It is long past time that California bring real solutions to unreachable home prices and crushing rents. Affordable housing is a right, not a privilege, and we must commit ourselves towards improving the well-being of our Californian families.

In order to alleviate the shortage of affordable housing for all income groups in California, I will support measures that accelerate housing production by streamlining permitting and approval processes, finance affordable housing projects for the homeless and low-income populations, and offer a density bonus to 100% of affordable housing developments.

Over one-million Californians are exposed to unsafe drinking water, highlighting the need for improved accessibility to clean drinking water. Our small towns and unincorporated communities are being disproportionately hurt, and it is time we address this public health crisis. In order to address our failing drinking-water systems, I support measures for sustained funding to improve water infrastructure and maintain healthy levels over time.

California has long set the pace in the world-wide effort to curb climate change, not only as a matter of principle, but also out of necessity. The disastrous effects of climate change have disproportionately affected Californians, forcing over a quarter-million of our people to flee the deadly path of wildfires, and our brave firefighters to do battle on the frontlines.

As the people’s voice for the 59th District in the State Capitol, it is my responsibility and desire to act fast and recognize the solutions needed to reverse the damage we have already done to our planet and mitigate the behaviors that are exacerbating the problem. This is why I am proud to have a 2019 environmental scorecard of 100% from the Sierra Club, as well as a 2018 environmental scorecard of 100% from the California League of Conservation Voters. I have and will continue to support the measures that protect our country from environmental degradation; from reducing packaging waste to prohibiting new oil infrastructure on state lands to protecting California from the Trump  Administration’s environmental rollbacks, I will fight for a green California free of a carbon footprint and set in renewable energy.

In my time in the legislature, I have spearheaded forward-thinking policies that both promote public safety but also enhance justice in our criminal justice system to make it more fair and transparent for all communities.

This is why I support measures that eliminate prison for lower-level crimes, reduce sentence minimums and maximums currently on the books, and focus more on reducing recidivism rates. We must address the hurdles of disproportionately affected populations through preventative methods. This is why I secured $37.3 million in the 2018-2019 California State Budget to establish the Youth Reinvestment Fund, which serves to help improve the outcomes of vulnerable youth populations by using trauma informed community and health-based interventions in lieu of arrest, detention, and incarceration. Recognizing the School-to-Prison-Pipeline posed for underserved communities like those in my district, which has high incarceration rates for African Americans and Latinos in particular, I led the way to secure nearly $100 million for recidivism reduction grants.  For the first time since the great recession, millions of dollars in grants were made available to service providers to help turn-around the lives of the formerly incarcerated so that they could become productive residents in their communities.