BILL NUMBER: AB 1580 AMENDED BILL TEXT AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 20, 1999 INTRODUCED BY Assembly Members Florez(Coauthor: Assembly Member Ducheny)(Coauthors: Assembly Members Ducheny, Dutra, Torlakson, and Wildman) (Coauthor: Senator Costa) FEBRUARY 26, 1999 An act to add Section 50517.8 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to housing. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AB 1580, as amended, Florez. Housing: farm labor strategy. Under existing law, the Department of Housing and Community Development administers the Farmworker Housing Grant Program. Existing law establishes the Farmworker Housing Grant Fund and continuously appropriates this fund to the department to make specified grants for farmworker housing and to defray the department' s costs in administering the program. These grants may be made to local public entities and nonprofit corporations for the construction or rehabilitation of housing for agricultural employees, their families, and related support facilities, among other purposes. This bill would require the department to develop a strategy for the development of farm labor housing and to establish a task force to assist in the development of the strategy. The bill would also require the department to report to the Legislature on its strategy. Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS: SECTION 1. Section 50517.8 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read: 50517.8. (a) The Department of Housing and Community Development shall develop a strategy for the development of farm labor housing and shall establish a task force to assist in the development of the strategy. (b) The task force shall include representatives of state housing departments and agencies involved in the planning and production of housing, infrastructure, and services to farm labor. The task force shall also include representatives fromagricultural organizationslocal government, agricultural organizations, and organizations serving farm laborers and low-income residents in rural areas. (c) The strategy shall include, but not be limited to, an identification of impediments to the production of housing affordable to farm laborers, federal, state, and local sources of financing, private sources of funding, innovative approaches to financing that could be used as a model, the current and projected need for permanent and migrant housing, and a series of measures that need to be implemented to meet the current and projected need for farm labor housing. (d) The department shall report to the Legislature by July 1, 2000, on its strategy for farm labor housing.