BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1111
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ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 1111 (Fletcher and Mitchell)
As Amended May 3, 2011
Majority vote
JUDICIARY 8-0 APPROPRIATIONS 16-0
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|Ayes:|Feuer, Wagner, Atkins, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Harkey, |
| |Dickinson, Huber, | |Blumenfield, Bradford, |
| |Huffman, Monning, | |Charles Calderon, Campos, |
| |Wieckowski | |Davis, Gatto, Hall, Hill, |
| | | |Lara, Mitchell, Nielsen, |
| | | |Norby, Solorio, Wagner |
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SUMMARY : Prohibits courts from garnishing the wages or levying a
bank account of a homeless youth under age 25 for outstanding unpaid
citations related to truancy, loitering, curfew violations, or
illegal lodging until the youth is at least 25 years old.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes legislative findings about the prevalence of homeless youth
and the reasons they become homeless; the garnishment of their
wages and savings for offenses inevitably associated with being
homeless; and, the negative effect these debt collection practices
have on the ability of homeless youth to escape the cycle of
homelessness.
2)Provides that, notwithstanding any other provision of law, if a
court, during the course of its routine efforts to collect
delinquent court-ordered debt, obtains information indicating that
a person under 25 years of age, who has been issued a citation for
truancy, loitering, curfew violations, or illegal lodging that is
outstanding or unpaid, is homeless or has no permanent address,
the court shall not garnish the wages or levy against bank
accounts of that person until that person is 25 years of age or
older, as that age is recorded by that person's credit report or
other document already in the possession of the court.
3)Provides, for the purposes of this act, that a person is
considered to be "homeless" or as having "no permanent address" if
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that person does not have a fixed, regular, adequate nighttime
residence, or has a primary nighttime residence that is one of the
following:
a) A supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed
to provide temporary living accommodations, including, but not
limited to, welfare hotels, congregate shelters and
transitional housing for the mentally ill;
b) An institution that provides a temporary residence for
individuals intended to be institutionalized; or,
c) A public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily
used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.
4)Provides that nothing in this act shall be construed to:
a) Prevent a court from engaging in any other lawful debt
collection activities;
b) Require a court to perform any further investigation or
financial screening into any matter beyond the scope of its
regular duties;
c) Prevent the Judicial Council from altering any best
practices or recommendations for collection programs pursuant
to Penal Code Section 1463.010; and,
d) Prevent a court from garnishing a person's wages or levying
against a person's bank accounts if the court subsequently
obtains evidence that the person is no longer homeless.
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FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee,
minor absorbable costs for the courts to implement the bill's
requirements within the existing scope of its current debt
collection efforts, as required in the bill.
COMMENTS : According to the author, homeless youth are often caught
in a catch-22 situation where their homelessness inevitably results
in citations for offenses like truancy or illegal lodging, but wage
garnishment to collect any unpaid fines makes it much harder for
these youth to escape the cycle of homelessness, virtually ensuring
that further citations for the same type of offenses will continue
to occur. The author also contends that most homeless youth in
California are involuntarily homeless, usually as a result of
running away from home to escape an abusive home life; being
forcibly evicted from home by their parents; or as a result of
exiting the foster care system and "left to fend for themselves " on
or around their 18th birthday.
To address this problem cycle, this bill seeks to prohibit courts
from wage garnishment of a homeless youth under age 25 for
outstanding unpaid citations related to truancy, loitering, curfew
violations, or illegal lodging until the youth is at least 25 years
old, in situations where, in the course of its routine efforts to
collect fines, the court obtains information indicating the youth is
homeless. The author states that this bill "narrowly and simply
presses a temporary pause button on the ability of the courts to
garnish wages and bank accounts of homeless youth until their 25th
birthday to give them the space to be able to pull themselves up by
their bootstraps through legitimate, tax-paying employment."
In 2007, the non-partisan California Research Bureau (CRB) conducted
a survey reporting the results of 208 open-ended interviews with
homeless youth between ages 13 to 25, living in 23 cities across the
state. Some of the survey questions focused on the issue of youth
being ticketed for so-called "quality of life" offenses associated
with subsistence and survival aspects of homeless life, such as
sleeping outside, trespassing, camping, and loitering. CRB found
that almost 60% of the 59 youths who answered interview questions on
this subject had received tickets for these types of offenses. CRB
reported that the great majority of these youth said they did not
and could not pay these tickets, and that their failure to pay led
to problems including "having their wages garnished and having
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warrants issued for their arrest, complicating subsequent cases
involving the custody of their children and going to jail." (Voices
From The Street. Bernstein, N., Foster, L. California Research
Bureau, (2008), p. 57. Accessed at
http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/08/08-004.pdf)
This bill seeks to prohibit courts from wage garnishment of a
homeless youth under age 25 for outstanding unpaid citations related
to truancy, loitering, curfew violations, or illegal lodging until
the youth is at least 25 years old, in situations where, in the
course of its routine efforts to collect fines, the court obtains
information indicating the youth is homeless. In other words, the
bill goes no further than temporarily suspending the authority of
the court to garnish the wages or bank account of a homeless youth
until the youth turns 25 years old. Supporters note that the bill
does nothing to exculpate the youth of the offense, relieve the
youth of the legal obligation to pay any associated fine, or
prohibit any ticket from being issued. As such, it does not appear
this bill dismisses accountability for so-called "quality of life"
offenses committed by homeless youth as much as it represents an
effort to give them a better chance of escaping homelessness before
wage garnishment can be resumed after the youth turns 25.
Under this bill, if a homeless youth who was exempt from wage
garnishment or levy under this section finds stable housing and is
no longer homeless, then nothing in the bill prevents the court from
garnishing the youth's wages if the court subsequently obtains
evidence (during its routine collection process) that the youth is
no longer homeless. In other words, the bill temporarily prohibits
wage garnishment of a homeless youth only so long as the youth
remains homeless or reaches the age of 25, whichever occurs first.
Current law describes the types of actions that courts already take
to enhance the collection of delinquent court-ordered debt where the
court runs a comprehensive collections program. In these debt
collection cases, the court will typically attempt to mail an
account statement and/or a warning notice to the debtor's address,
if known, and also contact the debtor by telephone. Among other
things, the court may request a credit report of the debtor or
initiate the use of wage or bank account garnishments. Under this
bill, however, if the court in the process of its ordinary
collection efforts obtains information indicating the person is: 1)
under age 25; 2) has unpaid citations for offenses associated with
homelessness, like truancy, loitering, curfew violations, or illegal
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lodging; and, 3) is homeless or has no valid permanent address, only
then would the court be prohibited from garnishing the wages of the
debtor because such indicators, in all likelihood, demonstrate that
the debtor is a homeless youth covered under the bill. According to
the Children's Advocacy Institute, based on Penal Code Section
1463.007 and a 2010 Judicial Council report regarding statewide
collection of court-ordered debt, "it appears safe to assume that
every court collector will already, as a part of its current
collection efforts, obtain information as to whether a debtor has a
valid address or likely falls within one of the categories" under
the definition of "homeless."
In addition, the bill specifically provides that nothing in its
provisions shall be construed to require a court to perform any
further investigation or financial screening into any matter beyond
the scope of its regular duties, nor prevent a court from engaging
in any other lawful debt collection activities.
Finally, supporters also contend that the bill may actually help
conserve judicial resources by reducing debt collection efforts that
are empirically cost-ineffective because of the difficulty and
expense involved in garnishing the wages of youth who are homeless
and lack any permanent address. In a recent study commissioned by
the Judicial Council, researchers from Gartner, Inc. examined the
relationship between the "inherent collectability of debt" and
factors such as the size of the debt, age at referral, and validity
of address information. They found, generally, that the rate of
study cases where collection efforts resulted in the debt being
paid-in-full was 13 percentage points below the average, and 19
percentage points lower than cases where there was a valid initial
address. (Judicial Council, Report to Legislature on Statewide
Collection of Court-Ordered Debt (January 2010) p.10.) As a result,
proponents contend that this bill would reduce court debt collection
efforts in a particular area (garnishment of homeless youth) that
would likely prove to be cost-ineffective for courts because
homeless youth by definition lack reliable address information.
Analysis Prepared by : Anthony Lew / JUD. / (916) 319-2334
FN:
0000605
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