BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1452
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 1452 (Stone)
As Amended April 2, 2014
Majority vote
HUMAN SERVICES 6-1 APPROPRIATIONS 13-4
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|Ayes:|Stone, Maienschein, |Ayes:|Gatto, Bocanegra, |
| |Ammiano, | |Bradford, |
| |Ian Calderon, Garcia, | |Ian Calderon, Campos, |
| |Hall | |Eggman, Gomez, Holden, |
| | | |Linder, Pan, Quirk, |
| | | |Ridley-Thomas, Weber |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Grove |Nays:|Bigelow, Donnelly, Jones, |
| | | |Wagner |
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SUMMARY : Provides additional temporary assistance to homeless
families receiving CalWORKs benefits. Specifically, this bill
increases the daily temporary shelter assistance amount from $65
to $75 and attaches an annual cost of living adjustment to that
amount to address future increases in temporary housing costs.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes under federal law the Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families (TANF) program to provide aid and
welfare-to-work services to eligible families and, in
California, provides that TANF funds for welfare-to-work
services are administered through the California Work
Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program.
(42 United State Code (U.S.C.) Section 601 et seq., Welfare
and Institutions Code (WIC) Section 11200 et seq.)
2)Establishes income, asset and real property limits used to
determine eligibility for the program, including net income
below the Maximum Aid Payment (MAP), based on family size and
county of residence, which is approximately 40% of the Federal
Poverty Level. (WIC Sections 11450 and 11150 et seq.)
3)Provides a $65 per day temporary shelter assistance benefit to
homeless CalWORKs families of up to four people for one period
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of 16 consecutive days, except as specified, and counts a
break in the consecutive use of this assistance as permanent
exhaustion of the benefit. (WIC Section 11450(f))
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, this bill will have ongoing total costs of
approximately $3 million (TANF/(General Fund) GF).
COMMENTS : The current CalWORKs temporary homeless assistance
benefit amount of $65 was set in 2006 and has not been adjusted
for inflation since then. According to the 2009 Hotel Price
Index, the average cost per night in a California hotel at that
time was $118, approaching twice the amount of the temporary
shelter assistance benefit. This bill seeks to modestly
increase the temporary shelter assistance amount in order to
assist homeless families in making temporary housing
arrangements while they look for more permanent housing.
Background: The CalWORKs program provides monthly income
assistance and employment-related services aimed at moving
children out of poverty and helping families meet basic needs.
Federal funding for CalWORKs comes from the TANF block grant.
The average monthly cash grant for a family of three on CalWORKs
(one parent and two children) is $463. According to recent data
from the California Department of Social Services, 554,292
families rely on CalWORKs, including over one million children.
Nearly 80% of the children are under age twelve.
Average grants of $463 per month for a family of three means
$15.43 per day, per family, or $5.14 per family member, per day
to meet basic needs, including rent, clothing, utility bills,
food, and anything else a family needs to ensure children can be
cared for at home and safely remain with their families. This
grant amount puts the annual household income at $5,556 per
year. Federal Poverty Guidelines show that 100% of poverty for
a family of three is over three and a half times that at $19,790
per year.
Homelessness in California: Point in time data from the 2012
Annual Homeless Assessment Report produced by the US Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reveals that on a single
night in 2012 there were 633,782 homeless people in the United
States, 239,403 of which were people who were part of homeless
families. That same report reveals that 20.7%, or 131,193 of
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those homeless people were counted in California. It is
important to note that this number is for a single night and is
neither exhaustive of the number of Californians experiencing
homelessness on a daily basis nor the number of Californians who
experience homelessness each year.
Homelessness has particularly damaging effects on children.
According to the National Center on Family Homelessness,
approximately 1.6 million children will experience homelessness
over the course of a year, and more than 200,000 children have
no place to live on any given day. The effects of homelessness
on children stem from hunger and related physical, cognitive and
developmental issues to lowered academic achievement and
increases in stress, depression, emotional instability and
overall poor mental health.
CalWORKs homeless assistance: For purposes of identifying
families eligible for CalWORKs homeless assistance, a family is
considered homeless if the family lacks a fixed and regular
nighttime residence, if the family's primary nighttime residence
is a shelter, or if the family is residing in a public or
private place that is not an appropriate sleeping place for
human beings. Additionally, a family can be considered homeless
for CalWORKs purposes if the family has received an eviction
notice and the cause of eviction is the result of a verified
financial hardship.
Temporary shelter assistance and permanent housing assistance
are two types of housing assistance provided to homeless
families under the CalWORKs program. Whereas permanent housing
assistance can be provided to help secure or maintain permanent
housing and help prevent eviction for a family, temporary
shelter assistance is provided to homeless families for up to 16
consecutive days. Temporary shelter assistance for a family of
up to four people is $65 per day, and $15 is provided for each
additional family member. The maximum amount of temporary
shelter assistance any family can receive is $125 per day, and
the assistance can only be used to pay for housing provided in a
commercial establishment, a shelter, or an established rental
property. Additionally, CalWORKs recipients must provide proof
to the county that they are searching for permanent housing
while they are receiving this benefit and proof that the shelter
assistance was used to pay for allowable housing. Any break in
the use of the assistance, including one night spent with a
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friend or relative, automatically terminates a family's ability
to receive shelter assistance for any days remaining within the
16 consecutive day limit.
The 16 consecutive day limit is a lifetime limit for temporary
shelter assistance, provided that a family doesn't meet criteria
for an exception. A family may receive temporary shelter
assistance more than once in a lifetime if the family's
homelessness is the direct result of domestic violence, a
medically verified physical or mental illness - excluding
diagnoses that include substance abuse - or a fire or other
natural catastrophe beyond the family's control. Still, a
family cannot receive the 16 consecutive days of homeless
assistance more than once in a 12-month period, and families can
only receive shelter assistance for domestic violence twice in a
lifetime.
Temporary shelter assistance requests: In March 2014, counties
throughout California received 3,351 requests for CalWORKs
shelter assistance, 2,858 of which were for temporary shelter
assistance. Of those temporary shelter requests, 275
accompanied requests for permanent housing assistance and 636
were requests from new shelter assistance applicants. Among
those, 165 were submitted in Sacramento County, 60 in Kern
County, and 89 in San Diego County. Eighteen counties received
fewer than five requests for temporary shelter assistance, and
four counties received over 100 requests throughout the month.
Need for the bill: According to the author, "Long-term and
temporary homelessness have detrimental effects on the physical
and mental health and well-being of children and families?Less
than one quarter of homeless students in elementary school are
proficient in math and reading. Families who have experienced
homelessness have higher rates of family separation in which
children live apart from a parent or guardian. According to the
National Center on Family Homelessness, homeless children are at
high risk for being placed in foster care, with 12% of homeless
children having been placed in foster care compared to just 1%
of other children. Providing eligible CalWORKs families with
temporary homeless assistance to prevent them from sleeping on
the streets or in unsafe environments helps protect children and
their families from the negative effects of homelessness.
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Assisting families experiencing homelessness helps prevent
higher state costs on health care, education and foster care
caused by the trauma of homelessness on families."
Analysis Prepared by : Myesha Jackson / HUM. S. / (916)
319-2089
FN: 0003791