“Ultimately, Kaiser Permanente’s contract creates more choice for the Medi-Cal population, said Linda Nguy, a lobbyist with the Western Center on Law & Poverty. But the group, which advocates for people with low incomes, pledged to keep an eye on how the new law is rolled out.
“We will be monitoring it and certainly raising issues as things come up,” Nguy said.”
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Food and Financial Security
Health Care
Housing
(Click image below to access PDF – Español aqui – Tiếng việt ở đây – Русский здесь – 这里的中国人)
Additional Resources
The governor and legislature have 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.
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.
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.
Medi-Cal Expansion – The budget agreement includes notable health care investments including expansion of Medi-Cal to all adults regardless of immigration status (Health4All), with an implementation date ‘no later’ than January 1, 2024. It’s estimated that the expansion will result in roughly 700,000+ people becoming newly eligible for full-scope Medi-Cal at ongoing cost of $2.3 billion.
Medi-Cal Reform – The budget also reforms Medi-Cal share-of-cost so elders and people with disabilities can afford necessary Medi-Cal services and provides continuous Medi-Cal coverage for children up to age five. Both reforms have a delayed implementation date of January 1, 2025 and are subject to a budget appropriation at that time. The budget also zeroes out Medi-Cal premiums, expands Medi-Cal coverage of custom crowns for back teeth, and increases the Medi-Cal doula reimbursement.
Additionally, the budget provides navigator funding, Covered CA state premium subsidy funding, and establishes the Office of Health Care Affordability. More details of this budget’s health care investments can be found at Western Center’s updated 2022 Health Budget Scorecard.
As California faces dwindling affordable housing stock, skyrocketing rent increases, and as thousands of Californians wait for promised rent relief via the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), state leaders mostly funded existing programs in this budget and failed to make housing investments at the scale needed to tackle the housing crisis.
Eviction Prevention – Billions of dollars in emergency rental assistance have been requested, but the legislature capped assistance previously promised in SB 115 at $1.95 billion, while increasing application denials for unclear reasons. As such, this budget provides $30 million in increased funding for legal aid eviction defense to represent the thousands of tenants who will likely face eviction due to the state’s inability to properly manage ERAP.
Homelessness – This budget will result in more displacement of people experiencing homelessness with increased funding for encampment sweeps: $300 million for 2022-2023 and $400 million for 2023-24. There are no meaningful investments in permanent housing for our unhoused neighbors. This budget also does not include investments for AB 1816 (Bryan) to go toward workforce development and permanent supportive housing for people who were recently incarcerated and experiencing or at risk of homelessness; rather, this budget funds temporary programs that often contribute to a revolving door of recidivism. However, this budget does finally invest in a program created nearly eight years ago for veterans and their families experiencing homelessness by allocating $50 million to Proposition 41 (2014).
Affordable Housing – This budget makes a $2 billion multiyear investment in affordable housing. The budget allocates $150 million over two years to preserve California’s existing highly prized and disappearing affordable housing stock. Since many Californians rely on mobile and manufactured homes for affordable housing, the budget invests $100 million over two years for mobile and manufactured homes. In an attempt to add to California’s affordable housing stock, the budget allocates $250 million for the Housing Accelerator Program to build affordable housing where builders can’t access tax credits, as well as $325 million over two years for the Multifamily Housing Program, two critical programs that deserve a larger investment. The budget allocates $425 million over two years for the Infill infrastructure grant program for capital improvement projects and $410 million over two years for Adaptive Reuse to convert buildings into housing, including a $10 million appropriation of existing funding. There is also an additional investment of $50 million for ADU financing on existing lots. While greatly needed, this funding should come with more requirements for the creation of affordable units for households with low and extremely low incomes.
Homeownership – Since homeownership is nearly impossible for many first-time homebuyers in California, particularly for non-white people whose generational wealth was stripped due to intentionally racist housing policies, this budgets makes a commitment to assist first-time homebuyers by establishing the California Dream for All program, providing $500 million to assist first-time homebuyers with lower down payments, more than 1/3 reduction in monthly mortgage payments, and $350 million over two years for the CalHome program.
Housing for Farmworkers – This budget invests in farmworkers, whose hard labor keeps many of us fed, by appropriating $50 million for the Joe Serna Jr. Farmworker Housing Program. The program is intended to construct and rehabilitate housing for farm workers who often live in hazardous and uninhabitable housing conditions.
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For a PDF of this analysis, click here. For questions contact:
Access to Justice & Financial Security
Health Care
Housing & Homelessness
“State Fair Hearings are presided over by an administrative law judge instead of a panel of physicians, who have “legal rather than clinical expertise,” as explained by Linda Nguy, Senior Policy Advocate at the Western Center on Law and Poverty, during her testimony in favor of the bill.”
“Linda Nguy, a policy advocate with the Western Center on Law and Poverty, said it would be difficult to pass the bill if funding for it isn’t included in this year’s state budget. Funding for this proposal was not included in the governor’s May revision of the budget.”
The Newsom Administration released its 2022-23 May Revise budget, which includes a massive three year budget surplus of over $90 billion. While the budget includes many noteworthy proposals, overall it fails to provide robust help to those who need it most. Rather than target the surplus on increased tax credits and emergency relief for people with low incomes, the budget proposal provides more than $11 billion in tax credits to car owners, including households with incomes up to $250,000.
Paradoxically, the state has so much extra revenue that General Fund spending is limited since the increased revenue exceeds the State Appropriations Limit (aka the Gann limit). As such, the May Revise proposes large infrastructure spending that is not counted towards the Gann limit. While those proposals are not without merit, the Revise fails on fundamental anti-poverty measures, like backfilling the lost federal child tax credits proven to reduce child poverty, leaving hundreds of thousands of children at risk of unnecessarily falling back into poverty. The Revise also fails to fully eliminate civil assessment fees that disproportionately punish people experiencing poverty who cannot afford to pay a traffic ticket or take time to appear in court.
Care Court
The governor proposes $65 million to fund a new court process called Care Court, which would force unhoused individuals with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders into a court ordered treatment plan. Western Center has been tracking the proposal and vocal about our opposition since the governor revealed it in March, as it touches on each of our issue areas.
The Revise provides $39 million to the Judicial Council to run the court process, $10 million to finance a supporter program within the state Department of Aging, and $15 million to counties for training and technical assistance.
With its lack of necessary interventions, like a clear budget strategy and mechanisms for creating housing, we believe the framework of the proposal is fundamentally flawed. If implemented, it is likely CARE Court will lead to unnecessary institutionalization of people with disabilities and unhoused people and likely create a chilling effect that will prevent people from seeking services for fear of being institutionalized. Additionally, by involving the court system the proposal will perpetuate institutionalized racism and exacerbate existing disparities in health care delivery since Black, Indigenous and other people of color are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with psychotic disorders than white people. All evidence shows that adequately-resourced, intensive, voluntary outpatient treatment – not court-ordered treatment – is most effective for treating the population CARE Court seeks to serve.
HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS
The governor’s May Revise proposes a $2.5 billion dollar increase for housing and homelessness programs from last year for multi-year investments to build housing and behavioral health housing. The Revise includes an additional $150 million to fund Homekey projects, $50 million to build interim housing and $500 million to accelerate affordable housing production and conversions of retail space in downtown corridors.
Even with the economic fallout of the pandemic raging on, the proposal does not include additional funding for tenants at the brink of eviction for their inability to pay rent. To confuse matters, the governor announced a $2.7 billion budget allocation for rental assistance, but it is not a new commitment. Rather, it’s part of the commitment the legislature made in February via Senate Bill 115, designed to ensure full coverage for rental assistance applications submitted before March 31. However, because of the burdensome application process, tenants accrue debt while they wait for approval and still face the threat of eviction for the months their application was being processed.
The governor’s proposal fails to comply with the legal requirement for the state to fully fund rental assistance applications submitted before March 31 by paying those tenants 100% of their accrued debt at the time they are approved. To keep tenants housed and fulfill the promise of the rental assistance program, the massive budget surplus must be used to fully fund tenants’ rental debt and ensure that vulnerable Californians remain housed.
Western Center will continue to advocate for other sponsored proposals missing in the May Revise, including $500 million in the Community Anti-Displacement and Preservation Program (CAPP) to acquire unsubsidized affordable housing and make them permanently affordable, $200 million in the Reentry Housing and Workforce Development Program to provide stable housing and supportive services to formerly incarcerated people as outlined in AB 1816 (Bryan), and $150 million for eviction defense funding and community education and outreach.
PUBLIC BENEFITS & ACCESS TO JUSTICE
CalWORKs
The May Revise proposes an 11.1 percent increase in CalWORKs, the largest one-year increase in the grant levels in recent memory. The funding for this comes from the Child Poverty subaccount which has seen a significant increase along with the overall budget. Even with this increase, CalWORKs grants for most families are still not out above deep poverty (50 percent of the federal poverty level). That is because most families have an excluded adult. We are calling on the legislature to fulfill the commitment made four years ago to fund CalWORKs grants at the assistance unit plus one level. See the chart below for what the gap will remain at:
Child Support Pass Through
The May Revise makes no change in the administration’s proposal to pass through all child support to former CalWORKs families. While advocates support the proposal, we seek to have it extended to current CalWORKs cases where families have lower incomes and could use the child support assistance immediately.
Food Assistance
The May Revise makes no change to the governor’s January proposal seeking to expand the California Food Assistance Program to Californians regardless of immigration status for those 55 years of age and older. Western Center stands with our partners advocating for the expansion of the program to include Californians of all ages. Many immigrant families were excluded from pandemic relief and continue to be left behind as we rebuild the state’s safety nets.
SSI/SSP
The governor’s May Revise budget makes no proposal to increase grants for blind, aged and disabled Californians. There is a provisional agreement to restore the remainder of the 2009 SSP grant cuts beginning in January 2024 but the governor did not include CA4SSI’s request to accelerate the grant increase to January 2023. By delaying the second restoration, the value of the grant will decline when compared to the federal poverty level.
HEALTH CARE
The governor’s May Revision maintains the expansions proposed in the January proposal, including expanding Medi-Cal to all adults regardless of immigration status (Health4All), zeroing out premiums and copayments for Medi-Cal, and expanding Medi-Cal coverage of custom crowns for back teeth. In addition, the May Revision makes new investments to increase the Medi-Cal doula reimbursement rate, provides navigator funding, and permanently extends presumptive eligibility for older adults and individuals with disabilities. Unfortunately, the May Revision does not update the Medi-Cal share of cost, fully fund SB 65, or implement Health4All sooner than January 2024.
Below is summary of health proposals in the May Revision, which still needs to be negotiated with the legislature by the budget deadline of June 15th.
Medi-Cal
Other Health Proposals
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PDF of this document available here.
For questions contact:
$600 a month. Imagine living on that in an expensive state like California. That’s exactly what the state requires older adults and people with disabilities to do in exchange for health care through Medi-Cal. This year, the California Legislature and Governor Newsom must change that. Health care is one of the most expensive basic needs in our society — any commitment by state leaders to address inequality must include health care.
AB 1900 by Assembly member Arambula and co-author Assembly member Wood, which Western Center is co-sponsoring with Justice in Aging, Bet Tzedek Legal Services, Disability Rights California, Senior & Disability Action, and California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, will address the problem by increasing the amount of monthly income older adults and people with disabilities can keep for basic needs.
Currently, elders and people with disabilities with incomes below $1,564 a month qualify for free Medi-Cal. But low-income older adults and people with disabilities who are just a $1 over the limit are required to pay over $900 of their monthly income as a share-of-cost.
The share-of-cost works like a health insurance deductible, but resets on a monthly basis. This Medi-Cal program establishes a monthly amount that older adults and people with disabilities are allowed to keep to meet their basic needs, called the maintenance need income level. The rest of their income must go toward health care expenses. The maintenance need income level of $600 hasn’t been changed since 1989, even though it is nearly impossible for anyone in California to live on $600 a month now.
By increasing the amount of monthly income older adults and people with disabilities can keep for their basic needs — up to 138% of the federal poverty level (the Medi-Cal income level for nearly all adults), AB 1900 ensures that older adults and people with disabilities don’t have to wait another 30+ years for an adjustment since the federal poverty level is updated every year.
Most people with low incomes receive their health care for free or pay up to 8.5% of their income on health care coverage. It is unfair that older adults and people with disabilities are the only population forced to pay over 60% of their income to obtain essential health care. The current policy forces aging adults, people with disabilities and their families to make impossible choices between health care, paying rent, and affording food. When people cannot access needed Medi-Cal services they often end up hospitalized or institutionalized, or forced to rely on already stretched family members to provide unpaid care.
Ten other states have higher maintenance need income levels than California. It’s time to ditch the deductible and lead the nation in health care affordability. State leaders must fund AB 1900 in this year’s state budget.
(co-sponsored with Housing California, Corporation for Supportive Housing, Californians for Safety and Justice, People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), and Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership)
This bill will establish a funding source for permanent affordable housing and workforce development for formerly incarcerated people at risk of or currently experiencing homelessness. The bill is necessary to support people reentering society after incarceration to reduce recidivism and homelessness – 70 percent of Californians experiencing homelessness have a history of incarceration.
(co-sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)
This bill will make significant improvements in the CalWORKs Homeless Assistance Program (HAP) to minimize homelessness that CalWORKs families experience by repealing the limitations for receiving assistance through HAP. HAP is meant to assist families who have become unhoused and need immediate assistance. It is Western Center’s firm belief that families should not be burdened with additional program requirements to receive critical assistance for the health and safety of their family.
(co-sponsored with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and the Public Interest Law Project)
There are upwards of 160,000 people experiencing homelessness in California, and 72% are completely unsheltered. While some California localities provide enough shelter beds, in others, there are either no shelter beds or only a small number. AB 2339 strengthens housing element law to ensure that zones identified for shelters and other interim housing are suitable and available. The bill also requires jurisdictions to demonstrate sufficient capacity on the sites to meet the identified need for interim housing for those experiencing homelessness.
(co-sponsored with California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, Dr. Beatriz Maria Solis Policy Institute – Women’s Foundation of California, Family Violence Appellate Project)
This bill allows domestic violence survivors who are tenants to maintain their current housing and avoid eviction by expanding allowable documentation for lease termination policies, allowing survivors to use eviction protections when the abusive person is on the lease but no longer residing in the residence, and by allowing survivors who live with an abusive person to remain in the unit on the same lease terms while removing the abusive person.
While not a bill, Western Center and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation are working to obtain an extension of the current eviction protections implemented in response to the pandemic. To prevent mass evictions, displacement, and economic instability, the state must extend these protections as hundreds of thousands of tenants wait for rental assistance from the state’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
(co-sponsored with California Housing Partnership, California Coalition for Rural Housing, Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California and San Diego Housing Federation)
AB 1911 creates an Affordable Housing Preservation Tax Credit to support the preservation of tens of thousands of affordable housing units at risk of converting to market rate housing or displacing low-income tenants. California cannot afford to lose tens of thousands of affordable housing units in the midst of our current housing crisis. A targeted tax credit that encourages property owners to sell to affordable housing developers committed to long-term affordability would allow thousands of lower-income households to stay in their homes.
(co-sponsored with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Inner City Law Center, Leadership Council, Regional Asthma Management and Prevention (RAMP)
AB 2597 will address a long-standing issue that is rapidly exacerbated by human-induced climate change: the safety of renters in their homes when outdoor temperatures rise. Excessive heat has a negative impact on health and quality of life and leads to an increasing number of deaths. State law has long required that rental units be able to maintain a safe indoor air temperature when it’s cold outside, but there is no analogous requirement that applies when the weather is hot. This gap leaves many renters living in homes that reach unhealthy and often dangerous temperatures indoors and disproportionately impacts low-income households and people of color. AB 2597 will update the state’s habitability standards to ensure that all rental units have a means of maintaining a safe indoor air temperature regardless of the temperature outside.
(co-sponsored with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation)
This bill cleans up loopholes in AB 1482, California’s first statewide just cause eviction protection and anti-rent gouging law. Since AB 1482 was enacted in 2019, several key loopholes (owner move-in, substantial renovation, and intent to remove the unit from the rental market) have been exploited by landlords attempting to evict vulnerable tenants. This law will require owners attempting to evict tenants for owner move-in to move into the unit within 90 days and stay at the unit for a minimum of three years. For owners attempting to evict based on substantial renovation, it will require owners to obtain the necessary permits for the renovations and justify why the improvements cannot be completed with the tenants in place. For evictions based on withdrawal from the rental market, the owner will be required to clearly explain in the notice to the tenant what the alternative use of the property will be and the necessary permits to convert the unit to the intended use. If the landlord does not meet those conditions post eviction, the tenant has the right to rent the unit under the previous terms of the agreement.
(co-sponsored with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, California Coalition for Rural Housing, California Housing Consortium, California Housing Partnership, California Association of Realtors, California YIMBY, Housing California, Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California, and Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing)
SCA 2 will place the repeal of Article 34 of the California Constitution on the ballot. Passed by voters in 1950, Article 34 requires a majority approval by the voters of a city or county for the development, construction, or acquisition of publicly subsidized housing. For decades the requirement has stifled the development of subsidized housing creating and perpetuating racially and economically segregated communities. The passage of SCA 2 would give voters an opportunity to eliminate an obstacle, enshrined in our Constitution, which currently undermines the ability to address California’s acute housing and homelessness challenges.
(co-sponsored with Justice in Aging)
This bill will clean up code for when the Medi-Cal assets test is eliminated on January 1, 2024, following the 2021 budget agreement that also raises the asset limits effective July 1, 2022.
This bill will ensure more fairness in the Medi-Cal appeals process by expanding Independent Medical Reviews to all Medi-Cal members and services, and by standardizing the process state departments must follow when alternating judges’ decisions in fair hearings. Independent Medical Reviews use medical professionals with expertise in the medical service at issue, resulting in more favorable and clinically sound outcomes for patients than plan appeals and state fair hearings.
(co-sponsored with Bet Tzedek, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, Disability Rights California, Justice in Aging, and Senior and Disability Action)
This bill will make the Medi-Cal Share of Cost program more affordable by updating the maintenance need levels to 138% of the federal poverty level. Today, older adults and people with disabilities who are just $1 over the free Medi-Cal limit are forced to pay over $800 of their monthly income on health care and are expected to survive on just $600—the maintenance need level—to pay for rent, food, utilities, and all other expenses.
(co-sponsored with Children Now)
Medi-Cal premium requirements place an undue economic burden on families already living on very limited incomes and create barriers in access to care and unnecessary breaks in coverage for eligible individuals. This bill will ensure pregnant people, children, and people with disabilities can access the health care services they need to stay healthy by eliminating their monthly Medi-Cal premiums.
(co-sponsored with Health Access and California Pan-Ethnic Health Network)
This bill will require the Employment Development Department (EDD) to share with Covered California contact and income information about people who have recently applied for or lost unemployment, state disability insurance, paid family leave, and other EDD programs. This will allow Covered California to reach out and help enroll individuals in Medi-Cal or Covered California.
(co-sponsored with Break The Binary LLC, California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network, California TRANScends, Equality California, Gender Justice LA, National Health Law Program, Orange County TransLatinas, Queer Works, Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance, San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives, The TransPower Project, TransCanWork, Trans Community Project, Transgender Health and Wellness Center, Tranz of Anarchii INC, Unique Woman’s Coalition (UWC), and Unity Hope)
This bill will improve access to gender affirming care for transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex (TGI) people by mandating health plans require TGI cultural competency training for contracted providers, their staff, and the staff of health plans. It would also require plan provider directories to identify providers who offer gender affirming services.
(co-sponsored with Loyola Law School, SJI Anti-Trafficking Policy Initiative)
California has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the nation, yet only two state agencies, the Department of Justice and the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, are responsible for prosecuting human trafficking cases. This bill will provide the Department of Industrial Relations with statutory authority to investigate and prosecute claims of human labor trafficking. This a priority for Western Center because many workers who are victims of labor trafficking are exploited because of poverty.
(co-sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)
The pandemic has impacted the timeliness with which some children can complete high school. This bill will allow children receiving CalWORKs to obtain aid until age 20 if they are attending their last year of high school.
(co-sponsored with Legal Aid at Work, Women’s Foundation of California, and WorkSafe)
This bill will expand good cause exemptions for the CalWORKs welfare to work program to allow parents with children under two years old not to participate in welfare to work for up to 12 months. This bill incorporates many legal protections created by the legislature, like the Crown Act and domestic worker protections, into CalWORKs.
(co-sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations)
This bill will remove barriers for accessing the CalWORKs program – a critical social service that assists families in financial need, by waiving program requirements for survivors of domestic violence. Currently, counties have the authority to waive CalWORKs program requirements for survivors of domestic violence. However, despite their ability to do so, many counties do not. This bill will require counties to waive the requirements.
(co-sponsored with Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organization)
This bill will eliminate the eligibility requirement for CalWORKs families to prove that they have less than $10,211 in their possession, and the 100-hour rule which requires parents to work no more than 100 hours to qualify for the program. Removing these archaic requirements will ensure that all eligible CalWORKs families can access the social service.
(co-sponsored with Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Community Power Collective, Inclusive Action for the City, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, Public Counsel)
Street vendors are a part of California’s culture and have been for decades. In recent years, street vendors became part of the formal economy with the decriminalization of street vending in 2018. However, many street vendors who sell food are unable to obtain health permits from their local county health departments, so this bill will modernize the California Retail Food Code to reduce barriers for street vendors to obtain local health permits. Creating this pathway will allow street vendors to further enter the formal economy and put an end to fines issued to these entrepreneurs with limited incomes.
This bill will reduce the interest rate on unpaid debt from 10 percent annually to 3 percent annually. New York became the first state to reduce the interest rate on debt and California should follow the example.
Grand Juries play a critical role in the lives of Californians involved in the legal system — particularly people of color and those living in poverty who are over-policed. Currently, juries are disproportionately made up of retirees who can afford to take time off to serve. AB 1972 will diversify grand juries in California so they are representative of their populations and will ensure people are fairly compensated when they serve so jury duty is more accessible for Californians with low incomes.
There’s a new way to apply for and keep your public benefits! BenefitsCal helps people with CalFresh, Medi-Cal, County Medical Services Program (CMSP), CalWORKs, General Assistance/Relief (GA/GR), and the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI).
You can use BenefitsCal to:
Read on for important details, tips, and answers to frequently asked questions.
BenefitsCal is starting in phases depending on the county you live in. Here are the important details:
System downtime: Visit this website for the latest status on system downtime.
*Tip: You can still access CalFresh applications at GetCalFresh, Medi-Cal applications at Covered California, and all other services by calling your county (search for phone number under “Apply by Phone” here). For Medi-Cal under new “accelerated enrollment” rules that can get you covered quickly, apply at Covered California.
When you first visit BenefitsCal, click on the “Log In” button at the top right. That will take you to a page that looks like this:
Then click “Create Account.” After you enter your information, BenefitsCal will gather information about your case from the old websites (C4Yourself & Your Benefits Now). Your login information from the old websites will not work in BenefitsCal.
Between October 2022 and October 2023: If you live in one of the 18 counties making changes during this time, you have to wait for your county to start using BenefitsCal in the six waves above. Once your county makes the change, you can create an account in BenefitsCal. Your login information from MyBenefits CalWIN (MBCW) will not work in BenefitsCal.
*Tip: Check out these helpful YouTube videos on how to create an account, apply for benefits, report a change, upload documents, reset your password, and more! Until BenefitsCal creates videos in languages other than English, use YouTube’s subtitles to select another language.
*Tip: These Quick Reference Guides include screenshots and step-by-step instructions (in English only) on how to apply for benefits, request an appointment, upload documents, and more! We await CalSAWS translating these guides into other languages.
Most BenefitsCal questions are not required. They are optional unless they include “(required)” in the question. Click the NEXT button to skip optional questions and continue with your application or request.
BenefitsCal functionality for application assisters and CBOs will be limited at first. Assisters/CBOs can submit applications, upload documents, export & view reports (see more about this below), and check limited application status information (but not whether applications were approved or denied). More features will be added soon, possibly in September 2022. Assister/CBO accounts will allow users to handle applications in all 58 counties by October 2023.
If you do not have an account, you can request a new BenefitsCal login by selecting “Log In” and then “Register Your CBO Account.” Counties will approve CBO registrations. For more information, check out this YouTube video and this reference guide for CBOs.
CBO accounts in BenefitsCal will be set up with a “manager” role. This CBO Manager Account will be able to create assister accounts/logins for other people in their organization. They can also track and manage applications developed by the assister accounts that they create.
There is no limit to the number of CBO Manager Accounts and assister accounts, but CBOs should be strategic in how many accounts they set up. Organizations with multiple locations can choose to have combined or separate accounts. Counties are expected to have their own processes for managing and monitoring CBO Manager Account creation (to prevent duplication).
*Tip: Learn more about the CBO accounts in this Quick Guide.
Applicants should contact their county for help. Find your county’s contact information here and here. You can also report problems directly to BenefitsCal by submitting an online inquiry: visit CalSAWS.org, select the green “Ask CalSAWS” button at the top right, and submit your information.
BenefitsCal and CalSAWS have set up a “Command Center” to support county employees. Counties can contact office-level support staff, Change Network Champions, Technical Points of Contact, and other resources to get answers to functional questions and report challenges.
You can also contact an advocacy organization to help you navigate an issue and get a resolution. Here is a list of organizations and contacts that may be able to help you:
BenefitsCal will get better with time. Some features are still unavailable. Advocates are pressing BenefitsCal to fix them soon. Here are some things to watch out for:
If there are other suggestions you have for improving the BenefitsCal website, you can submit them through the BenefitsCal website at https://benefitscal.com/public/HPAOS.
Consumer advocates have been working for years to make BenefitsCal work. And we still have a lot of work to do! If you want to join our effort, check out this advocate toolkit and recorded training. For more information, please contact David Kane at dkane[at]wclp.org or the CalSAWS Advocate Co-Leads:
Jennifer Tracy: jennifer[at]jenntracy.com
3701 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 208
Los Angeles, CA 90010
213.487.7211
1107 Ninth Street, Suite 700
Sacramento, CA 95814
916.442.0753
449 Fifteenth Street, Suite 301
Oakland, CA 94612
213.487.7211
Fax # 213.487.0242
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