This pre recorded show furnished by Matthew Matern. This is Matt Matern on Unite and Heal America. My guest today is Assemblymember Ash Kalra. And thank you for being on the program Assemblymember. It’s great to have you here. And looking forward to talking to you about a lot of issues facing California.

I know you’re on a number of different committees, housing committee labor and employment, transportation, Water, Parks and Wildlife, you’ve also have a history of working on criminal justice issues, environment, and affordable housing. So a lot to talk about with you today. Thank you for being on the program and bringing these issues to our listeners down here in Southern California.

Thank you, man, I appreciate you inviting me, it’s great to be on here. I always like to introduce myself to folks around my community around the state and certainly a lot of a lot of things that we need to work on in our communities.

Now one of the things that is a pressing problem here in California, both in Southern California and Northern California is the homeless crisis that we’re facing. And one of the things that I’ve been working on is this California Homeless stipend program. And just for the listeners, if they some of them may have heard me talk about this before, but we’ll talk about it again, which is, it’s a program that would have people bring homeless people into their homes, and pay them a monthly stipend of approximately $1,000 a month.

And the goal would be to have people use their homes to help house homeless people that are currently live in streets. And we currently have a need for for over 3.3 million new homes in the in the state of California, which is like a massive amount of new housing that that we need. And unfortunately, it would take years to build out that much housing.

So it’s not realistic that that we’re going to have that amount of housing in the next few years. So the program that that we’ve been working on, hopefully opens up some existing housing to get people off the streets. And some of the questions that I’ve had people ask me as well, how do you know that those people would be ready to do this program and the social service agencies that are already in place would help funnel people into the system.

They’ve been working with homeless people for years, and know the population and know who would be ready and suitable candidates for this. So just wanted to get your take on that program and thoughts as to whether you think it has viability or any changes that you would think that could be made to it to make it more effective?

Well, I did get a chance to skim through the language and I think, but what I like about it is that it builds upon the idea of a phased in approach to your point, that we can’t snap our fingers and have enough housing for everyone. But we also understand that if you can just think about our, our homelessness crisis as something that needs to be done over a five year period, because there are people struggling right now and suffering right now.

We need immediate solutions. And so for example, here in San Jose, and I know this has been happening around the state, whether it’s getting old hotels and motels or we’ve opened up several communities of tiny homes. But those aren’t designed for our unhoused neighbors to be there. For a year or two years. It’s designed to be there three, four or five months at the most.

So I really like this idea because it’s a next phase of that transition, when someone has been taken off the streets, put in some kind of stable environment, like a tiny home or a converted motel. But then I think getting a home, especially in the areas we live in, where it’s very expensive, where they can get a room and and continue their journey to permanent housing. And I do like I did notice in the language requires, I think six months of a relationship with social workers.

So the social workers really get to know who’s suitable and ready for it. I also noticed I mentioned something about allowing sober living environments to be included as potentially accessing these funds. And what’s critical about that, my background before I ever got into elected office, I was a public defender for 11 years, I spent about half my time in public defender’s office and drug treatment court. And so what we would find is that people would get access to sober living environments.

So the residential treatment, once they got in trouble and got arrested and got thrown in jail, well, why can’t we open up access to the sober living environments to those that wanted otherwise can’t afford it? And so I think that’s actually when I saw that I think that might be the most compelling aspect of this in the sense that it allows folks that really want help to get it without having to get arrested again, because now they had a little bit of assistance in trying to being able to afford the sober living environment to get their life back on track.

Right? Yeah, some experience in that community and and it’s so important to have a safe place to live, and that trying to get sober while living on the street is practically impossible. So so we can’t expect that the homeless population is going to get clean and sober on a live living in a tent is, it’s just not going to happen.

Yes, the housing first mentality, which you’ve got to house someone, whether their issue is mental health issues, substance abuse, whether they can’t get a job, whatever it might be their health care issues.

Well, they’re certainly not going to resolve it, while they’re living on the streets, let’s get a roof over the head of the show some morality and some compassion, while giving them the support system they need, through social services through sober living environment, through, you know, counseling, through job training.

That’s how we’re gonna get ourselves out of this situation by showing compassion, but also having thoughtfulness behind it, not, you’re making sure those that are prepared and ready to be able to rent a room from someone’s from event in a family’s home or a private residence, make sure they’re prepared for that step.

Because many of our unhoused community has been living on the street for years, and they’re not ready to simply just move into someone’s home without that transitional phase of Social Work, support.

Right. And I love the idea that you had about going from the tiny homes, to living in a home environment. And you know, that that would make it a more doable transition. And the other thing I was talking to Senator Wieckowski about this idea, and he was telling me that in his studies of this, that 30%, of our the poorest of the poor own homes in California.

So this would be an opportunity to get some money into the hands of for folks that have an asset, a home, but aren’t, are under utilizing it in terms of potentially getting some money in into their hands. So I think it could be a real win win situation, to get money into the hands of many homeowners here in California who just are low income, and and they could use some help, it could be a good program for many people in that situation.

I think that makes sense. You know, Senator Murkowski was the one that’s pushed for a number of years on ad use. And, you know, the reality is that in single family, home neighborhoods, it’s really hard to add more housing, and the ad is granny units is one way. But your idea is another way of getting more people living in communities that otherwise are built out already. And especially if you have families that can add additional support to someone that is moving into their home,

I think part of it is not just having a roof over your head is being connected to a social community. And when you’re part of a family or living with a family, you feel more connected to your community. And that helps whether it’s your way, whether it’s getting back on your feet in terms of getting a job, whether it’s you know, making sure that you’re connecting with mental health professionals, or your substance abuse treatment, you know, having that network and a lot of our folks that are on house, have lost that network, their family and all that over many years, and they feel so disconnected.

And the only sense of community that they have is out on the streets, which is understandable. And those are the things that we’re living in encampments. And those are the only people that look out for them, and they look out for each other.

And so we have to recognize that it’s not as simple as asking someone Oh, do you want to get off the streets, we’ve got to give them a pathway for success to absolutely, and I also see this as a an opportunity to reconnect families to a certain extent, and that you might have somebody who’s currently on housed, and they might have become disassociated with their family, in part because of economic reason they weren’t able to contribute.

And if they could come back and be of some economic contribution, it might be lead to a pathway to kind of reconciling and working, you know, in that structure, which is, as you said, so important to having somebody get back into the mainstream.

Yeah, that’s a good point. A lot of families go through a lot with their loved ones, especially if they get involved in substance abuse, and it’s a heavy burden to put on a family. But if that individual has gotten enough of enough support, we integrating with family is such a huge part of one success story. But you know, before you put that burden on the family, you can show Hey, this person’s work because of the social worker for six months, nine months. We have them in a stable environment, whether it’s a tiny home or some other kind of environment where they’re getting regular and ongoing.

When support, then you know the family or we’re also giving support to the family, we’re not just saying Take back your loved one, we’re also saying, Hey, we’ve got them in a place where they can actually start making strides back to rekindling those relationships.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, those are great programs that I think can help. One of the things that excites me about this program is that it’s been successful in in some test environments. They’ve, they’ve done this host Homes program, both up in Northern California and down here in Southern California.

And they’ve had had great success with it. So I think that it is something that can roll out to a wider group, and, and help alleviate the problem. I mean, it’s not going to be just one silver bullet solves this problem. But it’s it’s one piece of the puzzle.

Now, there’s no one silver bullet, they’re definitely onto something.

I appreciate that. And hopefully, we can get your support in the legislative session that’s coming up here. So we’re gonna go to the break here. You’re listening to KABC 790. I’m your host, Matt Matern, on the Unite and Heal America program. Please join us after the break.

You’re back with Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. Today’s guest is Assemblymember Ash Kalra. And great to have you on the program, we were just talking about the homelessness issue. Kind of just wanted to pivot with you a little bit to some other issues facing California, in particular, the environment and the steps that we need to take moving forward to, you know, improve our environment here in California.

And obviously, it’s even more challenging during the pandemic and the economic challenges and balancing the environment and the economy and and how do you think we should be best doing that,

I think that it really isn’t a matter of mutually exclusive choices, I think there’ll be can absolutely protect our environment and ensure that we have a vigorous economy at the same time. In fact, it is the clean energy, you know, greening of our economy that provides economic opportunities and to the rest of the century, more so than fossil fuels.

And I think that as we see, not just our own nation, or our own state, but other nations around the world, trying to find more and more technologies to allow them to wean themselves off of fossil fuels. In California, certainly here in Silicon Valley, we have a huge opportunity to provide that r&d to really ensure our companies are successful in that new age technology that’s gonna allow us to do that. And so I don’t think we have a choice. I think we have to protect our environment.

I think the wildfires, we’re seeing that we’re seeing issues of a pandemic, which also imminent, we’ve seen more pandemics, the more we’ve encroached upon otherwise undeveloped areas, whether it’s the rain forest and other forested areas. And so I think we have to be more cognizant that our actions do have a reaction. And oftentimes that reaction, please be very damaging for us and for the rest of the planet.

Right. I guess the question is, what’s government’s role in terms of deciding the technologies of the future? It’s always difficult to know which technology is really the right technology? Take, for instance, is it you know, is should we be putting more emphasis on wind?

Or we should be putting more emphasis on solar? Or should we be putting more emphasis on hydrogen power? When the state steps in and starts making those decisions? There’s questions as to whether or not they’re the best party to be making those decisions.

That’s a fair point. I don’t want to put your thumb on the scale too much. But, you know, I think we do have opportunities to encourage research. Just similarly with our medical research and pharmaceuticals. There’s NIH grants to look at certain ailments. I think similarly, you know, the government has invested in research across the board in terms of innovative technologies. And ultimately, it’s the private sector.

And this, this is actually a perfect industry. If you think about it in terms of public and private partnership, where the public sector, the government, both in terms of incentives, as well as in terms of contracting can truly incentivize the demand for cleaner technology and allow the private sector to perfect it to the best extent possible. And we’ve seen that a lot. I mean, if you think about it, there was a lot of subsidies earlier on in the solar industry.

And now you know, solar technology, and how much more efficient solar panels is. It’s magnitudes orders of magnitude more more efficient in terms of energy creation, than even 15 or 20 years ago. And so you do have that spring, by the public sector by the by by government, but you don’t have the government saying, Okay, this is the technology that’s going to be the winning technology that’s got to be done by the scientists.

And ultimately, you know, by what they’re able to achieve and get out into the private sector, into the commercial market, to see what’s feasible. It’s one thing to have the technology and also be able to show you can get it out there. And so I do think that some of the incentives, whether it’s clean energy, clean, clean vehicle incentives, solar incentives have been great.

I mean, I think they’ve allowed the technology to spread. And the more of the technology spreads, the more you can scale back any kind of public incentives, as the the market takes over, so to speak, in terms of which technologies are really the ones that went out, because there used to be like, 1,000 solar panel companies.

You know, that’s it, just like back in the day, there were 1,000 automakers, and it slowly narrows down to those that do it the best. And so that initial research, initial incentives, I think, are important to give the private sector a reason why they would want to invest in that R&D.

Well, that kind of pivots, potentially to an area that that goes to more free trade, which is it seems as though the Chinese government has been backing its companies regarding solar technology, and really running American companies out of this, this market. So what are we going to do to kind of protect California companies to so that they can continue to be market leaders, that we’ve seen a huge amount of investment from the Chinese government, as we seem to be seeing the whole lot of investment from the German government into their companies.

And I think that there are a number of things that can be done. One is it public subsidies are used to make sure that the products that are being used are sourced from responsible companies. And that goes to where the products are being sourced from, it goes to labor and work environment, when workers rights. And I think you can absolutely have incentives for California made products. As long as it’s an open market for everyone to compete.

There are some federal regulations that keep us from saying you can only get into American made. But there are ways you can incentivize. And I think you know, there, I’ll give you an example a little bit of different arena.

But I have a bill I’m introducing called the tropical deforestation free Procurement Act. It’s a it’s actually the deforestation free Procurement Act this year, because we added boreal forests, but in a quick snippet is that basically companies that we contract with for commodities as a state, whether it’s furniture or food, whatever it might be, the companies we contract with have to ensure they’re not contributing to tropical deforestation.

And so that’s going to incentivize companies to use domestically made products, because you can, you can be sure, domestically made products are not contributing to those kinds of issues. So similarly, I think there are ways we can incentivize without saying, we’re targeting China or any other company or country, we can simply say, these are the standards that we expect, out of the products that we’re going to put our money into as a state.

And what that does is it gives a market advantage the private sector companies that get these big government contracts, now they have a market advantage in scaling up their private sector, commercial market as well. So it’s a little complicated because the federal government regulations and rules don’t allow us to strictly be able to say, Okay, we want, you know, only California made and no one else can compete.

But there are things that we can do that put an emphasis on the kinds of products that are being used. The treatment of workers, no child labor is already something that we haven’t, obviously. And so those are there are ways that we can go about it.

Yeah, I know that we should be looking kind of at the federal level for some additional guidance on this I by I want you to back up a plan where essentially, if if a Chinese company was violating environmental standards and creating a product or using labor that was really sub minimum wage, that they would be hit with a tariff, because essentially, they’re not competing on a fair playing with our companies that are meeting environmental standards and meeting labor standards, that it really is unfair.

And so that then it would, it would essentially even the playing field so the American companies can compete on the same playing field as whether it’s a Chinese company or any any India or Germany or wherever it is. We shouldn’t be he kind of subsidizing polluters, because not only is it you know, creating pollution and other areas, if they’re relying upon coal fired energy, we’re also killing our own jobs by letting that company in that country subsidize their products by using it in an environmentally unfriendly manner. So,

I agree, I look at the obstacle in that, because I totally agree, is these companies mean, so many American companies are profiting farm property profited greatly by outsourcing their manufacturing, and whenever we try to put some kind of surgery controls on same companies, you know, it will defeat efforts to do it. And that goes to the issue of not only you know, because I certainly support, you know, a transition, I call it a just transition.

So we talked about the Green New Deal, what have you, I think we have to think about the jobs, you know, because fossil fuel jobs, you know, there’s a lot of good paying jobs. So I understand why the building trades and other folks whose members have put their kids through college on those jobs are wary about losing those jobs. So the green technology jobs also should be good quality jobs, and I think we will be will be able to achieve it, if we can push back on these companies that are just looking at the bottom line.

And that goes to the influence and the inordinate influence of corporate money and just money in general, into our political system. And so it gets really hard to get these things through, because of its I like to refer to it as, as legal corruption, because there’s nothing illegal about it. But at the end of the day, it’s having a tremendous impact on our ability to do what we know is right and what you’re saying. I agree with Ken, I would I would I be able to do that. Realistically, it would be really hard to do, because of again, the influence in our political system.

Yeah, I think that it is a pretty powerful influence. I know that a similar bill had been introduced in California a few years back and it died, I think it would be challenging to have it passed as a statewide piece of legislation, it really needs to be a federal piece of legislation. So that every state is playing on the same from the same set of rules. And America needs to speak with one voice and that issue for us to to make it work.

It makes it tough. And I’ll just quote one last thing on this point, that makes it tough, because I think that the reality is that California could lead on those issues. But again, every time we try, they’ll say, Well, you’re putting us at a disadvantage. But if we don’t lead, then it’s not happening in DC. So it’s really it’s a tough balancing act in that sense.

Absolutely. And I I feel that California has had a leadership role. And it’s not leading just the the United States, but it’s also leading the world in a lot of ways. And I think that it’s, it’s showing the rest of the world and the rest of the United States that you can have a clean and good economy at the same time. And that’s, that’s a valuable lesson for a buddy to learn is that where our economic growth exceeded the national average. So it shows that you can do both effectively.

So we’re going to take a break now, you’ve been listening to KABC 790, the Unite and Heal America program with Matt Matern, and we’ll be back in just a minute. Thanks for joining us. Everyone, this is Matt Matern back with you on Unite and Heal America, I got to Assemblymember Ash Kalra.

And thank you, everybody for joining me. And thank you, Assemblymember. For being here. I wanted to talk to you about some of your prior work on the environment. And AB 3030. If you can explain kind of to the listeners what that is about and what happened as a result of your efforts.

Sure, yeah. So it’d be 3030 we introduced last year, and the goal was to protect 30% of our land and water by 2030, which is a number we just didn’t come up with out of thin air. It’s a number that many bio scientists around the world have indicated, is a target that most countries should aim for, in order to protect our biodiversity around the world and combat climate change and what have you. And so I introduced it, it was well received.

Unfortunately, it didn’t make it all the way all the way to the governor’s desk. But the good news is that the governor adopted an executive order essentially adopting the main focus of the bill to Protect 30% of our land and water. And then in the last couple of weeks, President Biden has also indicated that he’s going to set a federal target, similar to our 30% goal. And so start started with a bill that I authored here in California just a few months ago. And now it looks like the federal government is setting that similar target nationally.

And so it does show that in California, when we put something forward, especially as applies to issues like the environment, that we really can’t influence the rest of the nation in the world. And it’s exciting to see that and it really allows an opportunity for us to continue to think big, in terms of what we can do to to protect our environment, you know, clean energy, as we’ve discussed, and other areas of importance, right.

I know of one thing like that, where, at the time, Governor Schwarzenegger was in power he, he through I think Executive Order created the hydrogen rollout. And for hydrogen fueling stations that and statewide and previously, there had been restrictions on allowing hydrogen fuel to, to you know, there was still this kind of fear that it’d be another hindrance Hindenburg and, and, and that was in 2004.

Something. And only recently do we now see the prevalence of more hydrogen cars, I actually happen to have a hydrogen car. So I’m kind of a big proponent of it, and, and feel like with the state can do even more to press more infrastructure for those stations.

And to encourage that, because I think that it’s even cleaner than electric cars, because you don’t even have a battery. And there’s a lot of states that that can’t put even hydrogen stations in their state because of the regulations that they have, which is kind of crazy when you think about it.

I think there is that fear. And I think you’re right on that the infrastructure is pretty expensive. hydrogen stations are pretty expensive. I do think that we do have opportunity. And the other aspect of hydrogen is how you’re making the hydrogen. But I think if you combined the greening of the sourcing of the hydrogen, and so you use green sources to create the hydrogen.

And then you think of creative ways to distribute it beyond just having stationary stations, because I think there’s an opportunity for mobile fueling with hydrogen, again, you know, making sure it’s done safely. But I think that the more we move away from a fixed station concept, even for for gas, as we as we have now, the better it is for the environment.

And so, you know, if we can figure out a way to get the hydrogen more evenly distributed around the state, that’d be great. Because I was actually on the air district here, the very Air Quality Management District, and I chaired it, even for a year and even back then as a few years ago, we were trying to push for more resources to build hydrogen stations, but we weren’t getting enough takers, because it is very expensive. And there’s inherent risks in it.

And so we’re hoping that we could continue to get more incentives from cars, as well as an improvement in the technology, because I would love to see more hydrogen stations and more hydrogen vehicles, I think you’re right. That’s definitely the next generation that is going to prove to be far more effective than any other technology we’ve had.

Right. And it like you said earlier takes a bit of a kickstart from the government because industry, a lot of times doesn’t want to take that risk. And then once there’s some infrastructure industry starts investing more into it, like Toyota has invested a ton of money into hydrogen, and they have 100 year plan. While they’re, they’re pretty committed to it.

But it would certainly help to have the government fund a bit of the infrastructure to make that work, because it’s a it’s a good clean technology for everybody. And it’s a certainly we’ve invested and in a lot of money in the in the oil business as a society over the last 100 plus years. It’s it would only be fair to kind of give some of those same advantages to new, greener technologies.

Yeah, I agree. And they’re, the stations, at least here in the Bay Area, that have been built have been built using some public subsidy, but it’s not nearly enough, because these are very expensive stations to build. And so we want to make sure we continue to incentivize it. Again, you know, is as you mentioned, 2004 I think for many years to get these technologies up and running commercially viable, you know, solar wasn’t, you know, there were solar panels in the 70s and 80s.

But it took, you know, a good two decades before you really started to see it more commercially spread out and become viable. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait that long, that much longer for hydrogen, because as you said, when you have major manufacturers, like Toyota on board, that really, really helps. It helps the process and so I’m fully on board and support it. And hopefully we can get more of that infrastructure built out.

One thing in terms of we talked about solar a bit and and whether or not does it, whether it makes sense to have kind of all new home developments that have solar and to kind of power themselves in whole or in part through solar power? Is that Is that something we should be pushing? Or is that going to add to the cost of new housing, such that we then affect our build out of new housing?

I think that if you’re, if you’re at least requiring the electrical hookups, they’ll be prepared for installation of solar, I think it’s the cheapest time to actually put that in place when the home is built. It costs a lot more to do it after the fact. And so I think that getting you know, given the incentives that are in place, at least currently, for putting solar on one’s roof, I think that the cost is relatively nominal, if you’re if you’re including it in the initial building of a home, as opposed to a retrofit.

And so I don’t I don’t think I think especially now, I don’t think the burden is as great as it may have been 20 years ago. And so I think that we should give every opportunity for individuals to be able to put solar on their homes, there are some developments that are just doing it outright, and putting solar on other homes and just building it into the cost.

But I think the happy medium is to at least make sure the connections and the electrical is done to allow for solar. And then the individual homeowner can decide if they want to make that additional investment, using whatever government subsidy credits, tax credits and so on they exist.

Would Have there been any moves towards making it mandatory that all new homes in California get solar? And what what are your thoughts about that?

I don’t know. There’s a current, there’s current legislation. Again, I think of what I’ve heard, when people have discussed it, and then it’s been more about requiring the electrical infrastructure to be put in place, as opposed to requiring panels themselves. But yeah, so I don’t know if there’s a current bill this year, for example, or if CARB is looking at any regulations that would require it for this time.

Right. In some ways, I think that it, it is maybe a bullet that we should bite and and make it mandatory because it is the easiest time to install solar is when somebody builds something, obviously, there’s some expense to it.

And maybe there’s some if it’s if they’re building low cost homes or or homes that are for lower income people, maybe there’s some governmental subsidy of it. If they’re building mansions in Beverly Hills, obviously, there doesn’t need to be a government subsidy because they’re already capable of bearing that cost.

Yeah, and if that’s true, as well as the the advantage of buying in bulk. So if you have a developer that’s building 800 or 1000 homes, and they know they have the facade on each of them, obviously they can they can cut a deal with a solar manufacturer and really drive that cost down the per unit cost. And I think that that that further that for further lightens the burden on the purchaser.

And so I think that we definitely need to go in that direction. In the resistance is exactly what you said that there’s resistance from resistance from home builders, that they don’t want to price out folks. They don’t they don’t want to have to add any more to the price tag of homes chardee pricing here in California. What’s your understanding of what that cost would be of putting some solar on on a new home?

I don’t know. I think it would depend on how many panels and so on so I imagine wouldn’t be wouldn’t be less than $10,000. And imagine but again, if there’s a as you indicated, if there’s some government assistance, either on the energy side or on the infrastructure side, or or if you have a development where they’re building many homes at one time, they could probably get a reduced cost as well.

But yeah, $10,000 to $15,000 I imagined at the low end would be added to the cost. But that can be driven down if you’re if you if you’re doing it across the entire development too.

Right. And well, it is an added value to the home. So it’s not just a drain on the homeowner in that it would reduce their energy costs month to month. So there is some benefit to the homeowner to have had that on their house.

Absolutely.

You’re here with us on Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern and my guest is Assemblymember Ash Kalra. And you’ve been listening to us so we will be back from a break in just a minute.

Hi, everyone, you’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern on KABC 790. My guest is Assemblymember Ash Kalra. And we’re talking about a number of issues facing California, one of which is criminal justice reform and Assemblymember. You’re uniquely positioned to talk about this issue as you were a public defender for 11 years. What what are you working on in this on this front? And what should we be doing?

Well, what are the big issues regarding criminal justice, in general, and we’ve seen this play out over the last year with the protests and with calls for justice. And it’s really an equity issue, when when they’re focused on community, I don’t feel like the system sees them the same way or cheese in the same way, and certainly proved that with the Black Lives Matter movement and an opinion if you look at the data, it shows that our criminal justice system treats people differently, depending on race, and depending on the wealth, and how and other social factors.

And so, you know, we need to make sure that we have a system that is just unfair for everyone, the victims, the accused, and our communities to keep our communities safe, but also to make sure that members of our community don’t feel like they’re being treated differently, or unfairly targeted by a system that they don’t always see as equitable. And so I had a bill to Racial Justice Act that was signed into law this past year, and is unique in that.

And there’s other states that has this. What it does is it allows the defense attorney to challenge an arrest, or the conduct during the trial conviction or sentencing based on race. Now what it doesn’t do, it doesn’t let someone off the hook. What it does do, it allows them to challenge that they’re being treated differently because of their race.

And so, for example, for the same for a similar crime, if a black defendant is being sentenced to twice the amount of time that then a similarly situated white defendant, they can at least raise the issue and have a judge take a look at it, and see if that argument has merits.

And so it allows us an opportunity to get to the systemic issues that we know are prevalent in our criminal justice system, but to do it in a thoughtful way that empowers our judges to actually look at it on a case by case basis to determine if there was any bias that played a role in the outcome of the case.

Well, that’s important. Now, obviously, we need to have fairness. And we need to have the appearance of fairness because every citizen in California deserves equal justice under the law. And to the extent that that has not been delivered in California, as well as the rest of the country.

That’s obviously against everything we stand for as a country. So I applaud your efforts to try to even the playing field so that everyone in our state feels that they’re they’re treated equally as a citizen. That’s so fundamental. Yeah,

I think it’ll build more trust in the system as well. And I think, going back to what how you started the conversation, talking about housing, those around housing, what have you know, a lot of folks that get into trouble with the law, you know, they need support and help to get their life back on track. And, you know, oftentimes, they’re never offered support, unless or until they’re involved in the criminal justice system, which is the least efficient way to deliver support and help to someone.

Similarly, you know, with health care, you don’t want someone seeking health care by going to an emergency room. Again, cost is the least efficient way to deliver health care to folks. And so I think that we do need to think about how we can bring support to individuals when they need it. So when they’re young, going through school, if you have a healthcare issue, how do we make sure we resolve that so they don’t go into debt, or end up homeless or doing things just to pay for their prescription drugs or to pay for surgery.

I actually had a client once that was involved in a robbery at a gas station. He was literally trying to get money to help pay for the cost of his wife surgery because they didn’t have insurance and he had been laid off about a month or two earlier. And so these are real scenarios, real situations that yes, no one will excuse the behavior and you You shouldn’t excuse the behavior, you know, people are putting other people in danger. But we have to understand where that behavior comes from.

And are there better ways to resolve the dilemmas that people are at in other than the expensive and oftentimes inequitable criminal justice system or the paralleling into our healthcare system? You know, are they expensive emergency room, we’re having someone started GoFundMe account just to pay for a surgery or to pay for us for something that they otherwise can’t afford.

What do we do is to the society to kind of stem those things at the beginning, and, you know, help people so that they don’t actually get into that position, particularly young people who might start down the wrong path. Any particular legislative or measures that you think could help young people to to avoid those kinds of problems?

You know, it’s interesting, because you were hearing the term and a lot of people don’t like the term of defund the police. And I mentioned that because, really, it’s about where do you prioritize your resources? So it’s not a matter of saying we want to get rid of, you know, people want to get rid of police departments, we want to make sure they’re no more police officers?

Well, no, that’s not the approach. It’s, for example, in our schools, rather than spending millions of dollars to have police officers on the campus, that same amount of money can be used for mental health professionals, for counselors, for psychologists for dispute resolution, to teach different tools and skills for young people.

So they don’t get in trouble with the law and end up in the criminal justice system. Similarly, you’re seeing in jurisdictions around the country, we’re seeing it. I know, in San Francisco, I think LA started doing some of this where they’re setting mental health professionals instead of police officers, when there’s a call for service, because as much but we’re asking too much of our police officers, frankly, we’re asking them to be able to be able to handle everything.

And the reality is they can’t and they shouldn’t, you know, and not every problem should be responded to with someone with a badge and a gun. That’s sometimes you there’s a reason why people get degrees. In psychology. There’s a reason why people come social workers, they learn certain skills to respond to certain issues.

Obviously, if a situation becomes dangerous or violent, then yes, of course, you call the police. But I think most of situations that arise can be resolved in ways that provide services, especially to young people to your point. But I think in general, we have an opportunity to rethink public safety in a way that makes us safer, frankly, without involving more cost and more heartache.

Yeah, I read recently that Camden, New Jersey had gone to a program where they had reduced the amount of funding for the police department and kind of rehired everybody at lower salaries, and then essentially had more social work type officers. And they had been very effective at reducing the crime rate in in Camden, New Jersey after they did this.

So I hear what you’re saying that there could be different ways that we allocate resources and and serve the community more effectively, because so a lot of times we as community kind of get going in one direction, you think, Okay, this is the way we have to work on this particular problem. And every, every problem to somebody with a hammer, it looks like a nail.

So it’s right back, I went up and I went to visit Finland. In Norway, we visited some of the prisons there, and the innovative things they’ve done in Norway, except very large, incarcerated population, they completely turned it around.

And when he when I went to visit them that Deputy Warden the presentation before we toured, the President said, our goal as soon as someone comes in here is to make them a good neighbor, because they’re going to go out, get out, we want to make sure we give them the tools necessary to improve their lives, when they get out, they will come back in again, and they won’t harm anyone again, and they can live a productive life become a taxpaying citizen.

And, you know, I think that’s a really good way to think of it. And a lot of them, in fact, the prison guards are retrained not just for security, but essentially a social workers that was sitting, have meals with them play games, play cards with the inmates, a very different mentality, and that create a sense of trust, but also a sense of respect and of self worth for the incarcerated so that when they got released, they said they can see something other than just going back to prison or a life of crime. Well,

I was talking to somebody recently, and they were citing to me that somebody who’s homeless, who gets out of prison is eight times more likely to violate parole or go back into the criminal justice system than somebody who’s housed and one of the things that we’ve got to do a better job of is making sure that people coming out of the criminal justice system are kind of put on their feet so that they can succeed, because obviously having them get back into the criminal justice system is extraordinarily expensive and, and not good for them and not good for society as a whole.

Yeah, that’s just on point with the bill that I’m co authoring from Assemblymember, David Chu, the chair of our housing committee, we already have a goal and the governor stated a goal of closing two to three prisons, it’ll save us a whole lot of money and potentially billions in the years ahead.

And so the idea is to use some of that money, for housing for those that are released from prison, that 100% To your point, make sure when they come out, they actually have a stable place to live. And don’t have a reason to reoffend because they’re out in the streets and can’t find a way to survive.

Right, I worked with an organization here in LA that that does that with longtime inmates who are coming back out of the system and trying to get their lives back together. And they, they housed them and they helped give jobs retraining and, and things like that. Because, you know, people have been in the criminal justice system for 20 plus years have kind of I mean, they they’re landing into a wholly different world than the one they left.

So we need to do a better job at having them land on their feet, because it’s certainly better for everybody if they do. Yep. So Well, it’s been a pleasure having you on the program assembly member and sharing with us sharing with the audience, all the things that you’re working on. We know there’s a lot of important work being done up in Sacramento, and we wish you all the best in in working on those projects that you’re working on.

And certainly to the extent that you can lend any support to this California homeless stipend program, we’d love to get your support on that one as well.

Well, thank you so much, Matt, for having me on the show. Thank you for the work that you’re doing.

Certainly keep me in the loop on that bill. And I just appreciate the fact that you care enough about these issues to to have these in depth conversations with us and you’re clearly doing the work on the ground as well. And for that I’m grateful. Well, thanks again for being here.

And you’ve been listening to Unite and Heal America. I’m Matt Matern, and this is KABC 790. Have a great week, everybody. We’ll look forward to having you back on the program or listening to the program next week. This pre recorded show furnished by Matthew Matern.