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Californians with intellectual and developmental disabilities — such as autism, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy – deserve the best care the state can provide. Too often the system lets them down. That was the lesson we heard again and again when the state’s Little Hoover Commission — an oversight agency on which we serve — held hearings recently on the developmental disabilities system.
California’s housing crisis can seem insurmountable. The median home price is more than $800,000, the state needs millions of additional homes to give everyone a place to live and homelessness is on the rise. Progress is abysmal. The state called for the construction of 180,000 new units annually between 2015 and 2025 to close the gap. We are building fewer than half as many, only about 80,000 new units per year. This is unacceptable, but there are solutions.
Two women, enticed by promises of well-paid work and plentiful opportunities, left their homelands for a better life in California. A nightmare awaited them. Upon arrival, Angela Guanzon was told she owed $12,000 to her employer and had to work 10 years at a nursing home to repay her debt. Renuka Zellars was manipulated at a young age into indentured servitude and prevented from leaving her employer’s house even to attend school.
Slavery may seem like a thing of the past, but even today in California, innocent men, women and children are forced into servitude. They are victims of labor trafficking, a horrific crime that denies its victims fundamental freedoms and basic justice. As a state, we know little about it and lack a strong response. This must change. That’s why California’s Little Hoover Commission is calling for a more streamlined and coordinated approach to fighting all forms of human trafficking.
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