• U.S. Reps. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) introduced the Childcare Expansion for Military Families Act to improve and increase child care services for military families, according Carbajal’s office. “Being a parent is a hard job, and that is especially true for our service members,” Carbajal said in the statement. “As a parent and veteran, I am so proud to sponsor this bill and work to make sure military families have access to child care and mental health services.” During his Oct. 16 visit to Vandenberg Space Force Base, Carbajal asked about limitations in access to child care on the base and learned that additional resources would help expand capacity. According to Zero to Three, many on-base child care centers in the U.S. have significant waitlists, and in some cases, infants may not get a spot until they are 2 years old. “Child care shortages are a major problem across the country, and it hits military families particularly hard when parents must work long, irregular hours, or are frequently deployed,” Zero to Three Chief Policy Officer Dr. Myra Jones-Taylor said in the statement. This act would provide $15 million in additional Department of Defense funding over two years for bases like Vandenberg to build on existing child care centers and ensure military children have access to mental health resources. “The bottom line is that our current lack of high-quality, developmentally appropriate child care options for military families impacts mission readiness, and this bill addresses these concerns directly,” Jones-Taylor continued in the statement.
• During a recent Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, titled Social Media Platforms and the Amplification of Domestic Extremism and Other Harmful Content, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) highlighted the need for stronger personal data privacy protections and the importance of fighting online disinformation, the senator said in an Oct. 28 statement. “Now, strong privacy protections may help address some of the unhealthy dynamics that we see online,” Padilla said. “We’ve been talking about a national privacy law for a long, long time. And I think it’s time Congress finally gets it done.” Padilla questioned witnesses from the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Center for Technology, and the Stanford Cyber Policy Center on several issues, which included how strong privacy protections could reduce the spread of disinformation, how social media platforms are failing to address Spanish language disinformation circulating on their sites, and how the collapse of local news outlets is negatively impacting how consumers engage with online content.
• On Oct. 29, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (HCFC) released the application for $50 million in funding for the new encampment resolution grant program. “The situation with encampments in California is unacceptable,” Newsom said in a statement. “These new funds are another step toward providing dignified housing options for people exiting homelessness.” The funds will be available on a competitive basis to local governments working to provide pathways to permanent housing for individuals experiencing homelessness. The program’s designed to fund projects across the state that prioritize the most unsafe or persistent camps, provide services, and support sustainable restoration of public spaces. The grant is a part of Newsom’s $12 billion homeless package—with $2 billion in flexible funds directed to local governments and a $5.8 billion expansion to the Homekey program. This year’s investments to address homelessness will provide housing and treatment for more than 44,000 individuals, according to the governor’s office.
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2021.