DDG Palm Springs January 1 2024
Goodbye 2023, and hello 2024! Our DDG year-in-review celebrates our past and hopes for a great New Year. The DDG is proud to support our active elder lgbt community since 1994. Many of us are still here thanks to the quality of life in the valley and our opportunity to live our authentic selves relatively stress-free. Our next issue will be on Feb 1st after a scheduled break.
Goodbye 2023, and hello 2024! Our DDG year-in-review celebrates our past and hopes for a great New Year. The DDG is proud to support our active elder lgbt community since 1994. Many of us are still here thanks to the quality of life in the valley and our opportunity to live our authentic selves relatively stress-free.
Our next issue will be on Feb 1st after a scheduled break.
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price gouging. It also creates a<br />
new independent state watchdog<br />
to investigate market or price<br />
manipulation.<br />
INCREASING AFFORDABLE HOUSING<br />
Senator Wiener’s SB 423 extends<br />
and expands existing law, requiring<br />
local governments that are failing to<br />
meet state housing planning goals to<br />
streamline affordable housing projects.<br />
This will increase affordable housing<br />
throughout the state in uncooperative<br />
cities.<br />
Senator Wiener’s SB 4, known as the<br />
“Yes in God’s Backyard” bill, allows<br />
housing to be developed on property<br />
owned by religious or independent<br />
higher education institutions. These<br />
groups are given this authority “by right,”<br />
which requires no discretionary local<br />
governance intervention.<br />
ADDRESSING THE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS<br />
Together, these reforms will be proposed<br />
to the voters for approval on the March<br />
<strong>2024</strong> ballot as Proposition 1.<br />
Senator Eggman’s SB 326 reforms the<br />
Mental Health Services Act—making<br />
better use of Mental Health Services Act<br />
funding to address today’s needs and<br />
increasing accountability to the public.<br />
Assemblymember Irwin’s AB 531 would<br />
issue $6.38 billion in bonds to fund<br />
11,150 new behavioral health beds and<br />
housing as well as 26,700 outpatient<br />
treatment slots.<br />
PUBLIC SAFETY<br />
26 <strong>DDG</strong> is always FREE ddg.gay. Available in print at select locations.<br />
In September, Governor Newsom<br />
signed Senator Grove’s SB 14 to steepen<br />
penalties for human trafficking of minors<br />
in California. The law designates human<br />
trafficking of a minor for purposes of a<br />
commercial sex act as a serious felony.<br />
STREAMLINING THE UC TRANSFER<br />
PROCESS<br />
What you should know: AB 1291 by<br />
Assemblymember McCarty establishes<br />
the University of California (UC)<br />
Associate Degree for Transfer Pilot<br />
Program, beginning with UCLA, to<br />
prioritize admission of a student who<br />
earns an associate degree for transfer<br />
(ADT) from selected community colleges<br />
and to redirect a student who meets<br />
those requirements but is denied<br />
admission to the applicable campus<br />
and offer admission to at least one<br />
other campus. Expanding ADTs to the<br />
UC system allows qualified community<br />
college transfer students to fulfill the<br />
requirements of an ADT and meet the<br />
requirements for participating UC and<br />
CSU campuses, streamlining the transfer<br />
process and saving students money by<br />
being able to earn two degrees in four<br />
years.
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