What San Diego renters need to know about California's latest eviction moratorium bill

S1: A state bill is making its way through the legislature to extend eviction protections before they expire.
S2: Some tenants are going to fall through the cracks , unfortunately , and there's no mechanism for them to apply after the fact.
S1: I'm Christina Kim. This is KPBS Midday Edition. The California Task Force on Reparations voted to limit reparations based on lineage.
S3: And it's the duty of the task force to use their expertise and their experience and knowledge to mitigate the harm as much as possible.
S1: With another COVID surge possibly on the horizon. We discuss the role of boosters , and we hear how Afghan refugees are settling into San Diego after fleeing Afghanistan. That's ahead on Midday Edition. State lawmakers are racing to extend emergency statewide eviction protections that are set to expire on Thursday. California bill HB 2179 , which extends protections passed overwhelmingly in the state assembly earlier this week. It's now making its way through the Senate , where it is expected to pass tomorrow. If passed , the bill would extend protections for tenants facing eviction through June. But it comes with a caveat. Renters need to apply for rental relief by tomorrow , March 31st , to be protected. Here in San Diego , the city council will consider even stricter eviction protections next week. So what do local renters need to know about these programs and what types of assistance do they offer ? Here to answer these and other questions is Gil Vera , a housing attorney with the Legal Aid Society of San Diego. Gil , welcome to Midday Edition.
S2: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
S1: Walk us through AB 21 , 79.
S2: And what it would do is that if you applied for rental assistance and submitted an application no later than March 31st , the landlord cannot evict you for the nonpayment of rent that you have pending under that application.
S1:
S2: We've had clients get approved in a month or two. We've had others that take months. It really depends on if you have all the documents necessary. If your landlord is participating in the application , it goes by faster. In order to be protected , you only have to have a pending application for rental assistance. The application doesn't have to be approved. It just has to be at least in the pending stage. And it's really important that that everyone , even if they currently have a pending rental application to verify no later than tomorrow , what that status is , and that if it's fallen into a rejected status or incomplete status , that you correct those and reapply by the 31st. Otherwise , you won't have that opportunity come April 1st.
S1: There's been push back to this state bill by some legislators and advocates because it preempts local protections , which in some cases are stronger.
S2: If the Senate , as we've heard , is likely going to approve it today , might be signed into law tomorrow. This law by that has a time period. The 31st is not becoming a law until the 31st and statewide. The first time we heard of this law or this bill was last Thursday. So tenants had a week to submit an application timely by the 31st for a law that probably won't become a law until the 31st. So that's been a major concern of us , is that this relatively short time period to get the word out and some tenants are going to fall through the cracks , unfortunately , and there's no mechanism for them to apply after the fact. The other big concern , as you mentioned , is the preemption of local governments on passing more protective nonpayment of rent , eviction moratorium protections , which the city of San Diego on April 1st was going to have their eviction moratorium or non-payment of rent go into effect. That was passed last February 2021. And my concern with that is that the protections aren't being extended for any rent that tenants owe as of April 1st and beyond. And so it seems harsh that although the that the preemption are extended on local governments , but the protections aren't really extended for any rent that is accumulated as of April 1st.
S1: So what I'm hearing is that San Diego City would have had a stronger protection and that that's being preempted if this bill passes.
S2: That's correct. City of San Diego tenants are probably worse off by the extension of or by the passing of AB 2179 , because they would have had stronger local protections go into effect on April 1st. Now those presumptions are extended through June 30th. And so the local city of San Diego eviction moratorium would not go into effect until July 1st if it hasn't expired already.
S1: Separate from the state. San Diego is considering even stricter eviction protections. Council President Shawn Ella Rivera is presenting a new proposal for a moratorium on no fault evictions. Here's what he said at a press event this morning.
S4: But while we continue to be in a state of emergency , we want to make sure that we're not creating conditions. Where.
S2: Where.
S4: People are unnecessarily.
S2: Being evicted from their homes.
S4: And as a result , unnecessarily being placed at risk of homelessness.
S1: I know Legal Aid worked with ILO Rivera's team to craft this proposal. What exactly are no.
S2: It's a tenant is being evicted. And they've done nothing wrong. The eviction is not their fault. These types of evictions can be really difficult , especially in this in this rental market , because generally those types of evictions affect long term tenants or tenants that are on fixed incomes and are being displaced and can't really afford to go back into the market. And it's really difficult for them to find housing. No fault evictions since July of 2021. It is the number one issue that not only tenants within the San Diego City limits are calling in are calling legal aid for , with , help for , but also countywide.
S1: Again , the city council will be considering that proposal next week. But before you go , I know you're regularly hearing from tenants in San Diego and San Diego County.
S2: You know , especially there wasn't any hope that any extensions were going to be passed at the state level. But there is some hope that we would have the local ones , at least for the city of San Diego. Now that's come and so seems to be going back to normal pre-pandemic , at least as landlord tenant is concerned. It doesn't feel that way out there. And the rental market for tenants , the cost of living has increased , rents have increased , but a lot of their salaries haven't. And so even our involvement , given the laws , the tenant is going to have to move. There's nothing that we could do to keep them housed. And that tenant is scared because they're going out there looking for housing and realize we can't afford this.
S1: I've been speaking with Gil Vera , senior housing attorney with the Legal Aid Society of San Diego. Gil , thank you so much for joining us today.
S2: It was my pleasure. Thank you , Christina.
S1: California's Task Force on Reparations has been meeting since last summer to figure out how to address the continued harms of U.S. slavery from giving black people direct payment to changing housing policies. But one question has always loomed large who exactly will be eligible for reparations ? On one hand , you have those who say race should be central , making the majority of black Californians eligible. And on the other , you have those that believe that reparations should be lineage based and reserved for those that directly descended from U.S. chattel slavery. After hours of tense debate , the task force officially voted on Wednesday in a 5 to 4 vote for a lineage based approach.
S5: The ayes have it and the motion carries.
S1: Chair Camilla Moore read the approved motion.
S5: The community of eligibility will be based on lineage determined by an individual being an African-American descendant of a shadow enslaved person or the descendant of a free black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century.
S1: Secretary of State Shirley Weber , who authored the bill that made this task force , spoke in favor of the lineage approach earlier this year.
S5: Reparation is for those who are the descendants of slaves. First , because of the devastation they suffered from hundreds of years of no wages and no ability to own land and approval.
S1: San Diego City Council member Monica montgomery Stepp , who sits on the task force , previously told KPBS she agreed with Webster's interpretation.
S5: We have to go with the spirit and intent and the letter of the law , which does call out special consideration for poor people and descendants of those enslaved in the United States.
S1: But task force member and civil rights lawyer Lisa Holder advocated for including all black Californians with a special consideration for descendants of enslaved people in order to address prevailing anti-blackness.
S5: You must stop the racism that is reparations. You do not use the term reparations if you are not prepared to do that and the system that folks are advocating here. We're going to splice things up and have this specificity where only one small slice of the black population is being remediated. That will not abate the horror of racism.
S1: Assembly member Reggie John Sawyer says it shouldn't matter where you come from.
S2: Whether on a slave ship or a cruise ship. Guess what ? We're all in the same boat now. And so we've got to make recommendations that are sustainable.
S1: The decision came after a heated day.
S2: You were out of water by doing that. And that's what's complicating things.
S1: At one point , John Sawyer called out the board's chair , Kamilla moore , for an unauthorized presentation.
S5: Do you have a comment.
S2: On the chair ? You're not the dictator. You are never supposed to guide.
S1: In spite of the setbacks , many celebrated the task force decision.
S5: Literally , I am still on cloud nine.
S1: Including Tiffany Corales , the co-chair of the National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants in Los Angeles , a grassroots group that's been working towards lineage based reparations.
S5: Black Americans who descend on US slavery. We descend from the people who built the nation , who fought in every American conflict. Acknowledging us as the eligible class acknowledges our role in the founding of the nation and our importance to this nation.
S1: Speaking to KPBS ahead of the vote , chair Camila Moore says the task force purpose is not to address all racism.
S5: I didn't really see this task force as a racial.
S3: Equity task. Force.
S5: Force. You know , it's like , like I said , reparations for the institution of slavery. It's a specific political project.
S1: Now that the task force has finally decided who is eligible for reparations. It can focus on the next big question on the agenda what reparations will actually look like in California. The California Task Force on Reparations meets again today to hear expert testimony and panels on the criminal justice system , anti-black hate crimes and the history of policing and the war on drugs. Former San Diego public defender and lifelong San Diegan Genevieve Jones Wright is scheduled to present later this afternoon on the history of San Diego policing. And she joins us now for a preview. Welcome , Genevieve. Hello.
S5: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
S1:
S5: And so I'm sort of on the fence because while I understand that the descendants of those who were enslaved were directly impacted by the institution of slavery , I understand that the harms that have been done and the effects that we see continue to affect all black people , regardless of whether or not your ancestors were actually enslaved in this country or not.
S1: The task force now has to decide what reparations are actually going to look like.
S5: Black people not being able to take advantage of the GI Bill , for example , black people not being able to own houses , not benefiting from government offerings that other people have been able to benefit from simply because they were black. And so when we think about what reparations must include , we have to think about things like education and whether perhaps black people should be offered free education because of the systems that were in place that kept African-Americans from pursuing higher education , for example. And so it has to be comprehensive and it has to be along the lines of all of the institutions that we see that were affected by that institution of slavery.
S1: San Diego has been central to the state's efforts to study and recommend reparations for African-Americans. Secretary of State Shirley Weber authored the bill that even made this task force possible.
S5: We have the U.S. Supreme Court case of Collender versus Lawson. It's a case that completely changed how police , police in the entire country. And what I mean by that is that a statute was struck down that would require folks who were , quote unquote , loitering or wandering to identify themselves and to account for their presence whenever requested by a peace officer. Well , the United States Supreme Court said that this California statute was unconstitutional. I'm going to highlight other things in my testimony , which really shows that San Diego has played a very big part in the history of policing some good , some bad. And the laws that we see and how they are enforced are directly connected with that route of policing. Right.
S1: Right. You say policing in the state and in particular in San Diego are rooted in the treatment of enslaved and formerly enslaved African people.
S5: Maybe fewer people know about the series of laws that are called black coat laws that preceded Jim Crow laws. But the very point of these laws were to maintain and control the movements and the actual bodies of newly freed African people. And these laws were put into place to do that. And we saw these laws transform into vagrancy laws and unemployment laws that were police formally by law enforcement. And so when we see how such laws , like the one that was struck down in Collender versus Lawson , where it was an attempt to control that their very movements were police. And it's very reminiscent of the black codes and Jim Crow. And a lot of times we forget that California instituted its own Jim Crow laws. So , for example. For many years. Even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , we still had Jim Crow laws on the books right here in California that kept black people from testifying , in any case , in court where a white person was a party. And I think that that gets lost in conversations. When we talk about California , even in this conversation about reparations , people say , well , slavery was never allowed in California. Yes. While slavery was prohibited in our Constitution , the treatment of black people was one that was very dehumanizing. And the state of California actually authorized segregation of our school through the California Supreme Court in a case that upheld school desegregation well before the U.S. Supreme Court did later in Plessy versus Ferguson , which was the turn of the century in 1896 or so. And so when I look at the history of California and the fact that the very first governor of California made one of his most important items and first items of business banning black people altogether from coming to the state. You really have to think about how California has played a role in the subjugation and oppression of black people , and we really have to take that into account in some of those cases , again , stem from San Diego.
S1: I've been speaking with former San Diego public defender Genevieve Jones right ahead of her presentation to the California Task Force on Reparations. Thank you so much.
S5: Thank you.
S1: This is KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Christina Kim. As health officials prepare for what could be the next wave of COVID 19 infections , a fourth dose of the RNA vaccine is being made available to people over the age of 50. We've been in this situation before , but perhaps never as prepared as we are now. Armed with data and information on how the virus is circulating and how to prevent the worst outcomes people have choices to make about vaccines. Joining me now to talk about all things COVID 19 , as he regularly does on Midday Edition , is Dr. Eric Topol , director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. Dr. Topol , welcome.
S2: Thank you , Christina.
S1:
S2: And Omicron , the first one was the worst we'd ever seen. This is even worse. But besides that , most of the other things are not too worrisome. That is , their vaccine protection is similar. There's doesn't cause worse disease. There is a doubling of viral load about doubling. That is the amount of viral copies we carry in our upper airway. And that explains , I think , the high spread transmission. But the main thing is that we're going to see a lot more cases again. It's hard to know how bad this wave is going to be because we've recently just gone through such a big one with the outcome being one. And in fact , it's estimated about 40% of Americans got B.A. one. And there was a huge number of breakthrough infections because it just spread so easily. This one can be worse , but we have some immunity built from that very marked spread across the country and certainly across San Diego in California.
S1:
S2: We'll talk about that in a moment. But those people who have been vaccinated , they have to get a booster. We have a terrible rate of people getting boosters and they're needed in everyone who's had two shots. So they're past four months , they should get a third shot. The other thing , of course , as of yesterday , is a green light for people 50 and older to get a fourth shot. And I think that that certainly can be recommended. The older the age , the more benefit. We have three studies from Israel on the four shot , the most recent of which shows that it protects against death in people who are 60 and older. Substantially nearly 80% reduction. So I certainly would advocate a fourth dose for people clearly over age 60 and really between age 50 and 60 , there's good rationale. And the only reason not to get it is if a person didn't tolerate the prior doses , particularly second or third dose well and got pretty ill or , you know , the person is just not seeing it wherever they live or work a rise in cases. But if that if that case rides starts to really get going , get legs , it would be wise to get protected. Because what happens after four months from the third shot or we saw with the second shot is that we have waning immunity and the vaccine protection drops from in the mid nineties against hospitalizations and deaths down to the seventies or even lower. That's why it's important to keep that protection from serious illness resulting in hospitalizations or dying. It's really important to keep up with the boosters in people of advanced age.
S1: For people who got their first dose of the vaccine way back in 2020 or early 2021 and aren't boosted.
S2: Their protection , which was at 95% , is probably dropped to 50% or below. I mean , there's some , but it isn't anywhere near what it could be with a booster. So those are the people that I really need to get a shot as soon as possible.
S1: Federal COVID 19 funding is running out of preparedness , testing and treatment services. Here's Javier Barrera , secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services , speaking recently during a White House debriefing.
S2: The fund Congress established to reimburse doctors and other medical providers for COVID care for Americans in particular , the uninsured , is no longer accepting new claims from providers for testing or for treatment services.
S1: And on April 5th , the fund will stop accepting new claims for vaccination services. Also , fewer doses of monoclonal antibodies are being purchased and supplies going to states are being cut.
S2: This year of funding cut when we have a wave that's just getting going right now and more trouble likely ahead. I really hope that we don't see it , but we should plan for it. So this is the last time in the world to cut funding , essential funding , whether it's testing vaccine to monoclonal antibodies , treatments like Paxil , the pills. This is crazy and it shouldn't be tolerated. And this is ridiculous complacency , not acknowledging what's going on right now.
S1: You're very active on social media , sharing the latest research and what's happening with COVID 19. It makes me think you devote a lot of time and energy to the subject.
S2: So , you know , over these last couple of years , I took it upon myself to try to be a trusted source and keep up with what is an ever flowing sea of new information and data. We don't have a unity , consistent messaging from our public health agencies. We have putative experts that are not keeping up with the data or don't interpret it as I can see it in an accurate way , just doing it for everyone. So , you know , I've added that to my my role as a as a researcher , scientist in addition to the usual things I do. And it is somewhat consumptive , but I think it's helpful certainly for for many people.
S1: We have early surveillance of the virus in our wastewater system. What does that telling us about the level of infection here now and when we might see a surge ? Right.
S2: The wastewater surveillance is a very important metric. It tells us we're going to see a wave. Remember , now we're doing a lot of home testing so we don't even capture the caseload. The burden in San Diego County. But the fact that the wastewater going up tells us we're going to see a wave and it's usually days after , but we're going to see a turn. And the only question , as I've emphasized , hopefully it's not going to be a severe spike , but it could be that's what happened in several countries in Europe is we're starting to see pretty pronounced increase in cases in New York , Massachusetts , Connecticut , where the virus was ahead of us in terms of dominance. And we're moving in that direction. So keep your guard up.
S1: I've been speaking with Dr. Eric Topol , director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. Dr. Topol , thank you so much.
S2: Thank you , Christine. Great to be with you.
S1: Newly arrived Afghan immigrants are settling into their lives in San Diego , while thousands of others wait inside Afghanistan. Advocates worry as more attention turns to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. People who worked with the Americans for decades may be forgotten. KPBS military reporter Steve Walsh has the story.
S6: Jeremy watches on his phone a recent news report out of Afghanistan. It shows a group of girls being turned away from the school.
S7: We are also human beings.
S6: He interprets the video for me.
S7: We we have a right to education.
S6: Five months ago , Karimi arrived in San Diego with his wife and two boys , part of a growing number of Afghan refugees. The world watches as the Russian invasion of Ukraine produces millions of refugees almost overnight. But Karimi and other Afghan refugees are still focused on the plight of their country. Many are nervous that the U.S. will move on , leaving thousands of people who work with the Americans stranded. Some remain in hiding.
S7: They change their house going from this house to another house to hide them. And this is a big concern if and they are forgetting something that may happen to them.
S6: Sean Vandiver is part of a coalition of mainly veterans groups trying to bring Afghans who work with the Americans to safety. Afghan Evac has been working with the Biden administration , but Vandiver says the White House has said very little publicly in months.
S4: We're willing to bend over backwards to help Europeans that we haven't served with in the in the scale that we have with Afghans and that we've kind of taken our time on Afghans , folks with whom we served for 20 years , folks who stood by us on the battlefield.
S6: Afghanistan didn't come up during the president's State of the Union address. Vandiver was particularly frustrated after the Biden administration announced that the U.S. would allow 100,000 Ukrainian refugees into the country.
S4: Nobody's saying that we shouldn't be helping Ukrainians. We all agree. What we're saying is that it would be nice if folks who didn't look like us got the same help as folks who look like us.
S6: Advocates are still waiting for the administration to get behind a permanent status for thousands of Afghans like Jawad Karimi. He was given a temporary status called humanitarian parole. Naomi Steinberg with the refugee aid group HIAS says it doesn't fix their situation.
S5: It's not a permanent status in any way. It is not an immigration status. It was very important in that it allowed a lot of people to get here very quickly. And obviously time was of the essence. But what has happened now is , is that they are here with no path to permanency.
S6: Steinberg says the biggest problem isn't the shifting focus from one refugee crisis to another. She says the previous administration gutted the U.S. refugee resettlement program.
S5: It's a lot easier to to wreck a program than it is to rebuild. And so that's that's where we are now , slowly but surely , building up and extraordinary progress is being made , but it feels painfully slow for the individuals who are directly impacted.
S6: Djavad Visser I'd just received his green card , which will allow him to use his degree in computer programming in San Diego. He was beaten by the Taliban as he made his way to the Kabul airport with his family. This was just days before the last American flight left.
S3: One of them had a one metre pipe in their hand and they were beating on my back on my foot. Yeah , we escaped from them , and somehow we entered to the airport.
S6: He left behind two brothers who also worked with an American company. He says the Taliban has searched their homes looking for proof that they work with the U.S..
S3: Our situation is that for the American government is that please help the people or for the family of those who were helping the Afghan government. That and also the American troops in Afghanistan.
S6: Because for many Afghans , time is running out.
S1: Joining me is KPBS military and veterans reporter Steve Walsh. Welcome.
S6: Hi , Christina.
S1: Tell us a little more about the current efforts to get more Afghan immigrants in the United States.
S6: So , you know , remember that this happened very quickly last year in a little over a month as the U.S. began pulling out of Afghanistan , things really kicked into high gear in those last couple of weeks when Kabul began falling to the Taliban. Many people started scrambling to get out there. There were all sorts of horror stories about people trying to get to the airport being blocked by the Taliban , while many people had been , you know , in the normal immigration process , trying to get visas to come to the U.S. their paperwork wasn't finished. You know , some had only started the process. It was really chaos of roughly 75,000 people came in under humanitarian parole. Basically , they were authorized by the White House to come here because it was an emergency. The idea is that they would find a more permanent solution when they finally got here. You know , some of these refugees were sent to third party countries. Others came straight to the U.S. They were processed through several military bases around the country. All those bases have closed up shop now. There are a lot of concerns about people being left behind. Some of this is kind of out of the hands of the U.S. , though , unfortunately , apparently , there's only been one flight out of Afghanistan since December. So the Taliban has to decide on its own whether or not they want to show the world that they're really open to allowing people to leave if they want to.
S1: As you're reporting , several Afghani refugees are settling in San Diego.
S6: You know , who really has anything bad to say about San Diego ? One person told me that while they were at the camps in here in the U.S. , that they they heard an announcement asking people not to pick San Diego or Northern Virginia because of the high cost of living. But , you know , in fact , there's a large community of Afghans in northern California , but more of the recent arrivals have come here to San Diego. You know , you know , people came anyway. Some of that is because they had extended family here. Others just had close ties to some of the veterans who had helped get them out of the country. You know , because of their status , some of them can't work. They have to get a green card first. You know , there is a certain amount of aid for food and housing. There are donations. And Jewish Family Services and Catholic Charities have pretty large programs , you know , but for a lot of them , their lives are kind of on hold until they can get a green card and start working. Many have applied for immigration amnesty. So , you know , but we've heard so much about that program and how it's been bogged down in. And , you know , it's not an easy process by any means.
S1: The Biden administration announced that the U.S. would allow 100,000 Ukrainian refugees into the country and didn't talk about Afghanistan in the president's State of the Union address.
S6: They haven't given a lot of details so far. Advocates , you know , don't want a repeat of what happened with Afghans where some 75,000 of them came in , mostly under humanitarian parole , which there is. That's not a permanent status. You know , of course , Afghanistan was different. The clock was ticking on them and people had to get out for , you know , Ukranian refugees. The hope is the process will allow people to , you know , connect with the families that they have here in the U.S. and sort of go through more of the normal immigration process. You know , back in September , the Biden administration raised the cap on the number of refugees overall that would be allowed in the country by 125,000. You know , they haven't come close to hitting that number. So the caps aren't the real problem. You know , the real problem is getting through the immigration process here in the U.S..
S1: Some of the refugees are getting a temporary status called humanitarian parole.
S6: It's the White House basically authorizes you to come to the U.S. understanding that you because of your situation , you don't have time to go through the normal humanitarian process , even through the amnesty process. So they basically scooped people up. They brought them into the U.S. and they sent them through camps set up at various military bases around the country. And now people are kind of stuck going through the process on their own , try to find some route to a permanent status , either going through the amnesty program or , you know , applying for some other programs like maybe the special immigration visa program that was set up for for Afghans. But the real problem here , as Nancy Steinberg with HIAS made clear in the piece , is that the real problem is that the Trump administration slashed these programs so badly. You know , budgets were slashed , outside groups that work with these people. They had to lay off staff both inside and outside of the country. So now we're getting back to a place where the U.S. is making commitments to take in refugees. But the whole process has to be built back just as two major humanitarian crises are unfolding.
S1: I've been speaking with KPBS military and veterans reporter Steve Walsh. Thank you so much for your time today.
S6: Thanks , Christina.
S1: This is KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Christina Kim. Student debt. It's a crushing financial burden for millions of people , including health care professionals who've worked hard treating COVID patients during the pandemic. Now , U.S. Senator Alex Padilla of California has introduced a bill to help get rid of student loans for frontline health care workers. But the legislation's prospects in Congress are unclear for the California report. KQED's Frida Javier Romero has the story. The bill would forgive or repay in full student debt for those who provide COVID related health care services , including medical residents , home health care workers and lab workers doing testing. Dr. Janet Kaufman at the UCSF Health Force Center says that would mean hundreds of thousands , if not millions of people could be eligible for the relief. The average debt for recent medical school graduates is more than $200,000. And so she says it.
S5: Makes sense to make it more targeted to those health professionals on the front lines in the hardest hit communities , because the health professionals in those communities have the greatest exposure to COVID itself and have the greatest stress associated with caring for people.
S1: She means people like physician assistant , mostly jihadi. She walked me through the life long Brookside Health Center in San Pablo , which serves mostly low income patients. The Bay Area City has the highest COVID 19 case rate in Contra Costa County.
S3: So a lot of medical patients , a lot of medical patients or not insured at all ? Not insured at all. Recently immigrated , no documentation but need health care.
S1: Bill DeHart is an immigrant from San Diego. She grew up in Oakland and is now a naturalized U.S. citizen. Since the pandemic started , she's been here seeing and treating patients with COVID. That's even though community clinics like life long pay less than private practice.
S3: We went into medicine to help people , and a pandemic is a scary situation , but it's like we have to step up. We have to step up.
S1: She also had to step up at home. She had to take a second job testing for COVID to make ends meet and support her aging parents.
S3: Because my parents , since school one day , both of them let go of their jobs. They didn't feel safe.
S1: The U.S. Department of Education suspended federal loan payments and set a 0% interest rate during the pandemic. But that break is set to end in May and Jahad. There worries about paying the $74,000 in student loans she owes. So she says she like to see something like the Padilla bill pass.
S3: I will be forever grateful because that that will be a burden taken off my shoulders. And I can use whatever extra amount I can generate to further financially stabilize my family.
S1: There are a couple of programs that cover a portion of the loans for physicians and other health professionals if they work with underserved populations. But the Padilla proposal would completely clear their student debt if it passes. A similar bill introduced last spring and the Democratically controlled House of Representatives hasn't advanced. Sources in Washington say Democrats have been busy with bigger pandemic priorities , but also efforts are being made to strengthen existing loan forgiveness programs. Senator Padilla's office says he'll throw his weight behind the congressional effort in the coming months. Dr. Sergio Aguilar , Graciela , vice chair of Latino Physicians of California , says there is urgency for some kind of solution for health care workers sooner rather than later.
S2: There has been an increase in suicides , for example , and there certainly has been an increase in anxiety and mood disorders and even substance abuse. They have been working so much under such difficult circumstances.
S1: He says. We need to do more to support health care workers , especially with new COVID variants spreading in China and Europe and now in the U.S.. I'm sorry that Javier Romero. A new report on safety inspections at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County has found failures by inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or NRC to appropriately identify several issues at the facility. For the California Report , CBC's Rachel Showalter has more on what the report found and the reaction to it. One of Diablo Canyon's nuclear reactors was shut down for eight days in July of 2020 , at the same time as a leak occurred in the backup water cooling system , which has since been fixed. The Office of Inspector General for the NRC then launched an investigation to understand the cause of the leak , which led to the findings in Monday's report. It shows that facility inspectors failed to identify degrading piping insulation on the plant's auxiliary feed water system in April of 2020 , which led to the leak. Three months later , PGE spokesperson Suzanne Hassan told CBC's news. The leak was repaired and the system returned to service after thorough inspection. She says the plant has a long standing record of safe operation. Still , Central Coast Congressman Salud Carbajal is calling this oversight , quote , unsettling and unacceptable.
S2: The negligence detailed in this report will erode the.
S7: Public trust and confidence in those who are tasked with keeping everyone safe.
S1: The report says Diablo Canyon does meet regulatory requirements and continues to operate safely. In a statement to kickback news , the NSA's senior public affairs officer , Victor Derricks , said they are reviewing the report and will take appropriate action if needed. He says public safety was never endangered because of this incident. Heather Hoff works at Diablo Canyon Power Plant and founded the nuclear advocacy group Mothers for Nuclear in 2016. The group is working to keep the plant open past its planned decommissioning in 2025. Hoff says the report comes at a sensitive time in the debate over nuclear energy. And although it sounds alarming , the leak was never a safety issue.
S5: Anytime you say , oh , there was a leak at a nuclear power plant , that sounds scary.
S3: And so we.
S5: Have to acknowledge that that's a right to have that emotion. But scary and dangerous aren't the same thing. Homophobes people.
S1: Look at what she says is the big picture of nuclear as a safe and clean energy. Source.
S5: Source. Small failures like this really.
S3: Don't have an impact on.
S5: The overall reliability of the canyon of the power plant.
S1: Congressman Carbajal is urging the NRC to hold its inspectors accountable for , quote , breaking protocol. He also plans to formally ask NRC leaders to detail what went wrong during the inspections.
S5: And how they will.
S1: Enforce safety regulations until Diablo Canyon closes. That was Rachel Showalter for the California Report in San Luis Obispo County.