State Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-10th Senate District) made a big splash during her first year in the state Legislature by advocating for a controversial civil rights bill. This year, she expects to prioritize mental health, public safety and public transportation.
During the State of the 10th Senate District virtual town hall in late January, Wahab shared some of her wins and losses from the previous year, including Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to veto Senate Bill 403, which would have been the first law in the country to ban caste discrimination.
Despite that, Wahab said most of her bills made it over the finish line.
Wahab highlighted Senate Bill 555, which mandates that the state Department of Housing and Community Development complete the California Social Housing Study by 2026. That study aims to identify barriers and solutions for creating affordable housing for lower-income households and social housing for lower- and moderate-income households. It is expected to provide the state with recommendations on how best to use available resources, remove barriers, secure additional funding sources and establish a state-level Social Housing Authority.
This year, Wahab said she wants to focus on public safety. Frequently, the pendulum on public safety swings too far to the right or too far to the left, Wahab said, but she wants to focus on policies that both address the root causes of crime, as well as hold the perpetrators of crime accountable.
Hayward Police Chief Bryan Matthews was among the speakers at the town hall. He shared the success of the Hayward Evaluation and Response Team, also known as HEART, which collaborates with Alameda County Behavioral Health to perform wellness checks and respond to mental health crises.
The program has responded to about 2,369 calls, and Matthews said it is saving taxpayers money by reducing the use of emergency services for mental health calls.
Wahab said she is going to prioritize a bill that will give mental health and social service professionals the ability to place an individual under a 5150, 72-hour psychological hold.
Beyond mental health concerns, Wahab said the district has seen an uptick in crime, particularly hate crimes, citing recent vandalism at Hindu temples in Newark and the broader Bay Area.
Santa Clara Sgt. Travis Niesen said they were still investigating if the instances of vandalism qualify as a hate crime, but that he was skeptical because the thieves were not discriminating based on religion. It appeared, Niesen said, that there is a highly sophisticated group that has been targeting all places of worship and stealing from their donation boxes.
Wahab maintained that it was important to take hate crimes seriously and investigate them thoroughly. She added that addressing retail theft would also be a priority going into the legislative session.
The state senator has already introduced Senate Bill 926, which aims to explore the consolidation of the Bay Area’s 27 transit agencies. Wahab said there was no need for the region to have that many agencies and there were definite benefits to merging them into one but clarified that the bill at hand is to conduct an assessment and not to actually consolidate the agencies.
Sonia Waraich can be reached at 510-952-7455.
