

So at the end of the day, that's how we'd like to be seen as that sort of core that you can tap because we're incentivized for good public health outcomes, too. We want our loved ones to thrive and survive. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. That's all my questions.

Any other questions? Senator.

One last question. Madam Chair, you may indulge me just a tad. So, one last question on. Would your. Bill for the record, for the public, for the county, would it limit to family caregivers, such as your witness and support, or is it open to any visitation to anyone, the capacity in which they will be coming in, would there be a purpose other than or multiple, or is it just one person, one caregiver at a time?

So it could be limited to one caregiver. That is the case. We have gone back and forth on designating versus non designating. I'm going to ask Mister Chicotel if you can remind me our latest version of the Bill when it comes to the visitation requirements.

Sure. At this time, the Bill doesn't refer to designated support persons, but that is the recommendation of canner, my organization, to go that route.

So we don't have any. It's not in here.

No.

Yeah. And if I recall correctly, you don't see facilities listed as opposition to this Bill. And that was precisely one of the things that they had concerns with having to go through a process of like identifying and keeping tabs and records of who signed up to be the official person in order to facilitate that.

Because again, in reflection, the time of such a scenario, crisis, I'll call it even. They don't want to be burdened with the task of having to figure all that out and also allowing folks to come in and visit.

So in exchange of, again, trying to come to a point where I had support from multiple stakeholders, we said, okay, let's not put the burden on the facilities, the long term care facilities, to have this keeping of tabs. And that's how we got to where we are today.

But the designated person could be actually be designated prior to or when, at the point when the seniors actually have entered into the facility, right?

Yeah, correct.

Okay.

Good. So I still struggling with this one. I think part of it is because we've had the Bill for a little over a week, and I tend to be very proactive to put forward questions and amendments, and I don't think we were able to get that done in the timeframe.

Knowing that this is not going to be double referred. It sounds like, you know, it's going to be difficult for us to make some of those amendments for clarity in terms of where the Bill is. So I'm wrestling with this one right now.

I think what we do, what we'll do is we'll have you close, we'll continue moving forward. I think we're going to be here for a few more hours, so stay tuned, folks. So I will go ahead and close.

Yeah. Thank you very much. Appreciate both of you, both of the Members of the Senate who are here at this Committee asking questions. I think that's a good way of trying to understand what we're trying to accomplish.

And as I said in the beginning, what we're trying to accomplish is to find a balance between making sure that we have good public health for the General public, but also good health for those who are in care.

And if you know anyone who's ever cared, I say it this way because it was an honor for me to care for my father at the end of his life. If you know anyone who's ever cared for someone, it's really an honor to do that.

And to be find yourself in the circumstance where you cannot offer that love and that care, particularly at that time in their lives, which is as important as any other time in their life, is really, really a difficult thing. To prohibit that from our citizens in California. This was, I think, as thoughtful as you can get.

There was an attempt to do this law this way a couple years ago. I think the Legislature, rightfully so, said go and study. It created a work group. They met for months. It included all stakeholders. Their recommendations, I would say go beyond even the recommendations that I have in this Bill.

To the extent that I think some of them who were participating in that, who really were in earnest trying to find the right pathway forward, I want to acknowledge them for still being okay with moving forward with this, even though it is more limiting than what the experts who were put together as required by the Legislature to give us recommendations did that we took those recommendations.

We've worked them through. We've narrowed it to make sure we maintain that balance that I think we're all striving for. Certainly there will be rare circumstances. I don't think you can legislate your way through every rare circumstance.

So we're trying to really hard find a way forward so that individuals who want to care for their loved ones have an opportunity to do so to augment our public health workload. That oftentimes, unfortunately, falls on the shoulders of individuals who are working really hard in really difficult circumstances, as they are in facilities like that.

So I would respectfully ask that you support everyone who has ever had a loved one who will unfortunately, probably be more of these cases as California becomes grayer. Right. In the next seven years, something like 20 plus percent of the population will be over the age of 65 in California.

This is an attempt to address what will likely become a bigger issue. Whereas more of us having family members that are receiving care, and I think more of us wanting to have access to them, the Bill has a safeguard so that if really is that big of an emergency, there's a backstop to it.

And if it reaches that level, then the access will not be there. I think, again, to what some folks think the detriment is of those who are receiving care. So with that, I'd respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Beautifully said, Assemblymember. Thank you so much. Are you prepared to give a motion?

Certainly.

It's just you and I. Yes.

We can.

That's why I ask.

I can make a motion. But that would finish the dialogue, right?

That would, yeah, but we're gonna have to move on. Unless you have some more questions.

Nope, I. Well, actually, yes.

Okay.

Since we're gonna end the discussion, I'm just gonna.

Yes, let's go and do one more. Alvarez, Yeah, let's give them the time.

So. Sorry. Just hopefully my last question. Unless somebody answers and something else pops up.

But I think you're so all of these loose end questions that we have that we haven't addressed here today that kind of haven't tightened things over a bit. If we don't address them now and here in this Committee moving forward, what happens?

The Bill was due moved to appropriations, passed to pass to appropriations. So, I mean, the Bill can take.

But no amendments have been offered or considered moving forward out of this Committee into the next one.

That's correct.

If I may interject, Madam Chair, please. At that point, appropriations, as you know, has the authority to make amendments or not move the Bill forward or not. So I would encourage, if you have thoughts about what changes are required to make those thoughts known, and certainly I'll take them into consideration as well.

I'm hoping that there might be some leeway, some middle ground there between some of the concerns that we expressed here as Committee Members in Appropriation.

Absolutely. And if you will follow up to make sure we specifically understand what those concerns are.

Sure.

Are you okay with that, Madam Chair?

Thank you.

I'm perfectly okay with it. That's why we're the Human Services Committee, because we are human in terms of how we approach our bills. Right. All right, so we already closed. I am going to close off the discussion now. And then we have a motion from Senator Ochoa Bogh. Assistant, please call the roll.

Moved by Senator Ochoa Bogh. File item nine, AB 2075. Motion is do pass to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Ayes two. We will leave it open for our Committee. Thank you so much for being here. All right, let me take a stretch break. I think I saw Assemblymember Wicks. Yes, hello. Assemblymember Bonta's here.

We'll do it again. Did you even say it was. I didn't say it was out. No, you didn't. No, I didn't. Right. Okay, we're good. None are out. Okay, perfect. All right. A little technical difficulties on this side. Thank you so much. Assemblymember Wicks, we have you for item number seven, Assembly Bill 1961. When you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Member. First, I want to accept the Committee's amendments and thank your staff for their work on the bill and the conversations you and I had on this, Madam Chair. 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. Addressing barriers to accessing adequate, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food requires 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 and creates sustainable solutions. I want to thank our sponsors, the UFCW, Western States Council, California Food and Farming Network, and Grace and Poverty California. I'll let my witnesses self introduce themselves to do testimony.

And I'd also just say that if we are able to do this, this will be the first time in history in California that we're doing this on this issue. And obviously, I think hunger permeates all of our communities, suburban, rural.

There's obviously a disproportionate impact on communities of color, given some of the poverty issues that our communities face. But having a holistic approach, I think is the right way to tackle an issue that there's no reason why we should have hunger in the State of California.

And I view this as one of our most basic human rights is access to good, nutritious food. So with that, respectfully ask for an aye vote, and we'll love to have my witnesses testify.

Thank you so much. We'll give you about two minutes each. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you, Chairperson Alvarado-Gil. And thank you, Vice Chair, Ochoa Bogh. And my name is Ezer Pamintuan. I'm the senior policy advocate with Alameda County Community Food Bank, or ACCFB, based in Oakland. Pandemic emergency declarations may have ended, but make no mistake, hunger is still an emergency.

Around one in four Alameda County residents are experiencing some level of food insecurity. Seven in 10 living in poverty are people of color, and nearly one in five seniors live at or near the poverty level. Alameda County Community Food Bank is on the front lines responding to this hunger crisis.

Our fiscal year ended yesterday and pending finalized June numbers, we will have distributed more food last fiscal year than any other of our 40 years of existence, 59.4 million pounds higher than our peak pandemic year. ACCFB provides nearly 1 million meals every week through our network of over 400 partners.

Our CalFresh outreach efforts help more than 4000 households buy the food they need most from grocery stores. Yet food banks are bearing the brunt of public sector cuts. After CalFresh emergency allotments ended in spring 2023, our helpline experienced a 124 increase in call volume when comparing February 2024 to February 2023.

But despite these challenges, ACCFB remains committed to the principle that food is a basic human right, and that is why we support AB 1961. We're working not just to alleviate hunger, but to eradicate hunger, and this will take partnership across the state and across sectors, centering community members with lived experience with hunger.

It will involve tackling systemic racism, poverty and other forms of inequity ending hunger is an immense undertaking and it requires smart, equitable policy to take the first step to achieving it. And for these reasons, I respectfully urge your aye vote on AB 1961.

Thank you so much. Under two minutes. I love it. Thank you. Move forward.

Hi Sam Wilkinson, senior policy associate with GRACE & End Child Poverty California. Thank you Chair and Committee Member, and many thanks to Assemblymember Wicks for your fantastic leadership and poverty related hunger. Simply put, no one in our great state, the fifth largest economy in the world and the state that feeds the world should go hungry.

Yet hunger is at shocking levels in California, reaching 28% of all households with children and with shameful racial inequities. Half of black families with children are food insecure compared to 21% of white families. The good news is that we know it works, particularly on the human services side.

We saw the historic impact and power of pandemic era policies to prevent hunger and the predictable consequences of hunger soaring to these levels once they expired. We know what works, but we need a plan to get there.

AB 1961 delivers the comprehensive whole government approach needed, bringing together not just DSS but CDE for school meals, CDFA and other agencies that touch our food and nutrition system. Many of these solutions will improve our drawdown of federal resources.

Right now, CalFresh is at 71% enrollment, meaning that we are leaving 3.5 billion in federally funded food benefits on the table and some 2.7 million Californians not accessing that food aid. WIC participation is even lower at 65% and many of these solutions matter most to rural food producing regions like your district, Chair.

For example, every $1 in CalFresh benefits generates as much as 1.8 GDP, and every 1 billion in benefits creates more than 10,000 jobs, farmworkers, truckers, grocery workers and others across our vital food economy. Again, I thank Assemblymember Wicks for leading this effort and ask for your aye vote.

Great. Thank you so much. Any members of the public wishing to express their support, come on over.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Rebecca Gonzales with the Western Center on Law and Poverty in support.

Thank you.

Jazzy Graywell with UFCW Western States Council proud co-sponsor in support.

Thank you.

Keva Dean, Contra Costa Solano Food Bank in support.

Thank you.

Sharon Gonzalez with the City of Merced in support.

Thank you.

Kim Lewis of the California Coalition for Youth in support.

Thank you.

Nika Maslin with the Mesa Verde Group on behalf of the Consumer Federation of California in support.

Thank you.

Kellie Longo Flores with the California Association of Food Banks proud co-sponsor and in strong support.

Thank you.

Beth Smoker with the California Food and Farming Network, also a proud co-sponsor and in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair. Betsy Montiel with the League of California Cities in strong support of the bill.

Thank you.

McKenzie Richardson, Thriving Families California in support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Oscar Sandoval with the Center for Healthy Communities in strong support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Adam Keigwin, on behalf of No Kid Hungry in support.

Good afternoon. Henry Ortiz with Community Healers in support. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It just feels really good. Sorry. A wave of positive energy. Any witnesses here in opposition of the bill that like to be heard today? Please come forward. All right. Members of the public would like to express their opposition to today's bill. Okay. Seeing none, I'll bring the conversation back to the Committee

Senator, do you have any questions for the author?

Yes, actually, I do. Hello. Welcome, Member Wicks. So I think it's great we have so many people working on providing meals throughout their state, private, public.

We have so much that I think it's a good idea to have something that puts everything together and analyzes what's working and not working and gives suggestions on that end to ensure. Actually, my thing is to start addressing the root of the problem of why there is hunger, why the poverty.

Why do we have so many individuals there? I have an idea, but, you know, if we could put it officially in play, that would be great.

So my question has to do with the task force, because this bill is, as I read here, would require the Strategic Growth Council, in consultation with specified entities, to appoint and convene the End Hunger in California Master Plan task force to make recommendations for future comprehensive strategies aimed at addressing access to healthy and culturally relevant food of all Californias.

As with any Department, my biggest thing is that I see we continue to have government agencies and entities grow and grow, and that cost, it's an ongoing cost for the state in which we then have to tax individual families or companies or businesses in order to have that funding to try to fix this problem.

So ultimately, you know, poverty is, is many a times the reflection of policies that, you know, people are working in California. Many families are working 2, 3, 4 jobs, and they're still struggling financially. The cost of living is really hard.

So in addressing this issue, I was kind of curious, would there be, would you have considered, or have you considered the timeframe in which they would have to be, in effect, the time frame which they could work to get this task force with the plan that they need in order to develop those strategies?

Is there a sunset where we say, okay, this is in place for these many years to figure out the strategic plan, and then we implement it and let the other departments, such as.

Let's see, who do we have, the State Department on Social Services, the secretary of California, Health and Human Services agencies and the governors to continue doing the work per se, or is this an ongoing task force that you see it's forever going to be in place.

So let me unpack that a little bit. I appreciate the question, and I actually view this as a good governance bill as well. Right.

I mean, you know, and I've traditionally carried the budget, ask for the food banks, I think every year, apart from last year since I've been in the Legislature, to the tune of $100 million or more, you know, and those food banks need those resources.

That's like a drop in the bucket of the funds that we invest in this, which I think are critical, not to mention what our counties are doing and so on and so forth. I think the biggest question is, is that working? Are those resources working?

Are they reaching the people that we need them to reach, and if not, why? And so I think you're asking the right question. You know, we want to make sure as taxpayers that our money is getting spent wisely.

And most importantly, we want to actually solve the problem, make sure that our social safety net is really benefiting the people who need it most. And so I think that's one of the main fundamental questions of the task force.

You know, we, you know, on page three, the analysis kind of talks through who specifically would be on the task force. We wanted make sure we had a nice, diverse group of stakeholders, government and non-government, et cetera, people at different angles of this issue.

And this issue touches so many different things from ag to environmental issues to poverty issues, racial justice issues. I mean, there's a whole bunch that kind of comes into play here. So we want to make sure we had, you know, a lot of diverse stakeholders within the bill.

The idea is that the Master Plan will be distributed to the Legislature January 1, 2026 with a series of recommendations. I think it's outstanding around what those recommendations are and then what the cost associated with those would be.

But this would really serve as a center of gravity to have that conversation with the people who are in this space, who are experts in this space around what are we doing and what are we not doing? Well, you know, and how can we make that better? And so I don't view it as another layer of government.

I view it as, let's take a beat and actually understand where we're succeeding and where we're failing and figure out the right policy prescription to make sure that we're succeeding.

But this still would be a government assigned.

And there's a cost to it. Right. There is, you know, and it's, the cost is on page six of the analysis, and it's 3.71 million for the first year and 2.2 in the second year. You know, and I also, as the appropriations Chair, also recognize the moment that we're in in terms of resources for the state.

And obviously this will, you know, if it gets out today, it'll go through Appropriations Committee here in the Senate as well. I'm really open to potential cost saving measures on what we could do to help bring down that cost or other kind of creative ideas to that end.

And I'm happy to talk with you or others or the Appropriations Chair here and the Senate around that, but I do view a limited investment, I think can have a much bigger ROI on what we're actually doing and how we're actually tackling the problem.

And I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm just curious as to whether or not you envision this task force to be an ongoing infinitely, or is there a certain time frame that you see, okay, they've done their job. It's completed. Now we'll let the power forces be enact and move forward with the recommendations.

And then if, you know, there were a need to see it come back in years, you know, forward is.

I think the report itself is going to help determine then what we end up doing. You know, I mean, I doubt it's going to come back and say we're doing everything perfectly. So I think there will be ongoing need, and those are bridges we'll cross when we, when we get there after the announcement.

I understand that. But once the studies come out and once they come back, you know, usually the legislative audit. Yeah.

I don't know if this has a sunset on it. I can, I can double check.

Okay. Would you be open to conservation of a sunset period? I'm just saying. Yeah.

You don't want to create more layers that are ongoing and ongoing funding and all that sort of stuff.

I've seen that in housing and in LA, where we just add more and more. And I just want to make sure that we, I would be happy to support this, but I want to see whether or not there's any measure of.

It is a one time task force, if that's the specific question. Yeah, but I don't know if it has a specific sunset, but it is a one time task force, so. Which means that it would conclude as soon as that we get the report.

That's right. I would just caution us from negotiating at the dais. Any amendments actively. But just share your thoughts. Conversations. We're having conversations, yes. All right. Any other questions, Senator? I'm good. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to thank the author for working so closely with us to move this bill forward.

You know, I really have a philosophical question, and it doesn't have to be a long answer, but what would it look like to end hunger in California? What does that look like?

I mean, I think that is the goal. Right? And I think it's not just. I think it's also kind of how you define hunger. I think it also means making sure we have access to nutritious food. Not just food, but nutritious food.

And for me, this is tied together to so many things around outcomes, around education, around housing security. I mean, there's so many pieces that hunger touches.

Which is also why I think this type of task force is important, because I think the idea is that we have that moonshot goal and we think about how we're going to get there.

Okay. Yeah, I think it's important to ask that question, and I think the task force is going to be tasked with defining that because, you know, we often see movements like the anti-poverty movement. And the question for me is always just like, well, what does that look like once we achieve that right?

And I think this is a bold and ambitious goal. And, you know, you have the right author to move this forward. And, you know, when we put forward legislation that has a price tag, particularly in a budget year, budget deficit year, we want to make sure that this is then leveraging the investment upstream.

And so I think certainly that's where we're looking at it here. And I know Assemblymember Wicks, that's how you have framed this and built that as well. So I look forward to seeing the outcomes of the task force. And thank you so much for entertaining our amendments as well.

Of course. Thank you. And respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Are you open for a motion or you want me to hold? Okay. All right. Happy to make the motion. All right, we'll have a motion from Senator Ochoa Bogue. Assistant, please open the roll.

Bill moved by Senator Ochoa Bogue. File item seven AB, 1961. Motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay. All right, so we have two ayes, and we will leave that open for our Committee Members. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I see Assemblymember Bonta has been very patient. Assemblymember Friedman has snuck in before you. I'm so sorry. But we'll get you next, no matter who comes in the room. Okay?

And then, Assemblymember Wicks, we do have a vote only for you, but we are going to wait until the end of the hearing. Okay. All right. That was your question. Okay. Got you. Assemblymember Friedman, do you have witnesses with you today? Yes. Okay. We'll have them come forward to the table, please.

We'll be all ready to go and then get started whenever you're set.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Five million Californians are living in poverty. It shouldn't surprise anyone that California contends with the enduring challenge of having one of the nation's highest living costs. The staggering housing prices, the relentless surge in educational expenses, health care access, and the overall burden of meeting basic needs pose a formidable economic hurdle for a substantial segment of our population.

With these factors and the institutional barriers that make accessing aid programs difficult for many, it's no surprise that California is home to the nation's starkest income and wealth inequalities. Guaranteed income, or GI programs, offer a beacon of hope. GI extends beyond alleviating financial hardship.

It infuses dignity into the lives of those facing economic adversity and grappling with systemic inequities. Thanks to the tireless work of many of the people here in this room, my witnesses, California allocated 35 million dollars to launch the nation's pioneering GI program three years ago with many stakeholders from across the State of California.

Over 25 million dollars in grant funding went to seven district GI pilot initiatives statewide. These pilots aim to provide unconditional, individual, and regular cash payments to disrupt cycles of poverty, promote equity, and meet the basic needs of California residents in pivotal life stages, including those who are pregnant or aging out of extended foster care.

The pilots will assess the impact of economic interventions during these crucial life transitions, building upon the lessons and successes of previous GI projects. It's vital to translate these pilot programs into findings so that we understand how these programs operate, how they work best, and the best way to implement them into the future.

And that's where AB 2263 comes in. Our bill proposes to conduct a comprehensive study on the needed infrastructure, funding mechanisms, and prioritization of populations for statewide GI program in the future to alleviate poverty and promote economic empowerment with the guidance and assistance of a newly created coordinating council. The early data from GI programs is very promising.

With this bill, we'll be setting up the framework to move forward in the future towards a statewide program that will lift vulnerable Californians out of poverty and we'll be able to measure that success. I respectfully request an aye vote, and testifying in support today is Keva Dean and Loren Dalbert. Thank you.

Thank you so much, and each witness will have two minutes.

Good afternoon, Assembly Members. My name is Keva Dean. I'm a resident, a recipient of the Coco Go Big Guaranteed Income Pilot and a member of Comment Studios. I also sit on the Board of Directors of the Food Bank of Contra Costa and I'm an advocate for them as well.

I also, last year, retired from Contra Costa in the same building where 26 years prior, I received cash aid benefits. When I joined Comment Studios before I retired, I was not particularly on board with guaranteed income, but last year I was forced to retire due to health concerns. As a result, my income has been cut in half and I began to see its value. My colleague told me that I was someone who did all the right things and yet I found myself in financial difficulties.

As a homeowner, I use the GI funds for emergencies such as plumbing needs and to purchase healthy groceries, as I've been tasked with losing 50 pounds so I can get some surgeries so that I can get healed. We know that at this time the aging population are most at risk of financial vulnerability and homelessness.

Giving this demographics resources to meet their needs not only gives them dignity, but peace of mind. I urge your strong support in funding AB 2263 so that we can do a deeper dive into how GI can be funded and disseminated for the better of our overall welfare and economy. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, Senators, my name is Loren Dalbert, and I live in Bay Point in Contra Costa County. I'm one of the co-founders of Comment Studios. Comment: the COMM stands for community and the ENT stands for enterprise and we are community entrepreneurs, and we created--and Comment Studios is a community-led restoring neighborhoods program of RCF Connects.

Now we know that investing in local leaders helps build stronger communities. This knowledge led us to design and implement the Coco Go Big Guaranteed Income Pilot for our county, not to prove the efficacy of GI, but to explore the challenges and opportunities related to implementation as community residents.

We want to keep our voice centered in the conversation about implementation of guaranteed income. As a twice formerly homeless disabled veteran, I know GI works. For two years in my twenties and for four years in my fifties--I'll leave in the fifties this year--I experienced homelessness due to military trauma.

And the only reason I am not currently homeless is because I am a participant in a permanent federal government guaranteed income program called VA Disability. Guaranteed income is about more than just financial support. That's the beginning. But it is a powerful tool for nurturing resident leadership and developing local economies, especially in rural and underresourced communities.

For example, because I have a permanent income floor, I have left five years of homelessness and unemployment behind to become a successful social entrepreneur who is creating new jobs, providing essential services, and stimulating our county's economy, and that is why I respectfully request an aye vote to support AB 2263 to help us explore a statewide GI program that ensures that every California has the financial stability they need to engage, lead, innovate, and collectively transform our state for the better. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right. We will open it up to the public. Any members would like to share their position for support?

Thank you, Madam Chair, Members. Martha Guerrero, representing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, in support.

Welcome, Supervisor.

Rebecca Gonzales with the Western Center on Law and Poverty, in support.

Nicole Wordelman, on behalf of the Children's Partnership, in support.

Thank you.

Rachel Bhagwat with ACLU California Action, in support.

Thank you.

Ejiro Okoro, on behalf of United Way California Capital Region, in support.

Thank you.

Lan Lay, on behalf of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Southern California, in support.

Thank you.

Amanda Kirchner, on behalf of County Welfare Directors Association, in support.

Thank you.

Sam Wilkinson with GRACE and End Child Poverty in California, co-sponsoring the bill, in strong support.

Thank you. Thank you so much. All right.

Sorry. Madam Chair, Senator, Monica Miller, representing the National Council of Jewish Women LA, also a co-sponsor with GRACE End Childhood Poverty, but here to provide any technical assistance that's needed. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for catching me before I moved on to opposition. You were confusing me there. I says, wait, you're in opposition? Any members--lead witnesses in opposition? No? Members of the public wishing to express their opposition? You walking out? Okay, there we go. All right. We'll bring the conversation back to committee. Questions, concerns? Senator Ochoa Bogh, I pass it to you.

Just a quick question, I think, for the public. I think it's important to kind of define or make clear what the difference is between having, say, welfare assistance programs and guaranteed income. I think many people would say--well, I'm not going to say, but I'm just saying--I think that is probably something that is on a lot of people's mind is the difference of what we currently have to what you folks are looking forward to having.

You can answer if you like.

Yeah. So we would agree with you. I mean, I think ultimately the goal of guaranteed income is to provide, to lift people up in all communities, and we know that there is oftentimes sort of that stigma that it's a welfare program, if you will, but we think it's so much more than that and we would define it as so much more than that, quite frankly, and we also believe that as we look both at the federal, state, and local levels, we--trying to decide, how do we make sure that people are eligible for all programs?

So, you know, when they come through a welfare office with the county, making sure that they are eligible for all programs, and so, for example, maybe they aren't eligible for some of the social safety net programs that we have out there, but they are eligible for guaranteed income, and so ultimately, the goal is to try and figure out how we determine what they're eligible for and work with our communities to be able to make sure that these programs are in existence right now with the seven pilot programs that are statewide.

And then there are many programs that are also in existence that are funded both privately and at local levels. We want to try and scale that at a statewide level and again, work with our county partners to try and make sure that these are one of many of the tools in the toolbox that are available to participants as well as those that are directing individuals to identify what programs that they would most be eligible for. Does that not answer your question? Yeah. Yes.

May I say something?

If the Chair--

Yes. Do you have--is your question--was your question--

Not quite.

Okay. Yeah, let's see if we can address this. Yes.

As a person who has received welfare benefits, given out welfare benefits, and received guaranteed income, there is a stark difference in the welfare system and guaranteed income. And one of the biggest differences is dignity. When I received benefits and when I had to give out benefits in the Welfare Department, I found a lot of my clients didn't feel dignified because of the application process, because of the renewal process and having to go through the interviews, but when I applied for guaranteed income, it was a simple process.

There was no, it was not undignified, it wasn't very intrusive, and I felt like I was, I felt like I was a human being. I felt like I was actually somebody who had some dignity and some pride. And so I think that there's a stark difference. Now, I think that we also have the conversation.

We've had the conversation and we understand as practitioners that we know that when we give out guaranteed income benefits, it might adversely affect welfare or other benefits, and that's an ongoing conversation, and I believe that that may be one of the things that AB 2263 does address.

Okay. We're going to give you an opportunity to close, and then I'm not going to call for a motion because I need to get some more committee members in the room, but please give us your closing.

Sure, and just to be clear, this bill does not institute a GI program. What it's doing is it's gathering data about the existing pilot programs to see how it's working best and for whom and in what way. One of the differences with welfare is, you know, these are federal programs that often change in terms of who's eligible and sort of what the strings are attached to those payments. Guaranteed basic income is just that. It's basically, it's saying to people, you need a certain amount of money to live.

We're going to guarantee that to you without those strings attached so that you can live with dignity, you can pay your bills, and what the data has been showing is that those people tend to actually thrive and they are able to move up economically. They are able to find employment many times if they're able to.

And it does alleviate the kind of deep poverty that we often see leading to homelessness and other situations that people in California just don't want our community members and our friends and neighbors to have to go through. So it really is about that dignity and about giving people opportunities.

And again, this bill does not set up a GI program, but it helps us to understand the ongoing pilots so that we do know what works and what doesn't to alleviate poverty, which is the bottom line of what these programs are all trying to do to end cycles of poverty.

With that, I want to thank my witnesses for coming here today and giving their really powerful and very personal testimony. Thank you very much. It's really meaningful to, I think, put a voice and a face to what can happen with these kinds of programs, and with that, I would request an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And thank you so much for being here today. So we will move forward the presentation of item number 16, Assembly Bill 2476. Assemblymember Bonta, whenever you're ready. Welcome. Please begin when you're ready.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members of the Committee. Childcare is the work that enables all other work. Parents rely on childcare so that they can pursue work or school and build financial stability to provide for their families and businesses rely on childcare to maintain a stable workforce.

California currently administers six different voucher based childcare programs, collectively referred to as the Alternative Payment Programs. These programs provide vouchers for families to use for childcare of their choosing. Many of these programs receive funding from the Federal Child Care Development Fund, part of the Child Care Development Block grant.

On March 1, 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services published a final rule to make regulatory changes to the Child Care and Development Fund effective April 30, 2024. As part of that final rule, states, territories, and tribes administering programs using child care development funding must use private pay practices.

Child care providers require private payers to pay for service upfront before the care is provided to cover their monthly expenses. These providers often use the cost of each child care spot to forecast revenues and expenditures and financially planned for the future.

There is therefore a financial disincentive for child care providers to accept subsidized child vouchers as payment will only be received until 21 days after the care has already been provided. To correct this inequity, we must continue to work to align California's subsidized child care programs with the private pay.

And in accordance with the recent federal final rule, AB 2476 would close the gap between subsidized child care and the private pay market by enabling childcare providers receiving state vouchers to be paid upfront prior to providing care.

I'll now turn it over to Adonai Mack from Child Action and Denyne Micheletti Colburn from Thriving Families California to speak more on the importance of this issue.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee Members. My name is Adonai Mack and I am the Chief Executive Officer of Child Action, a proud co-sponsor of AB 2476. I'd like to thank you, Assemblymember Bonta, for your leadership on this important issue.

Since 1976, Child Action has been dedicated to educating and empowering families and childcare professionals in Sacramento County. Our programs increase access to child care and improve the quality of childcare services. This Bill will help support our mission by providing the necessary funds to support childcare businesses and keep their doors open.

It also addresses an equity issue as we serve thousands of children from families in this county, the vast majority of whom are families of color. By ensuring an upfront payment for child care providers to cover the cost of care for subsidized families, AB 2476 greatly reduces the discrimination these families face when accessing child care.

AB 2476 acknowledges family child care providers as business owners who deserve to be treated as such. And for families, this guaranteed payment levels the playing field by aligning the rules between the private and subsidized markets. With that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you so much.

Do we have any Members of the public. Oh, I'm so sorry. I am so sorry.

We'll bring it back here. Denyne Micheletti Colburn CEO with Thriving Families California I'm going to keep very brief. I want to thank the author for carrying this tremendous Bill that is really going to give a great deal of relief to childcare providers.

This policy has been in effect since 1978, where providers have always been reimbursed after the care is provided. Additionally, I want to say that this Bill is going to lift up the private nonprofits in this space that support connecting families to providers.

Currently, we have over a third of nonprofits who have to tap into a line of credit just to pay the June reimbursements for childcare that's already been provided. This Bill is going to make sure that a lot of these systemic issues are taken care of. It lifts up the needs of families, providers, and those that serve both. Thank you.

Now. Thank you. Do we have any Members of the public wishing to express their support? Please come forward.

Hello, Genesis Gonzalez. On behalf of Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yadalima Gallon with Political Solutions on behalf. Of Silicon Valley Community Foundation in support. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Senators. Rosanna Carvacho Elliott here. On behalf of the Early Care and Education Consortium, in strong support. Thank you. Thank you.

Clifton Wilson. On behalf of the Napa County Board of Supervisors in support. Thank you.

Thank you.