News release
Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, announced the advancement of six pieces of legislation through policy committees ahead of deadlines this week.
Advancing through the process and clearing these policy committee hurdles is a major step forward in making these critical policy changes for Assembly District 40, said a statement from Schiavo’s office.
“I am so proud of the issues we are championing for our community with our bill package,” Schiavo said in the release. “From housing and homelessness to ensuring factual information about reproductive health care and sick days for working families, this legislation would make a real difference for our district and beyond.”
Schiavo’s office provided the following summary of the bills:
• Streamlining the Housing Funding Process (Assembly Bill 519): AB 519, approved by the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee with unanimous bipartisan support, will establish an Affordable Housing Finance Workgroup to create a consolidated application for affordable and homeless housing developers. These changes will get housing build faster and prevent increased costs by streamlining a process that, according to a 2020 State Auditor report, creates an unnecessarily cumbersome process that ultimately passes the cost on to taxpayers and those who can least afford it, those occupying affordable units.
• Transparency in Reproductive Health Care (AB 710): AB 710, passed by the Assembly Health Committee, will ensure communities get the facts about reproductive care at the most vulnerable time. It requires the California Department of Public Health to conduct an awareness campaign to communicate with local health departments, health care providers, and the public regarding facilities that provide health care services, including, but not limited to, primary care and specialty clinics that provide pregnancy care and abortion-related services.
• Eliminate Disruption of Senior Healthcare and End Corporate Profiteering in Medicare and (Assembly Joint Resolution 4): AJR 4, also approved by the Assembly Health Committee with bipartisan support, urges President Joe Biden to eliminate corporate profiteering and expand consumer-directed access to care established through Traditional Medicare. This will help ensure Medicare continues for future generations and stops the disruption of seniors being switched to different plans and networks without their permission.
• Ending the Foster Youth to Homelessness Pipeline (AB 963): AB 96, passed by Assembly Jobs, Economic Development, and the Economy Committee with unanimous and bipartisan support, seeks to create a loan guarantee pool, administered by the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, to spur private financing to develop housing for current and former foster youth. In conjunction with existing rental subsidies, this strategy can create a dramatic ramp-up in housing for this particularly vulnerable population.
• Guaranteed Sick Days for Health Workers (AB 1359): AB 1359, approved by the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee, will give health workers, who encounter and treat illness every day, additional sick days to ensure health care workers, their patients and communities are protected from unnecessary exposure to illness. AB 1359 details a minimum sick day accrual rate for health workers to ensure they can take their hard-earned sick leave when needed.
• Reduce Administrative Barriers for Patients (AB 1697): AB 1679, approved by the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee with unanimous bipartisan support, will permit the use of electronic signatures to authorize disclosure of medical information and genetic test results, reducing administrative barriers patients face in authorizing medical providers to share their medical records.
