AB 1321: California Coordinated Neighborhood and Community Services Grant Program.

Existing law requires the Department of Community Services and Development to, among other things, plan and evaluate strategies for overcoming poverty in the state, mobilize resources in support of antipoverty and community services programs, and administer public and private funds designed to support antipoverty programs that are not currently administered by other departments.

Existing law establishes the Cradle-to-Career Data System for the purpose of connecting individuals and organizations to trusted information and resources, as a source for actionable data and research on education, economic, and health outcomes for individuals, families, and communities, and to provide for expanded access to tools and services that support the education-to-employment pipeline, as specified.

This bill, the It Takes a Village Act of 2023, subject upon an appropriation in the annual Budget Act or another statute for these purposes, would establish the California Coordinated Neighborhood and Community Services Grant Program to be administered by the State Department of Social Services or another department within the California Health and Human Services Agency. The bill would require the department to grant awards on a competitive basis for the 202526 through 202728 fiscal years to eligible entities that are Promise Neighborhoods, other community-based networks, or multineighborhood regional cradle-to-career networks, as those terms are defined, to either implement a comprehensive, integrated continuum of cradle-to-career solutions at the neighborhood level or support the civic infrastructure and backbone of cradle-to-career networks that support their network partners to accomplish systems change. The bill would define cradle-to-career to mean a system of integrated services that begins before birth and leads to appropriate postsecondary success, including academic, occupational, and independent living, that benefits the individual and community as a whole. The bill would require the department, in consultation with the State Department of Education, to develop an application process and would require the department to establish performance standards to measure progress on indicators and results relevant to the evaluation of the grant program. The bill would require grant recipients to contribute matching funds and prepare and submit an annual report to the department, as specified.