Western Center Round Up - June 2023 – Western Center on Law & Poverty

California Reparations Task Force Releases Historic Report

Despite today’s SCOTUS ruling, we have much to celebrate today. After two years of research and public convenings, the California State Reparations Task Force released their groundbreaking official report to the Legislature today, outlining recommendations for reparations for Black Californians descended from slaves to compensate for harms caused by enslavement and racial discrimination practices. In Western Center’s 2022 Annual Report, Crystal Crawford, Executive Director lifted up the task force’s significance and impact on our work, “Defining and implementing meaningful and achievable reparations for the Black descendants of enslaved people (who remain unable to reap the benefits of the American economy and continue to be shut out from opportunities to thrive), is the next critically important phase in California’s groundbreaking reparations journey. Western Center deals with the fallout of our country’s anti-Blackness and legacy of slavery every day when we work to protect people impacted by poverty. The legacy of American racism has resulted in worse social outcomes by most measures — from COVID-19 death rates, to incarceration rates, to homelessness, to employment and education.”

We applaud the task force for their tireless and first-in-nation work to create this roadmap for change and invite you to read their recommendations. “California can very well be the test case and the blueprint for what can and should be done when it comes to this issue,” says Senator Steven Bradford (Gardena), Reparations Task Force Member.

READ THE REPORT

Celebrating PRIDE by Safeguarding Civil Rights

As we close out Pride Month, we celebrate the beauty and power of our LGBTQIA+ family and the history of radical advocacy. Last year, we were honored to co-sponsor SB 923 (Wiener), a 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 and we celebrated the signing of SB107 (Wiener), a historic bill to protect the civil rights and basic dignity of LGBTQIA+ people, helping trans kids and their parents have a safe place to go if they are threatened with prosecution or criminalization for being who they are and seeking the care they need. This month, and every month, we commit to the fierce advocacy required to protect the rights of our LGBTQIA+ family in the courts and in the Capitol.

Tenants’ Rights Advocates Reach Landmark Settlement On Behalf Of Californians Struggling With Pandemic Rent Debt

Earlier this month, Western Center, along with co-counsel Public Counsel, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, and Covington and Burling LLP announced a landmark settlement in ACCE Action v. California HCD, a case brought by tenants’ rights advocates alleging that the California Department of Housing & Community Development unconstitutionally operated the state’s COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which led to qualified applicants missing out on the assistance they were promised after the pandemic destroyed many Californians’ livelihoods. More than 100,000 households are still waiting for a decision on their applications—and many of them are being served with eviction notices and being harassed by their landlords for rent they still owe. The settlement agreement will offer a renewed chance for applicants who remain in limbo to receive Covid-19 rental assistance, which remains essential to supporting and stabilizing families as the housing and homelessness crisis worsens in California.

“The rental assistance program was intended to provide housing stability for low-income tenant families who were impacted by Covid-19, but delays and dysfunction left far too many eligible families facing eviction because they could not access this critical assistance,” said Madeline Howard, Senior Attorney at Western Center on Law & Poverty. “We are hopeful that this settlement will create an opportunity for these tenants to finally receive the help they need.”

Families, Youth To Receive Cash Reimbursements From Riverside County Following Lawsuit Settlement

National Center for Youth Law and Western Center on Law and Poverty recently settled Freeman v. Riverside, a class action lawsuit that challenged Riverside County’s practices of charging and collecting detention fees from parents and guardians with a child in the juvenile system. The court granted approval of a settlement that establishes a $540,307 fund to reimburse parents and guardians who made a detention fees payment to Riverside County in a juvenile case between December 21, 2016 through April 21, 2020. More information about the settlement and the notice for class members can be found here.

“So many families in Riverside are able to breathe a sigh of relief as these unjust juvenile fees are wiped away and reimbursed,” said Rebecca Miller, Western Center’s Senior Litigator. “But many people in California are still burdened with unaffordable criminal and juvenile debts, even with laws that require the government to consider their ability to pay. Families with low-incomes and families of color face the brunt of this debt, stripping wealth from their communities and denying them a chance to thrive economically.”

NEW BLOG: How I Went from a Street Vendor to Organizing Street Vendors

For decades, street vendors provided food for their communities and law enforcement and health departments across the city of Los Angeles criminalized them for doing so. These vendors were disproportionately Black and Brown, often immigrants who provided food in low-income communities of color disproportionately harmed by food insecurity and food deserts. All of them operated in the informal economy, in a segregated system – upheld by outdated municipal codes and state retail food laws – that favored enforcement against and criminalization of street vendors.With SB 946, the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, and SB 972, the California Retail Food Code Act, street vending has been decriminalized, and food codes have been modernized to include and welcome sidewalk food vendors into our economy. This complete one-eighty occurred because of community organizing done well. And yet, enforcement of these wins has been a challenge. Western Center recently joined as counsel in a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles, challenging their unlawful and discriminatory “no vending zones.”

Western Center Round Up – June 2023

California Reparations Task Force Releases Historic Report

Celebrating PRIDE by Safeguarding Civil Rights

Tenants’ Rights Advocates Reach Landmark Settlement On Behalf Of Californians Struggling With Pandemic Rent Debt

Families, Youth To Receive Cash Reimbursements From Riverside County Following Lawsuit Settlement

NEW BLOG: How I Went from a Street Vendor to Organizing Street Vendors

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