• The Disaster Recovery Centers/Local Assistance Centers will be closing later this month in both North and South Santa Barbara County, according to a Feb. 8 announcement from the county. Santa Maria’s Allan Hancock College center will be closing Feb. 26. Direct Relief in Santa Santa Barbara’s last day in operation was Feb. 15. Santa Maria’s site modified its hours from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Residents, business owners, and nonprofits are encouraged to visit the center to receive help applying for federal assistance and disaster loans, update applications, and learn about other resources that are available from state, local government, and nonprofit partners. Resources are available for undocumented community members as well. Spanish, American Sign Language, and Mixteco interpreter services are available on-site. In addition to the two local centers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has coordinated with local government agencies to send disaster survivor assistance teams into impacted communities throughout the county. These teams will continue their work to support the ongoing needs of impacted community members. “The [Disaster Recovery Centers/Local Assistance Centers] locations have been a valuable space for over 500 community members to get connected with resources they may not have even known existed for them,” county Office of Emergency Management Director Kelly Hubbard said in the statement. “The county will continue to work with local cities and [communities] to gauge the needs of our residents and provide support even after the closure of these centers.”
• U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) reintroduced the Access to Counsel Act to ensure that U.S. citizens, green card holders, and other individuals with legal status are able to consult with an attorney, relative, or other interested parties to seek assistance if they are detained by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for more than an hour at ports of entry, including airports, according to a Feb. 9 statement from the senator’s office. The Access to Counsel Act was originally introduced in response to the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban” in 2017, which resulted in many individuals being detained at airports and denied a phone call to counsel or family members. This legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that people with valid travel documents who present themselves at the border, airports, or other points of interaction can communicate with counsel or other interested parties if they are subjected to prolonged inspection by border patrol. “We cannot deny counsel to those who have a legal right to be in the United States but are detained by Customs and Border Protection,” Padilla said in the statement. “The Access to Counsel Act would ensure that there are guardrails in place to prevent CBP from denying those in their custody a phone call to a lawyer or trusted individual.”
• To continue expanding the state’s affordable housing stock and increase capacity for additional climate-smart infill housing, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced funding awards aimed at accelerating the development of new projects, according to a Feb. 9 statement from the governor’s office. Approximately $825.5 million in awards was divided among 58 communities across California to build 9,550 homes as part of a new funding approval process that eliminates the need for a developer to submit multiple applications. The funding will ultimately benefit an estimated 187,500 people over the total lifetime of all projects combined. This new application process was made possible when Newsom signed Assembly Bill 434 into law, allowing multiple housing applications to be narrowed down into a single award process. Under this new approach, requests for housing development funds have soared. The first round of new Multifamily Finance Super Notice of Funding Availability received more than $3.5 billion in developer requests—a sharp contrast to years of under-subscription. “As we demand more housing to be built at the local level, it is incumbent upon the state to reimagine and modernize our own approval process,” Newsom said in the statement.
This article appears in Feb 16-23, 2023.