Legislative Update – March 18, 2022

Dear Neighbors,

I hope your St. Patrick’s Day was lucky and full of good cheer! Here’s an update from the State Capitol.

Improving Access to Life Sharing

As you may have seen in previous updates, improving opportunities for people with disabilities is one of my major focuses this year at the Capitol. Yesterday, the House Human Services Committee discussed my bill to put Minnesota on the path to cover Life Sharing services under Medical Assistance waivers. Life Sharing is a nurturing and supportive family-style living option for adults with disabilities. Those who participate in the services are carefully matched with an individual or family who shares their lives and experiences and supports them. Life sharing combines the benefits and enjoyment of living in a family home with the support to lead an independent life in the community. One person who uses these services testified, “It changed my life for the better.”

Currently, there are numerous barriers for those who want to access Life Sharing services. My bill will create a robust stakeholder engagement process to expand access to this community-based, person-centered, culturally responsive support model for adults with disabilities.

Safe at Home

Keeping personal information private, particularly a home address, is imperative for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. The Safe at Home program, administered by the Secretary of State’s office, protects people who may be fearful for their safety by keeping their address confidential. The participants are assigned a P.O. Box they can use as their legal address, with their mail forwarded to their actual residence.

Earlier this week, the House approved legislation I co-authored that makes some technical updates to the program. Changes include greater control for private data of participants, clarification that public and private entities universally must accept the Safe at Home address, prohibition on landlords from placing a participant’s name on a door visible to passers-by, and allowing government entities to replace a participant’s location data on official records for property owners with the designated Safe at Home address. These are all sensible changes to strengthen the program and keep more Minnesotans safe.

Drought Relief

Minnesota’s agriculture and food production industries aren’t just major pieces of our economy; they are critical to ensuring we all have healthy, nutritious food to eat. Since last year, many farmers and ranchers have faced enormous challenges due to severe and persistent drought conditions. Last week, the House approved significant drought relief legislation to help them recover, with the funding targeted toward the smallest operations, including specialty crop producers who are unable to access federal crop insurance. Many of them are immigrants and those just starting out in agriculture and have products for sale at our farmers markets.

Beyond delivering financial relief to farmers now, we need to face the reason for increased extreme weather events like droughts in the first place. It’s imperative we invest in climate resiliency, and the legislation also includes several measures to protect our forests and water supplies. The bill includes investments to help communities remove and replace impacted trees and prepare for future water challenges, replace seedlings on DNR-managed lands killed by the drought, and to help private forestland owners and tribal and county governments replace seedlings on their lands. The bill also provides grants to municipal, township, and tribal governments that operate public water supplies to improve water efficiency.

Hometown Heroes

Also last week, the House passed a bill to update the Hometown Heroes Assistance Program. Our firefighters face alarmingly high incidences of cancer, cardiac issues, and emotional trauma. The new program, which lawmakers enacted last year, provides firefighters access to education, prevention, and care to address cardiac conditions, emotional trauma or cancer diagnoses.

The Hometown Heroes Assistance Program is the most comprehensive of its kind in the nation and provides firefighters with free access to emotional trauma resources, up-to-$20,000 from critical illness insurance policies, and ongoing health and wellness training. Prior to the program’s enactment, Minnesota was ranked 45th out of 50 states when it comes to investing in the fire service. I was proud to support this initiative for the heroes in our communities who make incredible sacrifices to keep us safe.

Stay in Touch

Please feel free to contact me directly with your viewpoints or if I can be of assistance. My email is rep.kelly.moller@house.mn and my phone number is 651-296-0141. You can learn about bills that have been introduced here and keep track of the bills I’ve authored here.

If you have neighbors, friends, or family who you think would find these updates valuable, please share this with them; they can subscribe here.  I also encourage you to “like” or “follow” me on Facebook.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve you.

Sincerely,

Kelly Moller
State Representative