Dear Friends & Neighbors,
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness about mental health, reduce stigma and promote support for individuals and communities affected.
I’m proud that this year the Legislature protected over $7 billion in funding for behavioral health and substance use treatment, while continuing to increase investments for three crisis facilities and the 988 crisis support hotline.
We also passed new laws to:
- Improve access to care by establishing a single set of rules that insurers use when evaluating what is medically necessary behavioral health care (HB 1432).
- Integrate co-responders, who play a critical role in emergency response, into our crisis response system (HB 1811).
- Help medical professionals get care and support when the demands and stress of their jobs becomes too much to prevent burnout (HB 1718).
Housing ➡️ supply, support, and stability
Housing in our community is too expensive and that’s why it was imperative that the legislature focused this year on keeping families in their homes and building abundant, affordable housing. This includes:
- Rent Stabilization (HB 1217) capping rent increases at 7% plus inflation, up to 10%. This is an incredibly important policy – 52% of LD 36 are renters! – that will end the massive price gouging and rent increases that we have seen over the last few years.
- Transit Oriented Development (HB 1491), authored by our very own Rep. Julia Reed 😊sets new goals to build housing around rail and bus rapid transit stops.
- Lot Splitting (HB 1096) requires cities to setup a process to allow for lot splitting, so large property owners can split up their lot and allow for new housing development.
- Minimum Parking Requirement Reform (HB 1299/SB 5184) will help reduce the red tape that has slowed or even stopped housing from being built due to arbitrary parking requirements.
With the session behind us, I’ll continue to update you on our work this legislative session. Please reach out if you have questions about whether a bill passed or a project was funded and keep your eye out for a joint newsletter from Noel, Julia and me in mailboxes soon!
Take care,
State Representative Liz Berry
36th Legislative District