Access to Justice Archives – Western Center on Law & Poverty

Western Center’s 2023 Legislative Agenda

March 10, 2023

Western Center’s 2023 Legislative Agenda

March 6, 2023
Following is a list of bills to help secure housing, healthcare, and a strong safety net for low-income Californians that will be sponsored or co-sponsored by Western Center on Law & Poverty during the 2023 legislative session.

Healthcare

AB 1085 (Maienschein): Medi-Cal: housing support services.
The bill would require the Department to seek federal approval to make housing support services a Medi-Cal benefit for Californians experiencing homelessness. Housing support services help people access housing, remain stably housed, and are essential for individuals experiencing homelessness to access meaningful care.
(Co-sponsored with Corporation for Supportive Housing)
Fact Sheet

AB 1094 (Wicks): Consent and Reproductive Equity (CARE) for Families Act.
This bill will ensure that a pregnant or perinatal person provides informed consent prior to drug or alcohol tests or screens being conducted on them or their newborn.
(Co-Sponsored with Drug Policy Alliance, Black Women for Wellness, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, A New Way of Life, Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers)

AB 1157 (Ortega and Wilson): Rehabilitative and habilitative services: durable medical equipment and services.
This bill would clarify that durable medical equipment is a covered essential health benefit in California-regulated health plans and policies when prescribed by a doctor for rehabilitative or habilitative purposes. The bill would also remove limitations such as annual caps on durable medical equipment coverage.
(Co-sponsored with National Health Law Program)
Fact Sheet

SB 595 (Roth): Minimizing gaps in health coverage.
This bill is follow-up legislation to ensure that last year’s SB 644, which required Employment Development Department (EDD) to share information about those who applied for income-replacing benefits with Covered California to allow Covered California to outreach and help enroll these individuals in Medi-Cal or Covered California, is implemented timely.
(Co-sponsored with California Pan Ethnic Health Network and Health Access)
Fact sheet

Housing

AB 653 (Reyes): Department of Housing and Community Development.
This bill would create a program to pair housing navigation, incentives, and deposit resources with housing choice voucher tenants to find and secure a unit. The bill would also require housing authorities that have low successful placement rates to work with the Department of Housing and Community Development to analyze and improve their policies.
(Co-sponsored with Housing CA, Corporation for Supportive Housing, United Ways of CA and the National Housing Law Project (NHLP))
Fact Sheet

AB 846 (Bonta): Low-income housing credit.
This bill would limit rent increases in properties funded by the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program.
(Co-Sponsored with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation)

AB 920 (Bryan): Discrimination: housing status.
This bill would add housing status to the list of protected categories under California’s anti-discrimination statute in order to prevent the routine discrimination of unhoused people by public and private entities that receive state funding.
(Co-Sponsored with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Disability Rights California (DRC), Housing California, and Public Advocates)
Fact Sheet

AB 1082 (Kalra): Authority to remove vehicles.
This bill would prohibit towing or immobilizing a vehicle due to unpaid parking tickets, increase the number of unpaid tickets from one to eight before the DMV can place a registration hold, and improve the guidelines for parking ticket payment programs.
(Co-Sponsored with End Poverty in California (EPIC), FreeFrom, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR))
Fact Sheet

AB 1085 (Maienschein): Medi-Cal: housing support services.
The bill would require the Department to seek federal approval to make housing support services a Medi-Cal benefit for Californians experiencing homelessness. Housing support services help people access housing, remain stably housed, and are essential for individuals experiencing homelessness to access meaningful care.
(Co-sponsored with Corporation for Supportive Housing)
Fact Sheet

AB 1418 (McKinnor): Limiting Racially Motivated Crime-Free Housing Programs and Nuisance Ordinances.
This bill would limit local crime-free/nuisance ordinances (CFNH) housing programs and nuisance ordinances, which typically include harmful provisions such as requiring landlords to evict tenants for alleged criminal activity. Often touted as crime-fighting tools, these policies represent a new phase in the evolution of segregationist housing laws designed to exclude people of color from communities.
(Co-Sponsored with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Disability Rights California, National Housing Law Project, and Root & Rebound)
Fact Sheet
Register support here

ACA 10 (Haney): Housing is a Human Right.
ACA 10 will recognize that every Californian has the fundamental human right to adequate housing on an equitable and non-discriminatory basis. Should the measure pass in the legislature, California voters will have the opportunity to vote to add this right to the state’s constitution, creating an obligation on the part of state and local governments to take meaningful action to fully realize the right.
(Co-sponsored with Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action, End Poverty in California (EPIC), Housing Now, ACLU California Action, Abundant Housing LA, National Homelessness Law Center, and PowerCA Action)
Fact Sheet
Register support here

SB 460 (Wahab): Fair Chance Housing.
The bill would establish the first statewide Fair Chance Housing Ordinance (FCH), which would provide a pathway for individuals with criminal records reentering society to access, obtain, and sustain housing. This bill would prevent rental housing providers from screening for criminal history of housing applicants during the advertisement, application, selection, or eviction process, unless required by federal law.
(Co-Sponsored with All of Us or None, Just Cities, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and Root & Rebound)
SB 460 Fact Sheet
Register Support here

SB 567 (Durazo): Homelessness Prevention Act.
This bill would close the gaps in existing law that leaves millions of California renters at risk of exorbitant rent increases and allows housing providers to abuse “no-fault” just cause eviction protections.
(Co-Sponsored with Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, PICO California, and Public Advocates)
SB 567 Fact Sheet
Register Support here

Public Benefits and Access to Justice

AB 94 (Davies): Administration of public social services: blocked telephone calls.
This bill would prohibit county departments of social services to call recipients from a blocked phone number.
(Co-Sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)

AB 274 (Bryan): CalWORKs: CalFresh: eligibility: income exclusions.
This bill would exempt any grant, scholarship, loan, or fellowship as income for CalWORKs.
(Co-Sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)

AB 310 (Arambula): CalWORKs.
This spot bill would provide various reforms to the CalWORKs program.
(Co-sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, GRACE/End Child Poverty California, John Burton Advocates for Youth, and Parent Voices)

AB 325 (Reyes): Human services: noncitizen victims.
This bill would provide social services to immigrants who have applied for humanitarian relief including applicants who have applied for Asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), and survivors of domestic abuse who have applied for relief through the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
(Co-Sponsored with Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)

AB 380 (Arambula): California Labor Trafficking Prevention Act.
This bill would establish a Labor Trafficking unit within the Department of Industrial Relations the Division of Labor Standards.
(Co-Sponsored with Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative, Loyola Law School)

AB 843 (J. Carrillo): Restoration of electronically stolen CalFresh benefits.
This bill would place into law that recipients of the CalFresh program who have been victims of electronic theft are able to have their benefits restored. Today electronic theft of public benefit programs has become rampant and lucrative for thefts as these programs lack adequate protections from these forms of theft.
(Co-Sponsor with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)

AB 964 (Ortega): Prevention of human trafficking through state contracts.
This bill would enhance prevention of human trafficking through state contracts by requiring awardees of state contracts to submit a human trafficking prevention plan.
(Co-Sponsor with the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative, Loyola Law School)

AB 991 (Alvarez): Modernizing public benefit communication.
This bill would allow recipients of public benefit programs to provide information that has been requested by county departments of social services via email.
(Co-Sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)

AB 1094 (Wicks): Consent and Reproductive Equity (CARE) for Families Act.
This bill would ensure that a pregnant or perinatal person provides informed consent prior to drug or alcohol tests or screens being conducted on them or their newborn.
(Co-Sponsored with Drug Policy Alliance, Black Women for Wellness, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, A New Way of Life, Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers)

AB 1266 (Kalra): End Debtor’s Prison Act.
This bill will remove the possibility of bench warrants being issued for infractions. Today courts are able to issue bench warrants if someone fails to appear in court or doesn’t pay a fine.
(Co-Sponsoring with the Debt Free Justice Coalition, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area)

SB 36 (Skinner): Safe Haven for Abortion & Gender-Affirming Care Act.
This bill would strengthen our safe haven protections by making it illegal for bail agents or bounty hunters to apprehend people in California who have left another state to avoid criminal prosecution or imprisonment related to that state’s criminalization of abortion or gender-affirming care. The bill would also ensure that benefits such as CalFresh and CalWORKs would not be denied to individuals who left another state and traveled to California for purposes described above but would otherwise be eligible for such benefits.
(Co-Sponsored with Black Women for Wellness, Equality California, NARAL Pro-Choice California, Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)

SB 491 (Durazo): Access to Mail for Unhoused Californians.
This bill would create an option for unhoused Californians to pick up government related mail from a county department of social services such as Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, election ballots, public housing waiting list notifications, student report cards, and much more.
(Co-Sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)

SB 727 (Limón): Forgiveness of coerce debt for survivors of human trafficking.
This bill would provide a pathway for survivors of human trafficking to have coerced debt forgiven that accrued during the time they were trafficked.
(Co-Sponsored with Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice)

Contact our Sacramento Advocates: For more information about Western Center on Law & Poverty and our advocacy priorities, go to www.wclp.org.

Health
Linda Nguy
[email protected]
916-282-5117

Sandra O. Poole
[email protected]
916-282-5141

Housing
Cynthia Castillo
[email protected]
916-282-5103

Tina Rosales
[email protected]
916-282-5118

Public Benefits and Access to Justice
Christopher Sanchez
[email protected]
916-282-5104

California’s Riverside County Agrees to Reimburse Families $540K in Juvenile Detention Fees

January 31, 2023February 15, 2023, By Willis Jacobson, National Center for Youth Law & Rebecca Miller, Western Center on Law and Poverty,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Para ver esta información en español, haz clic aqui

Settlement Website, click here

January 31, 2023

Contacts:

Willis Jacobson, National Center for Youth Law: [email protected]

Estevan Montemayor, Western Center on Law and Poverty: [email protected]

CALIFORNIA’S RIVERSIDE COUNTY AGREES TO REIMBURSE FAMILIES $540K IN JUVENILE DETENTION FEES

Riverside County families who were subjected to illegal collection of juvenile fees moved a step closer toward justice — in the form of cash reimbursements — after a court this month granted preliminary approval of a settlement in a class action lawsuit they brought against the County.

The lawsuit, Freeman v. County of Riverside, alleged that the County did not follow California law and the U.S. Constitution when it charged millions of dollars in fees to families who had children in juvenile detention. Under state law, the County was obligated to ensure families had the ability to pay fees they were assessed and inform families of their right to challenge the fees. The plaintiffs claimed that the County failed to fulfill these legal duties. The families are represented by the National Center for Youth Law and the Western Center on Law & Poverty.

After the families filed their complaint in court in March 2020, the County agreed to stop collecting $4.1 million in outstanding juvenile detention and administrative fees. The parties have now negotiated a settlement, in which the County agrees to pay $540,307 to reimburse more than 1,200 class members for the fee payments they made.

“The County’s practices have had a devastating effect on families,” said Michael Harris, an attorney and Senior Director of Legal Advocacy and Justice and Equity at the National Center for Youth Law. “This settlement will offer those families meaningful relief and deter Riverside County and other jurisdictions from illegally assessing and collecting money from struggling families.”

The settlement, if finalized, would mark a major victory for families in Riverside County, some of whom have been caught in decades-long cycles of financial turmoil as a result of the County’s collection practices. Plaintiffs Shirley and Daniel Freeman are among those from whom the County pursued for more than 10 years to collect fees related to their grandson’s time in juvenile detention. “The settlement gives recognition to what happened to us and other families,” said Shirley and Daniel Freeman. “We are pleased that the lawsuit helped families by canceling amounts they still owed and now the settlement will return some of the money that was collected from them.”

“Even when state law requires consideration of ability to pay, individuals and their families are frequently burdened with debt they’re unable to pay. These fees cause significant harm to families, undermining community health and trust in public institutions,” said Rebecca Miller, Senior Litigator with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “This case shows why fees should not be charged to individuals involved in the juvenile justice system.”

Families from whom Riverside County collected juvenile detention fees will receive mailed notice about the proposed class action settlement in the coming weeks. Parents and guardians who believe they might be members of the class action entitled to relief under the settlement should visit the Settlement Administrator’s website at www.riversidejuvenilefees.com or call (833) 472-1997.

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The National Center for Youth Law centers youth through research, community collaboration, impact litigation, and policy advocacy that fundamentally transforms our nation’s approach to education, health, immigration, foster care, and youth justice. Our vision is a world in which every child thrives and has a full and fair opportunity to achieve the future they envision for themselves. For more information, visit www.youthlaw.org.

Western Center on Law & Poverty fights in courts, cities, counties, and in the Capitol to secure housing, health care, and a strong safety net for Californians with low incomes, through the lens of economic and racial justice. For more information, visit www.wclp.org.

Civil rights groups file lawsuit to block Newsom’s plan for treating people with mental illness

January 26, 2023January 26, 2023, By Hannah Wiley, Los Angeles Times,

SACRAMENTO —

A coalition of disability and civil rights advocates filed a lawsuit Thursday asking the California Supreme Court to block the rollout of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s far-reaching new plan to address severe mental illness by compelling treatment for thousands of people.

In their filing, representatives from three organizations — Disability Rights California, Western Center on Law and Poverty and the Public Interest Law Project — asked the state’s high court to strike down as unconstitutional the program known as CARE Court (for Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment). The groups argue that the sweeping new court system will violate due process and equal protection rights under the state constitution, while “needlessly burdening fundamental rights to privacy, autonomy and liberty.”

Newsom announced CARE Court in March as a new strategy to help an estimated 7,000 to 12,000 Californians struggling with severe mental health disorders like schizophrenia access housing, treatment and mental health services. It was signed into law in September as Senate Bill 1338.

Analysis Of Governor Newsom’s 2023-2024 California Budget Proposal

January 11, 2023January 26, 2023, By WCLP Policy Team

On January 10th, Governor Newsom released his January proposal for the 2023-24 California state budget. To address a projected budget deficit of $22.5 billion in 2023-24, the Governor proposes to delay funding for new programs, and in some cases ties new program implementation to future year revenue. The Governor’s proposal avoids major cuts, retains significant budget reserves, and maintains investments from previous budgets, including Medi-Cal expansion to all income-eligible adults regardless of immigration status effective January 2024, grant adjustments for CalWORKs and SSI/SSP, and many housing and homelessness investments. While not austere, the Governor’s budget is conservative in its ambition to meet the needs of low-income Californians.

Below is Western Center’s initial reaction to the proposed budget by issue area:

HEALTH CARE

Medi-Cal

· Maintains 2022 Budget Actions on Health4All, Share of Cost reform, and continuous eligibility: The Governor’s proposal maintains last year’s budget action to implement full-scope Medi-Cal coverage expansion to adults aged 26 through 49, regardless of immigration status, effective January 2024. In addition, there has been no change to last year’s budget deal to update the Medi-Cal Share of Cost so that seniors and people with disabilities can afford to access needed Medi-Cal services and continuous Medi-Cal coverage for children ages zero to five effective January 2025 with contingencies.

· Managed Care Organization (MCO) Tax: The Administration proposes to enact a three-year MCO tax renewal effective January 2024 through December 2026, drawing down federal funding for estimated $6.5 billion (and potentially more) in General Fund savings in Medi-Cal.

· California’s Behavioral Health Community-Based Continuum (CalBH-CBC): The Administration seeks federal approval of CalBH-CBC Demonstration to expand behavioral health crisis, inpatient, and residential services through a staged implementation starting January 1, 2024. The fiscal impact for the Department of Health Care Services and Department of Social Services over the five years of the waiver is estimated to be $6.1 billion total funds ($314 million General Fund).

· Transitional Rent: The Administration seeks federal approval to fund up to 6 months of rent or temporary housing to individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness and transitioning out of institutional levels of care, a correctional facility, or the foster care system, and who are at risk of hospitalization. Not a statewide Medi-Cal benefit, counties may opt-in through CalBH-CBC and Medi-Cal plans may provide as optional community support service under CalAIM. The proposal includes $17.9 million ($6.3 million General Fund) in 2025-26 and up to $116.6 million ($40.8 million General Fund) at full implementation.

· Delays in Behavioral Health Bridge Housing and Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) Funding: The proposal delays half ($250 million) of 2023-24 Bridge House funding until 2024-25 and delays the last round of behavioral health continuum capacity funding out one fiscal year.

· Designated State Health Program (DSHP) and Primary Care and Obstetric Rate Increase: The Administration requests federal approval to claim $646.4 million in federal funding over four years to support PATH program to build capacity to implement services under CalAIM. The DSHP proposal also includes 10% increase in primary care services, obstetric, and doula care for net impact of $22 million total funds ($152.9 million General Fund savings) in 2023-24.

Other Health Care Proposals:

· Delays healthcare workforce investments: The proposal defers $68 million in 2022-23 and $329.4 million in 2023-24 for certain Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) healthcare workforce programs, including community health workers, nurses, behavioral health, primary care and reproductive health, but these programs remain fully funded.

· Sweeps Covered California reserve fund to General Fund: Money deposited into a reserve fund to be used for future Covered California affordability programs totaling $333.4 million is proposed to be swept to the General Fund. This would be returned after federal subsidies end, which is scheduled in 2025-26.

HOUSING

Rising housing costs, stalled housing production, and shrinking housing affordable housing is crushing Californians. To alleviate the pressure on Californians, the 2023-24 Housing Budget Proposal aims to keep jurisdictions accountable for planning, zoning and permitting housing at all income levels and maintains all but three of the investments seen in the 2022 Budget Act. The proposal also includes a new legally binding statewide housing goal of building 2.5 million new units, of which 1 million units will be affordable to low-income people by the year 2030. Unlike last year’s budget, this proposal has no investments in the emergency rental assistance program or any programs to assist people struggling to pay their rent or utilities due to the pandemic but maintains last year’s budget investments including:

· $500M – Annual investment in state Low Income Housing Tax Credit program

· $225M – Multifamily Housing Program

· $225M – Infill Infrastructure Grant Program

· $250M – Adaptive reuse

· $100M – Portfolio Reinvestment Program

· $50M – Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention Program

· $50M – Affordable housing on excess sites.

The proposed budget cuts $350 million in housing programs that were included in last year’s Budget Act. Reductions will be restored in January 2024, if there are sufficient budget revenues. Cuts for this year include:

· Dream For All Program: The newly created program would provide shared-appreciation loans to help low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers achieve homeownership. The timeline for implementing the program will remain the same, but $200 million of the original $500 million will be reverted to the General Fund.

· CalHome: Last year’s budget included $350 million one-time General Fund ($250 million in 2022-23 and $100 million for 2023-24) for the CalHome program, to provide local agencies and nonprofits grants to assist low- and very-low-income first-time homebuyers with housing assistance, counseling and technical assistance. The proposal removes $100 million in 2023-24.

· Accessory Dwelling Unit Program: The proposal reverts last year’s budget investment of $50 million General Fund in 2022-23 for the California Housing Finance Agency’s Accessory Dwelling Unit program.

HOMELESSNESS

The proposed budget includes $3.4 billion in 2023-24 to maintain the state’s efforts to address homelessness. There are no proposed cuts to the $15.3 billion in existing homelessness investments, which include:

· $3B – Flexible aid to local governments

· $3B – Homekey

· $2.2B – Behavioral health continuum infrastructure (see health section for delay details)

· $1.5B – Behavioral Health Bridge housing (see health section for delay details)

· $860M – Community Care Expansion

· $750M ($400M in 2023-24) – 3rd round of Encampment Clean Up Grants

· $262M – Project Roomkey

· $1B – for a fifth round of Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP)

The proposed budget includes funding to allow up to six months of rent or temporary housing to eligible individuals (see transitional rent under health section for more details) and the Administration plans to work with the Legislature this year to advance homeless accountability legislation.

PUBLIC BENEFITS AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE

· Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Fraud Mitigation: In recent years recipients of CalWORKs and CalFresh have become easy prey for scammers to electronically steal or “skim” cash benefits from due to the lack protections that are provided on current EBT cards. In this proposal, the Governor provides a $50 million allocation over three years to pursue security upgrades and EBT card technology enhancements. We applaud the Governor for recognizing the need to strengthen protections for CalWORKs and CalFresh recipients and look forward to working with the Administration to create these protections while ensuring recipients of these programs can access their benefits freely and uninterrupted.

· CalWORKs: This proposal increases CalWORKs maximum aid payment levels by 2.9%. This is on top of legislative wins that we and our partners secured last year including funding for AB 2277 (Reyes), which provides program waivers to survivors of domestic abuse, and SB 1083 (Skinner), which provided home visiting services to pregnant CalWORKs participants and updates the criteria for families to receive CalWORKs homeless assistance.

· Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP): This proposal includes an 8.6% increase in funding for the SSI/SSP and Cash Assistance for Immigrants (CAPI) program providing a $3.5 billion from the general fund. This allocation provides recipients with an increase in grant levels to $1,134 per month for individuals and $1,928 per month for couples.

· Child Welfare: We appreciate that the Governor recognizes the importance of prioritizing the well-being of California children and their safety. This proposal provides $1.6 billion in funding to Child Welfare Services, Foster Care, Child Support Services and other programs and services. We look forward to working with the Governor and legislative leaders to ensure that any additional funding provided to prioritize the safety of children shall include the principle of keeping families whole. Far too often California families have been separated by Child Protective Services without seeking alternative options that are often at our fingertips to keep families whole and together.

· Fines and Fees: In recent years California has made significant strides to eliminate fines and fees that place Californians further into poverty, such as the civil assessment. We look forward to continuing our advocacy with our partners from the Debt Free Justice Coalition to continue to seek the elimination of unjust fines and fees.

· Migrant and Immigrant Communities: While we recognize that California is a leader in welcoming and integrating immigrant communities into our state, this proposal falls short of providing basic needs to many immigrant communities including new arrivals from the border. We believe that this proposal must build upon the investments the state has already made by including access to critical social services for migrants who are seeking humanitarian relief from the federal government including those seeking asylum, non-citizens who are survivors of domestic abuse and others. The answer from anti-immigrant states and policy makers has been to militarize the southern border and disregard the humanity of migrants who are fleeing violence. Our state’s response must be one that continues to show us as a global leader providing comfort to those in need. Additionally, we support our coalition partners’ efforts to expand and strengthen the state’s safety net this year to provide food for all Californians and access to unemployment benefits. Scheduled to implement this year, we are disappointed that the proposal delays the California Food Assistance Program expansion to all income-eligible noncitizens 55 years of age or older until 2027.

Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act: The Governor’s proposal provides $215 million to implement the CARE Act, which creates a court-ordered treatment system that strips people with untreated schizophrenia and other psychotic spectrum disorders of their right to make their own decisions about their lives, so we along with other partners will be working to ensure there is sufficient funding to support legal counsel to CARE participants. This includes $23.8 million in 2023-24, ramping up to $68.5 million in 2025-26 and ongoing to Judicial Branch; $16.5 million in 2023-24, ramping up to $108.5 million in 2025-26 and annually thereafter to county behavioral health department; and $6.1 million in 2023-24, increasing to $31.5 million annually beginning in 2025-26, to support legal counsel to CARE participants.

A PDF of this analysis can be accessed here: WCLP Analysis of Gov January Budget Proposal 2023-24

For questions, contact:

· Health: Linda Nguy, Senior Policy Advocate – lnguy[at]wclp.org; Sandra Poole, Policy Advocate – spoole[at]wclp.org

· Housing and Homelessness: Cynthia Castillo, Policy Advocate – ccastillo[at]wclp.org; Tina Rosales, Policy Advocate – trosales[at]wclp.org

· Public Benefits/ Access to Justice: Christopher Sanchez, Policy Advocate – csanchez[at]wclp.org

2022 Garden Party Earl Johnson Equal Justice Award Tribute

October 19, 2022October 19, 2022, By Justice Earl Johnson, Western Center Scholar in Residence

In the past fourteen years, the Equal Justice awards have been presented to a wide array of national, state, and local leaders in the legal aid world — from former U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder to California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso to local leaders like Judge Terry Hatter and USC Law Professor Claire Pastore. This year, we finally realized we had been overlooking two legal aid stars in the Center’s own backyard. Those stars are the Center’s long-time Litigation Director Dick Rothschild and it’s veteran General Counsel, Robert Newman.

After graduating Magna Cum Laude from Yale University, Dick Rothschild attended USC Law school— graduating in 1975 where he was Order of the Coif, second highest GPA in his class and the Notes and Articles Editor of the Law Review. He then clerked for California Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk. With that outstanding resume, Dick was a top prospect for the largest, most prestigious law firms in town. But that was not what he wanted to do as a lawyer and in 1976, he chose instead to sign on as a staff Attorney at the Western Center. By 1984 he was elevated to be the Center’s Director of Litigation, the position he still occupies nearly four decades later. In that role, Dick not only manages the litigation staff and all the Center’s major cases, but frequently is personally involved as lead or co-counsel in those cases.

Meantime, Bob Newman earned both his undergraduate and law degrees at Yale , finishing in 1977 and moving to Los Angeles in 1979. The next few years Bob developed a successful practice representing individuals who had suffered at the hands of government. During that time he won several of multi-million dollar judgments for victims of police misconduct. In 1986, he brought that expertise in major litigation and class actions to the Western Center when he joined the staff as its General Counsel. Over the past three and a half decades, often teaming with other Western Center lawyers, he has successfully litigated scores of major class actions and test cases establishing new legal rights and improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of low income people. In addition, he shares his expertise and wisdom with other staff members when they face knotty problems in cases they are handling. While the rest of Western Center’s legal staff is unusually talented, they are even more productive and successful because the staff includes Bob and Dick with their deep reservoir of experience in complex litigation.

While this may be the first time Dick and Bob are receiving the Western Center’s Equal Justice Award, they have reputations in the legal aid and public interest community that range across the state and even nationally. This is evidenced by the many awards one or both of them have received from other organizations—among them the California Bar’s Loren Miller Award which Dick and Bob won in different years, the Lawyers’ Guild’s Robert Kenny Award which Bob received recently, and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association’s top award— the Kutak-Dodd Prize—which Dick earned a few years ago that goes to the outstanding legal aid lawyer in the country.

I am pleased, indeed honored, to add the Center’s Equal Justice Award to that list. It is especially meaningful for me because this time I have personally observed the contributions these two lawyers have made to the elusive goal of equal justice for all and to improving the lives of the poor and otherwise powerless. So I ask Dick Rothschild and Bob Newman to accept these Equal Justice Awards they have proven several times over that they have long deserved.

Western Center’s 2022 Legislative Wrap-Up

October 7, 2022January 11, 2023

Western Center had an outstanding end to the 2022 legislative session, with 13 of co-sponsored bills signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom. Among the highlights were (SB 972) modernizing street vending licensing and (SB 923), a first in nation bill on gender affirming health care. We also passed bills to repeal failure to appear (FTA) license suspensions and to repeal the use of license suspension for low-income parents in arrears on child support. Other wins included mandating counties waive work requirements for domestic violence survivors and expanded protections for low-income debtors from wage garnishments. Below is a list that includes WCLP sponsored bills and other bills of note that WCLP played a role in, such as AB 2594 and AB 2746.

PASSED BILLS

HEALTH

SB 923 (Wiener) – SB 923 WCLP co-sponsored this historic bill that creates a workgroup to establish first-in-the nation quality standards for transgender, gender diverse, and intersex (TGI) patient experience and recommends related training curriculum, mandates health plans to require TGI cultural competency training for their staff, and requires plan provider directories to identify providers who offer gender affirming services.

SB 644 (Leyva) – WCLP co-sponsored SB 644 which requires EDD to share with Covered California contact and income information about those who have recently applied for or lost income-replacing benefits to allow Covered California to reach out and help enroll these individuals in Medi-Cal or Covered California.

FINANCIAL SECURITY/FOOD ACCESS

SB 972 (L Gonzales) –SB 972WCLP co-sponsored this bill that modernizes vending policies and fully legalizes food street vending, providing pathways for vendors to obtain health permits and build their small businesses. You can learn more about the community organizing history and vendor led process to achieve this historic victory by watching our Meet the Advocates webinar on vendor justice as a food justice issue.

SB 1008 (Becker) – SB 1008 makes phone calls from prison and juvenile facilities free, keeping families connected. In partnership with co-sponsors and community groups, WCLP amplified the call to support this bill across our social media channels.

AB 2277 (Reyes) –WCLP co-sponsored AB 2277 requiring counties to provide good cause to CalWORKs program requirements, including work participation, when a recipient identifies themselves as a survivor of domestic violence.

AB 2004 (C. Garcia) – WCLP co-sponsored AB 2004 which strengthens the California Dream Loan Program and establishes a loan forgiveness program for program borrowers.

SB 1200 (Skinner) – SB 1200 WCLP co-sponsored this bill to reduce the interest rate applied to unpaid government and private debt. The bill will reduce the interest from 10 percent annually to 5 percent. It also limits creditors to one renewal of a judgment against a debtor. There is currently no limit on how long creditors can try and collect old debt.

AB 2300 (Kalra) – AB 2300 – WCLP co-sponsored this bill that allows CalWORKs recipients to have good cause from not meeting work requirements if their employer violates state labor laws including the Crown Act, sexual harassment, and many other labor provisions.

AB 1686 (Bryan) – AB 1686 establishes a presumption that, when a child is in foster care, requiring the parent or guardian to pay child support for the child is likely to impose a barrier to the family’s efforts to reunify.

SB 1055 (Kamlager) – SB 1055 WCLP co-sponsored this first of its kind in the nation bill to eliminate the use of license suspension when a low-income non-custodial parent is in arrears on making child support payments. The bill repeals license suspension for people with incomes at or below 70 percent of the area median income.

SB 1447 (Wieckowski) – WCLP co-sponsored SB 1447 which increases protections to income from wage garnishments to 48 hours times the minimum wage or 20 percent of disposable income.

AB 207 (Ting) – The Governor signed this budget trailer bill that included language approving full pass through of child support payments to CalWORKs children and mandates that CDSS form a stakeholder work group to evaluate whether there are any possible negative consequences from providing full pass through. The bill also requires CDSS to form a stakeholder work group to look at options for ending the TANF work participation pass-on penalty to counties that WCLP and CWDA have been urging repeal of the past two budgets. Lastly, the bill also mandates a stakeholder work group to come up with a proposal for implementing the child support Final Rule on determining how to establish child support orders. WCLP will be a participant in all three work groups.

HOUSING/HOMELESSNESS

SB 1017 (Eggman) – WCLP co-sponsored SB 1017 which expands the rights and protections of survivors of domestic violence in landlord/tenant proceedings, including clarifying when landlords can evict tenants if the perpetrator returns to the property.

AB 2339 (Bloom) –WCLP co-sponsored AB 2339 which strengthens housing element law to ensure zoning encourages and facilitates the production of emergency shelters and transitional and supportive housing.

SB 1083 (Skinner) –WCLP co-sponsored SB 1083 which makes numerous changes to the CalWORKs Homeless Assistance Program including expanding the definition of homelessness to include an eviction notice and to reduce verification requirements for pregnant persons.

ACCESS TO JUSTICE/FINES AND FEES

AB 1355 (Levine) – WCLP co-sponsored AB 1355, a bill that expands applicant protections related to alternating decisions in state fair hearings including requiring transcripts to be read before directors alternate and allowing additional evidence be entered after an alternated decision was returned to the ALJ.

AB 2746 (Friedman) – AB 2745 repeals the ability of traffic courts to suspend a driver’s license for failure to appear.

AB 2147 (Ting) – AB 2147 reduces the use of jaywalking tickets by only allowing tickets when there is an imminent danger.

AB 2594 (Ting) – AB 2594 WCLP supported and negotiated this bill that makes numerous changes to toll agencies’ collection practices. It waives penalties on old violations, eliminates the requirement that a person must deposit all tolls and penalties in order to get an administrative review of a violation, and requires toll agencies to have payment plans for drivers with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level and caps payments for these plans at $25 a month and caps the maximum civil penalty for a violation at $100.

OPPOSED BILLS:

SB 1338 (Umberg and Eggman) – WCLP joined the opposition to this legislation, widely known as “Care Court,” sponsored by Governor Newsom. You can learn more about why WCLP opposed this bill by watching our Meet the Advocates webinar on this topic. The passed bill will only funds six counties (SD, SF, Riverside, Orange, Tuolumne and Stanislaus). It delays implementation of a second cohort of unnamed counties until December, 2024. The earliest Care Court can go live in the first six counties would be October 1, 2023. The bill includes language allowing courts to appoint counsel for the respondent from either a willing LSC program or a public defender.

SB 1133 (Archuleta) – WCLP opposed this bill that would remove price gouging protections during states of emergency – including rental caps. The successful defeat of this bill ensured that thousands of vulnerable Californians will continue to be protected against unjust housing price gouging during the declaration of an emergency – including wildfires, pandemics, and natural disasters.

DEFEATED BILLS TO BRING BACK NEXT SESSION:

AB 1685 (Bryan)- AB 1685 would have required local governments using DMV holds to collect parking tickets to forgive up to $1,500 in parking debt if they were homeless.

AB 2775 (Quirk-Silva) – AB 2775, co-sponsored by WCLP would have allowed an unhoused person to not pay a registration fee on their vehicle.

SB 1140 (Umberg) – SB 1140, co-sponsored by WCLP would have codified the decision in Ortega vs Johnson that CalFresh benefits stolen electronically would have to be restored promptly.

BUDGET RE-CAP:

The governor and legislature reached an agreement on the 2022-23 state budget, which includes a historic $100 billion budget surplus. Amid substantial inflation and continued economic fallout from the pandemic, the reason for the massive surplus must be named. California has 189 billionaires and counting, and substantially more extremely high-income households that do not have the same economic burdens as the 1 in 3 Californians living near or below the poverty line. Only fundamental reforms, including for seemingly untouchable issues like discriminatory tax laws, can address the significant disparities in our state. One-time investments targeting people with low incomes during flush budget years are good, but ongoing, dedicated investments are the only way to make the state better.

Despite concerns that surplus revenue would make it difficult to fund General Fund programs, the budget deal includes substantial General Fund investments. The budget also provides tax rebates to millions of Californians, with the majority going to Californians with incomes below $75,000. Even with that spending and many other investments, the state will have a $37 billion reserve.

ACCESS TO JUSTICE/ FINES & FEES

Civil Assessments – The budget substantially reforms court practices that result in tens of millions of dollars in penalties imposed on people who fail to pay traffic and criminal court fines on time or who fail to appear in court. The current $300 civil assessment is being reduced to $100. The budget agreement also discharges civil assessment debt that accrued prior to the change in law. This means tens of thousands of people will no longer have to make payments on that debt or be harassed by bill collectors. The budget also shifts all future civil assessment revenue to the state General Fund rather than to the courts. The past practice led to lawsuits alleging that judges are incentivized to impose the maximum assessment to increase court revenue. The civil assessment language will be subject to completion in August via budget trailer bill.

Tax Intercepts – The budget includes a change to the longstanding practice by the state of intercepting Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) and Young Child Tax Credits (YCTC) for unpaid debts. Going forward, the state’s Franchise Tax Board will no longer intercept such payments except in cases of child support or restitution.

FINANCIAL SECURITY/ FOOD ACCESS

CalWORKs – The CalWORKs budget provides a 21 percent increase in CalWORKs grants, the largest since the program began in 1998. It eliminates deep poverty for CalWORKs households of families of four or more. Deep poverty includes households with incomes below 50 percent of the Federal Poverty Level by family size. For smaller families that get tax rebates, their income will also be above the deep poverty threshold. The increase will begin on October 1, 2022 for the next two budgets, but must be renewed in 2024 when an additional grant increase will also be under consideration. Below is an estimated chart of the grants starting in October.

Child Support Pass Through – The budget includes a major change in child support policy by allowing families that receive a child support payment to receive all of it and not have it re-directed to the state and federal government to reimburse the cost for public benefits. This will begin in 2025. Currently, a CalWORKs family only gets child support for the first $100 for one child and $200 for two or more children. The governor proposed to pass through all child support to former CalWORKs households in the January budget proposal, and the legislature succeeded in expanding that into a full pass through of all child support, making California the second state in the country to do so. It is estimated that this will result in $430 million in payments going directly to families.

Food for All – The budget includes an additional $35.2 million, increasing the total to $113.4 million to expand the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to all Californians 55 years of age or older, regardless of immigration status. California will become the first state to provide food assistance to ensure all residents 55+ can access food. We will continue to work with our partners, the governor, and the legislature in future budgets to ensure all Californians have access to food.

SSI/SSP – The budget includes another increase for the state SSP grant of approximately $37/month. This will begin in January 2023. When combined with the anticipated 8.6 percent increase in the federal grant, the total grant comes to approximately $1,149, an increase of $107/month. While this grant increase is substantial, the grant is still below the federal poverty level for one person at approximately 98 percent.

Tax Rebates – The budget provides $9.5 billion in tax rebates. For families with incomes below $75,000 and who file taxes, a single person will get $350, a two-person household will get $700, and households of three or more will receive $1,050. People using ITIN tax filer status will be eligible but people receiving SSI will not be eligible. Unlike the proposal by the governor to distribute tax rebates to registered car owners via the DMV, the agreement instead utilizes the Franchise Tax Board to distribute payments. Currently, it is projected payments should arrive by October. These funds will benefit families on CalWORKs, CalFresh, and Medi-Cal if they filed tax returns.

Universal School Meals – Building upon the state’s historic investment in providing school meals for all students in California, this year’s budget provides 700 million in additional dollars to support school meals for all, with a focus on best practices and kitchen infrastructure. This funding will contribute to California students getting access to healthier options for school meals.