2023 Priority Legislation
NCJW|LA staff is grateful to all 27 advocates who registered and participated in our Virtual 2023 Lobby Day.
We had 11 legislative meetings with the following legislators
- Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-55)
- Assemblymember Rick Zbur (D-51)
- Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-46)
- Senator Caroline Menjivar (D-20)
- Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-44)
- Senator Susan Rubio (D-22)
- Senator Ben Allen (D-24)
- Senator Maria Elena Durazo (D-26)
- Assemblymember Blanca Rubio (D-48)
- Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-28)
- Assemblymember Wendy Carillo (D-52)
- Educating Elected officials on Guaranteed Income State Funding Pilots
As part of the Fiscal Year 2021-22 budget, California’s Governor and the Legislature agreed to allocate over $25 million to fund seven statewide pilot programs. The overseer of these pilots is the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) prioritized funding pilots to serve California residents who are pregnant or aging out of extended foster care. NCJW|LA was one of the seven organizations selected to administer a guaranteed income pilot. NCJWLA’s pilot site will focus on serving pregnant people with diabetes in partnership with Kaiser-Permanente.
- Advocating for the Expansion of Guaranteed Income Funding
NCJW|LA and GRACE/End Child Poverty-California introduced a Budget Letter requesting $1,000,000 for the California Department of Social Services to create an office of Guaranteed Income. - AB 1128 (Santiago) Young Child Tax Credit (YCTC)
Expands California’s Young Child Tax Credit to all CalEITC-eligible households with children – now, the credit is only available to families with children under the age of six. AB 1128 would expand the YCTC to three types of families with low incomes:
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- Children ages 6-18
- Children ages 19-23 who are students
- Children of any age with permanent and total disabilities
Figure 1 Meeting with Asm. Friedman (Top Left Corner) and Chief of Staff Allison Ruff-Schuurman (Middle bottom) Figure 2 Meeting with Sen. Allen (Middle Bottom) and District Representative Jake Ettinger
Additional 2023 Legislation We Support
AB 274 (Bryan D) CalWORKs: CalFresh: eligibility: income exclusions.
This bill would exempt any grant, award, scholarship, loan, or fellowship benefit provided to any assistance unit member for educational purposes from consideration as income to determine CalWORKs eligibility or grant amounts.
AB 310 (Arambula D) CalWORKs.
This bill would make technical, no substantive changes to the provision naming the CalWORKs program.
AB 441(Haney D) Earned Income Tax Credit: young child tax credit: foster youth tax credit: periodic payments.
The bill would require the Franchise Tax Board to allow qualified taxpayers to report changes to their income, household size, filing status, or any other personal information relevant to estimating the amount of any credit allowed to the taxpayer. It would authorize the Franchise Tax Board to modify the estimated value of credits allowed to the taxpayer.
AB 596 (Gomez/Reyes) and the SB 380 (Limon) Child Care
These parallel bills call for a multi-year commitment to adopt an alternative methodology using a cost estimation model and include a timeline for implementation for the actual cost of care based on program enrollment without charging families fees as outlined in the Rate and Quality Workgroup reports.
- Provide a 25% increase to current rates to all subsidized child care and early learning providers for immediate relief;
- Allocate all 20,000 childcare spaces scheduled to be released in 2023-24. Thousands of families need access to child care TODAY, and if the state allocates funds by October of 2023, there should not be a delay in enrolling new families.
AB 653 (Reyes) - Federal Housing Voucher Acceleration Program
The housing voucher program is the federal government’s most effective means to assist very low-income families with renting in the private market. Yet tens of thousands of vouchers go unused every year. This bill would create a program to provide housing search assistance, landlord incentives, and deposit resources with vouchers to find and secure apartments.
SB 567 (Durazo) Homelessness Prevention Act
This bill builds on existing law to better protect California’s low-income renters from unjust evictions and exorbitant rent increases and responds to the present-day reality millions of California renters are facing and provides more excellent housing stability for more renter households by:
- Closing loopholes that allow for rampant no-fault abuse causes eviction.
- Expanding the population of protected tenants.
- Limiting allowable rent increases to a more reasonable cap.
- Providing mechanisms for accountability and enforcement.
SB 36 (Skinner) The Safe Haven for Abortion and Gender-Affirming Care bill
This bill would strengthen California's "Safe Haven" laws by expanding protections for people who have come to California 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 food and housing assistance 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.
