Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Human Services

Good afternoon and welcome. This is the Assembly Budget Sub Two Committee hearing on human services issues. Today we will be discussing issues and programs related to the Department of Social Services, including anti-poverty, anti-hunger, and immigration services programs.

Before we invite our first panel to begin, I would like to make a few introductory comments and then I will open it up to my colleagues if they would like to do the same. First, it's my honor to be before you again as the Chair of the Assembly Subcommittee on Human Services.

Serving as Chair of this committee has truly been a privilege. This committee lives up to its name, for it is here that we consider how we serve one another, how we uplift our fellow human beings, and how we care for the most vulnerable among us.

As I've said before, it is not okay for the people of California to just be in survival mode. California must provide opportunities for all Californians to be able to thrive, including not living in poverty, assessing--accessing quality affordable housing, accessing childcare, and having access to healthy food.

It is often said that a budget is a reflection of our values, and nothing could be truer. The conversations that shape those values begin right here within these walls at this historic moment in time. Let me be clear. Everyone is welcome here. This is the people's hearing. This is where people who often are overlooked, who are often not heard, who are often not prioritized, is guaranteed a voice in this committee.

How can we claim to be a committee dedicated to human services if we do not recognize the humanity, the struggles, and the needs of those who come before us seeking care and support, particularly our children, the elderly, and our most marginalized and often forgotten populations?

So I want to just acknowledge the historic moment we find ourselves in from the unprecedented fires impacting our brothers and sisters in Los Angeles. We want to make sure that you know that we see you and that we stand with you. To those who return year after year advocating for critical funding to support those in need, we see you and we stand with you as well.

And in this time of federal uncertainty, those who are seeing their benefits cut or living in fear, whether for themselves or their family members due to their status, we see you and we value you. Quite simply, the California we know today would not exist without all of us living and contributing together because we are California and we lead with our values in good times and in challenging times. So before we begin, I want to make an announcement about public comment as well.

I understand it that we do have some families who have flown up here, some with children, and I know--well, I don't know, I don't have children--but I hear it's difficult. I did not make that mistake. So we are going to give you an opportunity after the first panel to do public comment, okay, so that you can make sure that you make your flights and all of that good stuff as well.

So after our first panel, we will have public comment. We recognize many people who are here today are here to make your public comment, so many of you can't stay until all of the panels conclude. So what we were going to do is make sure that all of you know when that time is. At this time, I wanted to open it up and invite my colleagues who may want to make any opening remarks as well. Any colleagues who would like to make any remarks? Dr. Sharp-Collins.

Hi. Good afternoon. So before we dive into the specifics today, I would be remiss if we didn't talk about the federal action today and the action that was taken yesterday to highlight the importance of our work in this subcommittee. Last night, the House Republican budget was passed.

The budget calls for deep cuts to health coverage, food assistance, and college affordability. Was this done to tighten our belts or--well, to tighten our belts to better, to better weather the storm for the, for the economic uncertainty? No.

Was it done to rein back spending or to free up money for investments in some worthy or noble cause? No. The quick math makes clear of the nature of these cuts, and so the value of the proposed cuts to Medicaid health coverage and food assistance under SNAP is 1.1 trillion through 2034, the exact cost of extending tax cuts for households within incomes in the top 100% of Americans. In what world is this moral?

In what world is this ethical or even remotely humane to inflict cuts to programs utilized by our most vulnerable families struggling to pay bills or put food on their table, all in the name of giving an annual average tax cut of $62,000 to people making $743,000 or more a year?

That tax cut of $62,000, by the way, is more than the annual income of most of the 72 million people, which is one in five Americans who receive health coverage through Medicaid. So let me say that again to you all. The tax cut is basically there in that tax cut that our most vulnerable Californians are asked to pay for is, for most people, more than their income, yet they receive no benefit. That's a huge concern.

I understand that these cuts span the entirety of the federal budget, and our job in this committee is to focus on human services, but I do feel compelled to level, really to level-set the true threat that we are facing from this federal Administration. I do have a number of bills in this area to support working families, whether strengthening CalWORKs or back--or trying to backstop cuts to CalFresh.

I look forward to those discussions in the appropriate Policy Committee, but on the budget side, I do look forward to working with our Chair and the rest of my colleagues to fortify CalWORKs with a single allocation that better positions the program, to take advantage of the pilot program opportunities, and to assist our undocumented brothers and sisters.

Thank you in advance to all of you who are here today to participate and to provide testimony and provide insight to us, for helping us wrap up, you know, to really wrap our hands around such a massive issue that impacts you, it impacts us, it impacts the entire state.

The road ahead will be tough and hard decisions will have to be made, but we cannot let this Administration undo all the work that we have done to support California's families. So I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone today. I'm looking forward, just like I said, to working with my Chair and my colleagues to ensure that we continue to protect California.

Thank you very much, Dr. Sharp-Collins. Seeing anyone else who would like to make any comments, I do want to welcome our new Vice Chair, Assembly Member Tangipa. Welcome to the committee. Looking forward to working with you as well as our new members, Dr. Sharp-Collins and Assembly Member Ahrens as well.

Again, after Issue Number One, we will move to full public comment and we will cover all issues. Each person will have two minutes maximum to speak with an audible sound telling you when your two minutes are up. Once we have heard all public comment, then we will go back to the panels and we will conclude the hearing after those are completed. There will be no votes taken in today's hearing. So I'm going to ask the first panel to come forward to take your seats at the witness table.

And we're going to ask that you please introduce yourself before you speak and we will go in the order listed in the agenda. I want to welcome Director Troia. Congratulations again to your new position, and you may start when you are ready.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. Again, Jennifer Troia, on behalf of the Department of Social Services. We appreciate very much the focus of today's hearing on anti-hunger and anti-poverty programs that we operate, including CalFresh and CalWORKs, in addition to the focus on immigration.

With respect to the first item on the agenda, CalFresh is the state's largest anti-hunger program, providing monthly food and economic benefits to low-income individuals, families, and communities.

Several CalFresh affiliated programs offer additional services and supports to eligible populations, including Disaster CalFresh, CalFresh Outreach, Employment and Training, Healthy Living. CalFresh improves the health and well-being of eligible individuals and families, including older adults, by providing them a way to stretch their existing food budgets and better meet their nutritional needs.

In fact, SNAP is largely regarded as one of the most effective tools to combat poverty and food insecurity, routinely reducing food insecurity by 20 to 30% with particularly significant impacts for Black households. Participation in SNAP among older adults is associated with greater medical adherence, fewer hospital visits, lower health care costs, and greater food security.

In terms of the caseload, CalFresh provides about $1.1B in federally funded food benefits to just over 5.5 million Californians each month. That said, historically, CalFresh has had the potential to reach even more eligible Californians than the program has served. Our recent caseload trends indicate that we are narrowing that participation gap.

This is in part because of historic investments in improving participation. The USDA reported that in 2019, the most recent year for which we have data from the federal government, 70% of eligible Californians received CalFresh.

Because USDA's data lags--data that's available at the state level and has a couple of other aspects that we can supplement--we have created our own Program Reach Index to estimate annual participation at the state and county level, and using that methodology, we estimated 77% participation in 2021.

Between 2017 and 2022, the participation rate in CalFresh increased by roughly 35%. In December of 2024, of the over 5.5 million people that CalFresh served, 1.3 million were older adults, representing 22% of the caseload. CalFresh participation in particular among older adults, has increased by more than 600% since 2014.

This significant increase is largely due to an expansion in 2019 of CalFresh eligibility which allowed recipients of the Supplemental Security Income Program, or SSI, to become CalFresh recipients, and we increased outreach to that population. These efforts to address barriers that older adults face accessing CalFresh include complex administrative processes, new technologies, lower benefit amounts, and stigma, among others which we are working to overcome.

We have, with that state investment and strong partnerships between the department, Legislature, counties, advocates, and community-based organizations, made enormous progress. In terms of that expansion of CalFresh to SSI recipients, I'll just briefly note that, historically, what happened was we had a policy that was called the cash out, which provided a small amount of funding to SSI recipients in lieu of the receipt of CalFresh, and that change to allow them to instead apply for CalFresh, brought in over one million older adults and people with disabilities who became eligible to apply for CalFresh.

We have taken a number of other steps to support older adults in getting and keeping benefits, and I will turn it over to Deputy Director Fernández Garcia to say a little bit more about a few of those efforts.

Good afternoon. So I'll talk a little bit about the department's recent efforts to support this population. We have implemented two federal demonstration projects to remove barriers, reduce administrative burden, and increase benefit amounts for older adults.

The first is the Elderly Simplified Application Project, which seeks to increase participation among older adults and in California is also approved for people with disabilities. The ESAP, as we call it, is limited to households in which all members are older adults or people with disabilities and have no earned income. The project does a couple of things.

It eliminates the recertification interview requirement, it eliminates the periodic reporting requirement, which is your interim report that you typically submit between your application and your recertification, and importantly, it extends a certification period for 36 months. Taken together, these are significant, ensuring benefit retention as well as reducing the number of steps to maintain benefits.

A simplified paper application for ESAP was also made available in October of 2023. Currently, the project is approved under the Federal Demonstration Project until September 2026, and we plan to submit a renewal. In federal fiscal year 25, there were over 1.1 million ESAP participants. My grandma is one of them. It works.

In conjunction with the ESAP, the department implemented the standard medical deduction to simplify the process of claiming a medical deduction for households that include at least one older adult or a person with a disability to maximize benefits. Making sure that households claim all the deductions that they're eligible for is key to increasing benefit amounts. We also have the CalFresh Restaurant Meals Program.

That's a statewide program that provides households, including older adults, people with disabilities, those experiencing homelessness, and it gives them the option to use their CalFresh benefits to purchase hot or prepared meals. That program was established as a statewide program in September of 21, and we can report that today there are over 5,600 restaurants in 50 counties across the state.

Additionally, California will be the first state in the nation to provide food benefits to all Californians who are income-eligible and age 55 or older, regardless of immigration status through the expansion of the CalFresh Food--excuse me--the California Food Assistance Program. The state-funded expansion is on track to implement October 1, 2027.

In terms of progress toward implementation, general policy guidance was released in 2023, and we are on track to publish all remaining policy guidance by the end of 2025 to meet the automation timeline. Due to the extension of the implementation date, those automation efforts are currently paused but will resume again in January 2026 to hit that October 1, 2027 date.

We continue to host all stakeholder meetings, we have advisory group meetings that are still happening, we're providing written implementation updates, and we are soon to release a request for application for an outreach contract for that population. To get the word out about CalFresh, amongst this group we have the CalFresh Outreach Program that maintains a network of partners statewide who conduct outreach and provide education and application assistance.

As an example, the department is currently partnered with the California Department of Aging to conduct targeted outreach focused on mitigating food insecurity amongst older adults, family caregivers, residents of long-term care facilities, and so on. And finally, to answer the committee's question about the combined application projects, the USDA is no longer accepting requests for new caps.

These are projects intended to streamline the application process for social--SSI recipients through a partnership with the Social Security Administration. The USDA is instead encouraging states to take up other options like the ESAP, which I just spoke about. The USDA also recently updated its national MOU with the Social Security Administration, allowing innovations like telephonic signature pilots nationwide.

These efforts are based directly on a first-of-its-kind joint application process that we established here in California at the launch of the expansion to SSI recipients to process applications jointly for CalFresh online. Prior to that, they were all completed via mail and fax, so we are the first in the country to have that in place. And with that I'll close my remarks.

Thank you very much. Next, Ms. Fan?

Thank you, Chair and members. My name is Becky Silva. I'm the Director of Government Relations at the California Association of Food Banks. We represent 41 food banks that partner with 6,000 agencies across the state and our mission is to end hunger in California.

According to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, nearly 40% of low-income Californians over the age of 60 are food insecure. They are grappling with the challenges of staying housed while trying to cover the costs of food, medicine, and other essential needs.

This situation is compounded by the fact that these struggles often overlap, forcing many seniors to make impossible choices between basic needs. One of the most vulnerable populations in this crisis is the one million Supplemental Security Income recipients in California because of individual grant levels that fall far below even the federal poverty line.

The expansion of CalFresh benefits to Supplemental Security Income recipients, as you just heard about in 2019, marked the most significant increase in CalFresh program eligibility in decades.

Thanks to dedicated advocacy from the Californians for SSI Coalition and leadership from the Legislature and the Governor, as well as really thoughtful planning and implementation by CDSS, which included really robust community engagement, we reversed a decades-old policy that excluded low-income older adults and people with disabilities from enrolling in CalFresh benefits.

We are really glad to report that enrollment in CalFresh among SSI recipients has been steadily increasing. Today, more than 725,000 SSI recipients, or about 64% of SSI recipients in California, can now purchase food with CalFresh, and on average, program participants receive a little over $150 per person per month for food.

This uptick in participation and benefit levels not only supports SSI recipients, but also farmers, retailers, local economies where these benefits are being spent. Our hope is that California can become one of the top ten states with at least an 80% CalFresh enrollment rate among SSI recipients, and in order to achieve that, we see specific and targeted outreach and in-reach strategies as a key way to get there. The largest group with a major gap in enrollment rates is Spanish speakers, followed by people with disabilities 18 to 59 years old.

Another important way to increase CalFresh enrollment and food security among older adults is to improve benefit adequacy. Right now, the minimum benefit is just $23 per person per month, barely enough to buy a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, and a gallon of milk, let alone cover the entire month's worth of benefits.

We are very grateful that the 23-24 state budget included $15M for a pilot to increase the minimum benefit for two-person households of older adults and people with disabilities, and thanks to very, very quick work by CDSS, next year, eligible households will start receiving $60 for food at a minimum instead of just $23.

So we encourage you to build on this momentum from pilot to a full statewide increase of the minimum CalFresh benefit. We already know that increased benefits will mean better food security and nourishment for people experiencing hunger. So let's not stop at $60 per month. Let's move it to $100 per month or even higher like we're seeing some other states doing already. So with that, I will stop there and thank you very much for the opportunity to share comments.

Thank you very much. I believe next on the panel is Ms. Fan. I think we need to do some seat swapping here.

Hi, good afternoon. Trinh Phan with Justice in Aging. 15% of California seniors today live in poverty, and hunger remains high among older adults.

Put the mic a little closer.

Oh, sorry. Food banks continue to face near record demand, and most are still serving one and a half times more community members than they were before the pandemic, including many low income older adults and individuals with disabilities. California's population is aging with about, with older adults projected to be about 28% of the total population by 2040.

That aging population is also becoming more ethnically and racially diverse. By 2040, white, non-Hispanic older adults will no longer represent the majority of older adults in the state. Hunger and poverty are toxic stresses, and even more so for the seniors who disproportionately experience that stress. This includes people with low income...

Ms. Phan, I know you're not a politician, so we know how to get in this mic, girl. But we need you to make sure you're getting a little closer there. Speak up just a little bit, just so that we can make sure everyone can hear you.

I'll get really, really close. So hunger and poverty are toxic stresses, and even more so for the seniors who disproportionately experience that stress. This includes people with low income, people of color, individuals with disabilities, women, immigrants, formerly incarcerated individuals, and LGBTQ individuals who often experience multiple layers of discrimination across their lifespan.

Understanding where people have not been treated equally up to now helps us to reduce the harms of that inequitable treatment and to change the trajectory going forward. In this light, we appreciate the recent progress the state has made to increase food access for older adults and particularly CalFresh access.

The expansion of CalFresh SSI recipients brought low income older adults and people with disabilities who had been excluded from CalFresh into the program finally. Today, 64%, as you heard, of California's SSI older adults and individuals with disabilities are enrolled in CalFresh. The national average is 68%, so we're still a little behind.

If we can get to the national average and from there into being a top 10 state, then more older adults here will be able to afford the food they need. We should continue to expand and streamline access to CalFresh. This will reduce hunger and help with the affordability crisis that many older adults and people with disabilities are facing and at the same time increase economic activity in local communities, which is where low income older adults spend their money.

These efforts include working toward something like a combined application project or something like that to try to help automate enrollment where we can, implementing the Minimum Benefit Pilot, and honoring the commitment to expand eligibility for the California Food Assistance Program to income eligible older adults regardless of immigration status starting in 2027 and then to all ages.

These efforts would help streamline outreach and enrollment, help reduce stigma, and help to combat misinformation and fear. Another recent effort is the passage of SB 1254, which will increase access to CalFresh for people leaving California's jails and prisons.

Our prison population is also aging and transition services need to adapt and be tailored to who is actually transitioning to the community. SB 1254 represents progress with a waiver that allows for CalFresh pre-enrollment in all California jails and prisons and a process that gets everyone involved at the same table and talking with each other.

Hopefully this will also help bring together the connected work happening in CalAIM and the Master Plan for Aging. These changes will help the state get to a transition process that makes sense and that gives older adults the resources they need to buy food and to survive and thrive starting on day one.

All of these efforts are consistent with and uplifted by the Master Plan for Aging. Continuing the mutual support between the Master Plan and advocacy by food and income security partners will provide a broader perspective, and that will lead to more thoughtful actions targeted to help those in greatest need.

We ask the Legislature to continue to make the safety net that helps to nourish older Californians more responsive and more resilient. This can help ease the burden of aging in California and help low income older adults and the communities they live in to thrive. Thank you.

Am I next? Hi, Chair and Members and staff. My name is Keely O'Brien. I'm with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak today, and thank you also to the California Association of Food Banks and Justice and Aging and the department for all of your amazing work.

I'm very grateful to be in a space today that is prioritizing food access for seniors. As Assembly Member Sharp-Collins mentioned, it's pretty scary seeing what's happening at the federal government. While California has taken some really exciting steps forward to support reducing food insecurity among seniors recently, as has been mentioned, unfortunately, senior hunger is still a very real problem in California and it could get worse very quickly if proposed federal budget cuts are successfully enacted.

The federal budget resolution that Congress approved last night will devastate the social safety net that we all rely on if it becomes law. If that happens, it will significantly impact our ability to meet the needs of our seniors. We need to prepare to insulate elderly Californians from this potential crisis by strengthening anti-hunger and legal aid programs, shoring up our emergency food system, protecting food choice in the CalFresh program, and providing a cost of living adjustment and a grant increase for SSI and SSP recipients, as Chair Jackson has been championing.

As our population gets older, we need to better understand what poverty actually looks like for elderly people. Some groups of elderly people, as Trinh mentioned, have particularly bad outcomes. Older people and people who are in minority communities are especially likely to be impacted. Older women are twice as likely to be in poverty as older men.

So I'm going to do a really quick myth buster to address two common misconceptions about poverty among seniors and then I'll briefly talk about health complications and the impact of stigma. First myth seniors can't be poor because they get Social Security and Medicare.

The reality is many seniors are poor but do not qualify for these programs, especially our immigrant community members. And many seniors who do qualify for and receive these benefits are still poor even with those supports and are unable to meet their basic needs.

Social Security and Medicare are vital supports but are not sufficient to cover the expenses of retirement or medical expenses. Significant gaps in these systems leave many elderly and disabled people in poverty, especially as expenses continue to grow, including rising rents, medical costs, and food prices.

Current SSI and SSP grants are vital for our seniors, but again, the grant amounts do not get older adults up to the federal poverty line and the state does not currently provide an ongoing cost of living increase. We really need to raise that grant amount at least up to the federal poverty line and we really need to get those COLAs to protect some of our most vulnerable seniors. So we really, really appreciate the work on that. Myth number two, seniors who are poor must not have worked hard during their working lives.

The reality is, not only did most poor and food insecure seniors work hard throughout their lives, many of them are still working to this day. According to the US Census Bureau, California's workforce has seen a 34% increase in the 65 and older population since 2010. Some people enjoy their work and don't want to retire, but the majority of people who are seniors are working so that they will have enough money to live. They simply cannot afford to retire and they can't afford not to work. So those are my two myths busted.

And then I also wanted to talk about how hunger exacerbates health impacts for seniors, which then further exacerbates hunger. So it creates this real downward spiral for people who are impacted. Poor diets caused by food Insecurity result in diminished health and decreased musculoskeletal functionality among elderly people, especially for older women who are more prone to osteoporosis.

Hunger also causes increased risk of heart attack, heart failure, asthma, diabetes, and many other chronic diseases. So not only, it also causes chronic stress and social isolation and raises the risk that elderly people will develop depression and anxiety disorders. That's especially dangerous for older men, who have the highest suicide rate of any age group, men over 85.

Hunger can quite literally be disabling for elderly people, as it can severely limit their ability to complete activities of daily life, including obtaining food. So it can be, when elderly people are physically limited by the health impacts of hunger, they face more barriers to grocery shopping, preparing food, and even asking for help.

Being part of a community while maintaining Independence is really important for seniors. So accessibility efforts like home delivered meal programs and the CalFresh restaurant meals program that was touted earlier are very necessary for keeping our seniors fed. And finally, I want to talk about stigma. Stigma around receiving food benefits impacts the willingness of seniors to seek help.

Accessing public benefits is heavily stigmatized in this country, and that stigmatization is built into our public benefits policies at both the state and federal level. It's a very harmful stigma because it not only keeps people from applying for benefits that they need and deserve, it also significantly impacts the mental health of some recipients.

Studies indicate that some recipients experience worsening mental health following SNAP enrollment even as their physical health improves simply due to the stigma that they face as welfare recipients. This is particularly painful for people experiencing poverty because of how dramatically and cruelly inaccurate the stigma is. Poor people are not lazy.

They're not making a lifestyle choice to be poor. Most poor people are working and have worked hard all their lives. And if they aren't working, it's because they can't. They can't get enough hours, they're disabled, they're caring for children and can't afford childcare.

So, so much political attention and so many resources are directed at surveilling, regulating, stigmatizing, and criminalizing the behavior of the poor. I think as long as there are people literally going hungry in this country, it's the ultra-wealthy we need to be worried about, and it's the ultra-wealthy whose behavior we should be regulating, surveilling, and stigmatizing. Thank you.

Next up.

I think it's me. Good afternoon. Roshena Duree representing the County Welfare Directors Association. Thank you for the participation and the invitation to be here today. We've heard from our previous panelists that the population for seniors is growing, and while we haven't kept pace with that rate for CalFresh enrollment, we have been doing really good job in enrolling our seniors into our programs. Like CDSS have reported, we did see over a 22% increase, seniors representing 22% of the current caseload for CalFresh.

This is up from 8% in 2018, and we do believe that there's factors that did start that trend going upward. Some of those factors are including the CalFresh SSI expansion in June of 2019, the pandemic, and the 2021 federal policy change that did increase benefits. During the pandemic, a single person household received the maximum benefit of $194, further encouraging participation and enrollment for our senior population. Additionally, we have seen some ongoing barriers for our senior populations in enrolling into our programs.

Many seniors qualify for only a small amount of CalFresh due to income like Social Security and SSI, making the program seem less, the trouble that's placed on enrolling in the program seems like it may not be as worthwhile when the benefit amount is so low. During the pandemic, we also saw struggles with the application process. Those are areas that we're currently working to eliminate some of the barriers there. And then just the awareness of our programs and understanding what individuals are actually qualifying for. Additionally, we've heard some concerns about public charge.

These policies continue to discourage participation, particularly among our immigrant communities, and we've seen a lot of challenges in that area and where California and counties have looked at implementing targeted strategies to work through some of those barriers. One of those is leveraging county interactions with our over 14 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Counties are dual enrolling individuals.

We're utilizing every touch point that we have with our Medi-Cal enrollees to also suggest enrolling for CalFresh. We are working through as counties to understand that training our eligibility workers to not only work on one program, but dual training does assist with enrollments across all of our programs, including CalWORKs.

And so while the state did highlight that we're currently not in the combined application project, the CalFresh Elderly Simplified Application Project does streamline applications for those who are over 60 and those that have disabilities. It does take away some of the requirements that other CalFresh households do have to adhere to.

We see that as another way to further get our aging population into the CalFresh program and others. The state's partnership with the Social Security Administration to electronically submit CalFresh applications through through currently BenefitsCal for individuals who are applying for and renewing their Social Security benefits does assist with further helping our aging and disabled populations to enroll. It does eliminate the barrier of going into an office or faxing an application or mailing an application. It directly sends an electronic application over through BenefitsCal to our backend system, CalSAAS.

Some key policy changes, such as the Standard Medical Deduction Demonstration Project and the upcoming Minimum Nutrition Benefit Pilot, are both designed to increase benefit levels and encourage additional enrollment. Public education will be critical to dispelling misinformation and ensuring eligible individuals understand their rights and that they're eligible to these programs.

Moving forward, counties will continue to monitor participation trends, support outreach efforts to help seniors and people with disabilities enroll, partner with CDSS and advocates to address participation barriers, and finally, continue collaborating with our community organizations, specifically the 41 food banks across the state. These partnerships help to broaden our awareness of programs in reaching underserved communities. Thank you for the time.

Ooh, you're good. All right, Department of Finance.

Hello. Emily Marshall, Department of Finance. So to start off this hearing, Finance wants to note some broader comments about where we find ourselves today. Building off the Legislature and administration's work last year, the governor's 2025-26 budget was able to maintain prior funding commitments in the human services area.

We recognize that the governor's January budget is just the start of the process. Since the release of the Governor's Budget, already much has happened, including the devastating fires in Southern California and the rollout of federal policies that create fiscal uncertainty for the state. We appreciate opportunities like this hearing to hear about the Legislature's priorities.

Many items on the agenda reflect the Legislature's interest, and as we look ahead to the May Revision and budget enactment in June, we look forward to continued discussions with the Legislature and our work together to adopt a balanced budget for the state. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Legislative Analyst Office.

Good afternoon. Sonia Schrager Russo with the Legislative Analyst Office. Some general comments from our office on CalFresh and CFAP. As has been mentioned, caseload for these programs has been growing in recent years and continues to increase.

At this time, the administration's estimates on caseload for the budget year do appear reasonable, although we'll continue to evaluate those as additional caseload data becomes available. As has also been mentioned, the budget maintains the planned delay to the CFAP expansion, which, given the focus of this panel on seniors, I would note is specifically for individuals age 55 and older.

If you're not familiar with that upcoming expansion expansion. And as a reminder again, that was agreed upon in the June 2024 budget to delay that expansion. Additionally, another item that has not been raised yet, the administration is currently working on rolling out new updated EBT cards which will have chip and tap to pay technology.

These cards will have upgraded security features through this chip and tap pay to pay technology, according to the administration. And those are largely an effort to combat increasing rates of benefit theft both for CalFresh, CFAP, and other programs as well.

So just wanted to flag that as well, that that is an ongoing effort as we speak. A few recommendations from our office for the Legislature to consider as it thinks about these programs. We do recommend that the Legislature continue monitoring the CFAP expansion process in the coming years.

As has been mentioned by the administration, automation will restart for that very shortly. We also recommend the Legislature consider continuing to monitor the EBT security improvements that I've just mentioned and associated benefit theft rates. We would flag for the subcommittee that the administration is estimating fairly significant cost savings associated with benefit theft rates in the budget year.

And these cost savings, according to the administration, are largely as a result of the rollout of the new cards. And so while the projected savings are certainly possible, they are of course reliant upon the deployment of the cards and getting the cards working in a timely manner.

So so that is something our office will continue to monitor as the cards are distributed and pinned, as they say, amongst the individual recipients. And then finally, as has been mentioned, there are ongoing efforts in the Los Angeles region surrounding Disaster CalFresh and other assistance to local residents there. More data on participation in those programs will likely become available in the coming months. So our office plans to continue to monitor those ongoing efforts, and we'll be sure to flag any concerns or key takeaways for the Legislature there.

Thank you very much. Questions from colleagues at this time? Any? Assembly Member Lee.

Thank you very, thank you much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all presenters. As my colleague from San Diego County already brought up, we are of course facing immense uncertainty right now where the Republicans in Congress are going to slash many of the important integral programs that we're talking about right now.

So as I see in our handouts right now in LAO charts, we depend about $1.2 billion just in CalFresh and CFAP money from the federal government. So if said plan in D.C. were to go into effect, how much money would we possibly lose out from federal share? If LAO or DOF maybe know, or the department.

Aanam Khan, Department of Finance. So thank you for the question. I think as Deputy Director Lee had noted in previous budget overview hearings as well, we currently don't have sufficient resources to backfill lost federal fundings and programs that could be at risk. We're continuing to evaluate which programs may be at risk, and in this case CalFresh, and monitoring the federal developments and keeping note.

Mr. Chair, can I ask if the department can come up? I know we're short on seats, but...

Sure.

I just wanted to note that the most significant portion of federal funding for CalFresh does not actually flow through the state budget because CalFresh benefits are 100% federally funded. So we do receive the benefit of around 1.1 billion monthly in CalFresh benefits, 12 billion annually. But that flows directly from the federal government to beneficiaries of the program. So to the extent that there are reductions in the benefits, the recipients of the program certainly will feel those impacts, as would our economy. But it would not be flowing through the state budget on that part.

So it just wouldn't be on our ledger, but it would hit the pocket... It wouldn't be on our ledger necessarily, but it would be in the felt in the pocketbooks of CalFresh families. And so do you, do you have a sense of how much reduction to our state it would look like? This current Republican proposal?

We have not analyzed the proposal to give you that number at this time.

As it advances, I would love to be able to see what that... I know, I see the larger number, of course of the country, but I don't know how formula wise it breaks down to us. I don't know if LAO has any insight on this? No? Okay. I also wanted to ask some numbers. Oh, if the chair will... I know we have to play...

I'm so sorry to interject. We have been doing some math around what the federal funding cuts would mean for California, and we would estimate about $30 billion over a 10 year window.

$30 billion over a 10 year window. And this may not be, as our Director Troia said, it may not be so seen on the state budget, the accounting side, but really in the actual effect of real recipients. Right?

Yeah, and understanding that it's all very uncertain federally. So the theoretical. But that's the number that we're looking at.

With the money that we do not account for on our own state budget, do we as a state have some say in saying what criteria, what demographics gets, or what eligibility looks like? Not with that federal money?

Eligibility for CalFresh is predominantly set, almost all exclusively set at the federal level and in federal law. So we don't have purview over that. That said, as we mentioned, there are times when we have like demonstration projects that allow us to create access in certain ways. But the overall eligibility criteria like income and things like that are set federally.

Right. Makes sense. And to just build off of that. You know, we have talked about our incredible work and with everyone in this room about getting our eligibility, or sorry, our participation rates higher and higher. The chart that LAO put forth on individuals is about 5.3 million people in California are current currently enrolled in CalFresh and that's 13.7%. So if we were to have total 100% or even the 80% benchmark, but if we had a total 100% participation in all eligibility, how many people would that be? If I can ask LAO, since it's your chart.

So just to clarify on this figure that I think you're referencing, this 13.7% is not of eligible individuals, that is of all individuals in the county, including, or I'm sorry, in the state. When you're looking at this bottom line, all individuals in the state, inclusive of those who are not eligible. We would have to do some math to determine what the actual eligible number is, but the department may have more information on that.

I will say that we actually are on the second panel going to be talking about efforts that we will be engaging in to estimate the take up rate for CalFresh, which means paying attention to that denominator question of how many people are potentially eligible. So happy to talk more about it.

Okay. Yeah, I mean I want to stress that point.

We have the number here now, but it is something we're working on.

Yes, it is definitely something I'm interested in. Definitely to stress that, you know, even at the rate of participation we have now at 5 million people, that is still quite a significant amount of a 40 million people population. And knowing colloquially that we don't have immense, you know, not even close to 100% participation rate yet. There's a lot of people in need right now. And that's why I always highlight, as our Chair says, this is one of the most important integral parts of our budget right now. So that concludes my questions for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much. Any additional questions? Dr. Sharp-Collins.

Thank you all so much for sharing the information. I just one thing that I, that I did want to point out is that when I opened I was talking about some of the bills that I was pushing forward. So do know that one of them is particularly directed towards CalFresh within itself and doing everything we can to make sure that we maintain current funding levels despite federal cuts. But also get DSS to do a feasibility study to see whether or not we can't increase the eligibility for CalFresh.

So that is something that I am pushing forward this year. But I wanted to bring to the LAO one of the comments of things for us to monitor, to watch, and one of those is dealing with the Disaster CalFresh operations that are underway in LA. I want to take the opportunity for us to also discuss some similar programs elsewhere and highlight the needs elsewhere too. I know that, trust me, it was devastating for LA, but I wanted to just highlight the fact that we had a historic flood too in San Diego and people are still recovering and there's other, other parts of California that have fires and et cetera.

So as we are monitoring LA, I want us to monitor the other areas as well, to make sure that they too are receiving the CalFresh operations that are, that are there. And because I know for some people, they are not aware of the additional benefit that they can be currently utilizing. So I just wanted to highlight that. So as you're monitoring, let's continue to monitor everywhere.

If I may, Mr. Chair. We do have information on Disaster CalFresh, but I defer to you whether you prefer to receive that now or under panel eight when we're talking about the disaster benefits.

Let's wait till for the disaster. But we definitely want to share all that information. Information. Yes.

It was, oh. So going to one of the questions because it was hard to hear with the doors opening and so forth. So the other part about the efforts towards the implementation of CalFresh and then Food for all expansions. So what is the administration's feedback to the advocacy efforts to expand to all ages by October 1, 2027? It was hard to hear so I just wanted to know if we can go back to that.

Sure. We are on track for the expansion that has been created in statute, which is for individuals who are age 55 and older. I think what you may be referencing is that advocates have continued to advocate for the expansion to a larger population than that. That is not something that is currently in line.

We don't presently have any proposals for that. But I do understand that that is something the advocates have still continued to express interest in.

Then going back one more time, I'm sorry, when it comes to the application process and in streamlining that, once again, it was hard to hear. Is there a pending waiver request for that with the Federal Government?

So we currently have a demonstration project that's approved. Eligible households are households that only have older adults or people with disabilities and no earned income. And for that population they have to complete an application but they don't have any additional reports until 36 months later, which is compared to a normal 12 or 24 month certification period.

And then at that point there's no interview requirement. So it's significantly streamlined with the intent of helping them stay on benefits.

That waiver authority is currently approved through September of 2026 and we do intend to request a renewal.

Assemblyman Tangipa.

Thank you. Thank you for that report. And also I just want to say I am extremely grateful for this program because I grew up on CalFresh, formerly Food Stamps and EBT and WIC as well. So I'm very familiar with it, especially when I was younger.

But one of the questions that I had, two questions I have is one on eligibility when it comes to CalFresh. What are the requirements? Could you be a 24-year-old healthy individual that doesn't work? Are they eligible for CalFresh?

So we serve people that work, people with children. We serve young adults, older adults. Generally, eligibility is determined based on two income criteria. You have to have gross income before deductions below 200% of the federal poverty level and net income after deductions below 100% of the federal poverty level.

And then there are additional eligibility rules for different populations. So in the scenario of the 24-year-old, if they happen to also be going to college. For example, there are rules for college students. They have to work an average of 20 hours a week or be exempt.

We have special rules for older adults that you just heard a lot about. We have special rules related to people who have dependent care expenses.

So generally the income guideline is going to be the primary factor after those deductions, which at least the college program, I'm actually familiar with that because CalFresh came to give a presentation to. I played football for Fresno State and they actually said that we were eligible for that.

The main reason why they did that was because less than 10 years ago, I was homeless, living in my car, and I used the local benefits and the food bank that was at our school. And so they wanted to bring in CalFresh to talk about some of the programs that were qualified there.

The one worry that I have at least on some of the, whether it's cuts that are going to be either from the Federal Government or, you know, issues that we see here in California is just, you know, maintaining a program that is vital to making sure that people can be caught from the social safety net, but not incentivizing the social safety hammock.

Do we have any of the numbers where people leave CalFresh, like myself, in percentages to where they're actually doing better in life? Do we track any of that?

So we don't have information on hand, but we can definitely connect you with our research team who does look at questions like this. We know in the data that the benefits that CalFresh provide initially aren't just about food. They're about that pathway to economic mobility and that income transfer

Maybe to the State Assembly.

Yes, yes, exactly. So we can certainly follow up. I am reminded, I want to circle back to the question of eligibility, that there are some additional federal rules related to work requirements. And we're currently under a state waiver until 2027. But that is another issue to be tracking at the federal level.

It's not just benefit amounts, it's rules related to eligibility and whether those are implemented here in California.

Is that the one where they have to be actively looking for a job if they don't have any health complications?

Yeah. I'll add two things to that. One is that the waiver is due to the economic conditions in the state, not because of a different policy request on our part. And then the second is that CalFresh does also fund some employment and training related programs. So we within CalFresh do also focus on employment and training.

And that I'm also familiar with as well as some of my younger brothers. The other question was on the enforcement side. Growing up on CalFresh, there were a lot of issues that I had seen.

Sometimes they were always referred to as dealer discounts where somebody was eligible $600, but if somebody has cash, you'd give them $300, they'd give you $600. And a family would typically do that.

What are there, were there implementations that you were talking about earlier when it comes to making sure the security is there so that the people who need the benefit are actually getting that we're not gaming the system?

So, excuse me. Thank you for the question. The improvements that are currently underway in terms of the chip and tap to pay for EBT cards and the benefit theft that I was referencing are primarily related to what the Administration calls skimming or scamming.

Skimming, for example, off of an EBT card is, and I don't want to get too technical, but sort of when someone swipes their card and a bad actor is able to sort of fraudulently take the funds off of that card.

And so then the individual who is eligible in receiving CalFresh as the applicant then goes to check their balance, for example, and may find that they have none left.

That's when there's a card reader on an ATM or on something and they pulled all of this.

Yes. So that is what I was referencing in terms of the benefit theft. That is the primary form that that takes. And the goal behind the chip and tap to pay improvements is to make EBT cards more secure. As most of us in the room know, our standard credit and debit cards have that chip and tap technology now.

EBT cards up until now did not. So that, that's the thinking behind that expansion.

And if I can add to that, what I will say is that we are now the first state in the nation to be rolling out those cards. They began being mailed to recipients on Monday of this week.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We are, we specifically wanted to start off with this particular information item. Number one, I want to continue to highlight the additional need to continue every year to make progress and shifting our systems and focusing on what will soon be our largest population, which is our seniors.

And if we don't begin to act now to begin to make sure that we are specifically hyper focusing on food insecurity issues with our seniors, such as this item, then we will see a crisis happening that we could have prevented. Right. And so I want to thank everyone for participating in this.

We've heard some options of this discussion about what we can do to provide improved access to food benefits for our eligible seniors in CalFresh. It's my goal to take advantage of any and every opportunity we have to expand access to more people with special attention to the demographic of aging Californians living in poverty.

I would like to ask the administration's continued partnership to work with my staff and myself on technical assistance to identify the best way to continue to implement these goals. So I want to thank this panel very much for their participation. Thank you very much. Now we will move on.

We will pause our panels in order to provide opportunities for public comment. Again, public comment is 2 minutes each. So if we ask people to please line up for public comment. And again, these are public comments on anything, on any issue on this agenda.

And we're going to ask, we're going to ask everyone, we're going to ask everyone to please quietly line up so we can begin public comment, please. First up, please. Please state your name and your affiliation.

Yes, Good afternoon. My name is Elia Fernandez and I'm a parent leader with Parent Voices in San Francisco. I'm here today with other parents in support to end sanctions for the CalWORKS families. I mean sorry for the CalWORKS families. Can't survive at this time without CalWORKS.

And again, please implement the recommendations from the January CDSS report as soon as possible. Please end unnecessary sanctions and increase funding for immigrant legal services. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Yeah, Kim Lewis, representing Children Now, I want to speak on a couple issues. Issue five, particularly when I thank the Legislature for protecting CalWORKS last year and being mindful around your cuts to the programs.

And note that we appreciate DSS's implementation of that CalWORKS home visiting cut to be also reflective of your intention to mitigate impact on staffing and participant enrollment. And we know that home visiting has shown that parents enrolled in it actually are more likely to enroll in school and education.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, excuse me. We need everyone to please be quiet so we can hear public comment.

Thank you. And to be employed and those activities lead to greater earnings in their lifetime. Then on issue eight, as you guys are talking about the wildfire recovery, we know that there are.

I just want to shine a light on our particularly vulnerable foster youth and their caregivers and Children Now is requesting that a child welfare disaster fund be created so that we know that our foster youth, particularly our transition age foster youth, don't have a lot of savings.

And so when these disasters strike, we need dollars immediately to be rolling to support them because they have very unique needs and they are the state's children. So looking forward to working with you guys on this. And thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members of the Subcommitee. I'm Suntosh Siram representing Chinese for Affirmative Action, and my comments are on the Immigration Services funding. We are a recipient of One California funding, and we do education and outreach in Mandarin and in Cantonese to our Asian immigrant communities.

Also, we receive funding under the API Asian Pacific Islander Capacity Grant. This grant in One California focuses on underserved populations such as the Asian immigrant community, and underserved areas of our state such as the Central Valley. One of our cohorts in this funding is the Fresno center that provides a great deal of resources to the Hmong population.

We are in support of the Governor's Budget and the proposal that our advocates will talk about for extra funding. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello, my name is Jackie Mendelson. I'm a policy advocate with Nourish California, and we are a co-sponsor of the Food for All campaign, which is the campaign to expand CFAP to everyone, regardless of immigration status, who are as income eligible. Just wanted to share. Thank you for hearing about it today.

And under the current landscape and the work that's already been done towards Food for All, we have more of a responsibility than ever to uphold our state's commitment to immigrant inclusion. You know, we're hearing from communities about increased fear, and we can challenge that by directly honoring our state's commitment to immigrant inclusion.

Currently, 2 in 3 undocumented children don't have enough to eat. And the chilling effect happening at the federal level, you know, has a huge impact on food access in immigrant communities. California can truly lead in ensuring that there is food for all.

And so I urge you to take advantage of the momentum that we've heard about today under the CFAP expansion to protect our investment in the CFAP expansion to ages 55 and older and expand the program to include all ages so that everyone at the table has enough to eat.

We are also Nourish California, a co-sponsor of the CalFresh Fruit and Veggie EBT pilot program, which will be heard later this afternoon. This program is so urgently necessary that it had to be paused twice in one year because the funding couldn't keep up with the need.

So we are asking you to please not let Californians suffer under the success of this program and ask you to take action in funding the full amount of $63 million in the budget request. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Afternoon, Grecia Marquez-Nieblas with Fullwell. Just wanted to express my excitement hearing that the expansion of CalFresh to undocumented seniors over 55 is on track. Very exciting. And I hope that we continue expanding to additional folks regardless of immigration status. We know that's necessary and as my colleague mentioned, especially given the federal landscape, as all of you have also mentioned.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

So thank you.

Good afternoon. Chris Lawson, CJEC, Coalition for a Just and Equitable California. I'm here today to tell you to put a guaranteed income direct unrestricted cash payments program for seniors who are descendants of those who emancipated from chattel slavery in the 2025 budget.

Specifically put language in the 2025 budget that updates the senior guaranteed income program that you approved last year that CDSS is going to start running so that the seniors who are eligible as a part of that program get an extra check or a little bit more in the check that they would have gotten or create a model program, a different program, built on that program that you did last year.

This is long overdue. We heard the folks from CalFresh and from the counties come up and talk about how our seniors are hungry on the streets. Our seniors are dying on the street.

It's not that they're not just hungry, they're the fastest growing people who's unhoused on the streets and the fastest growing people who's dying, who's unhoused on the streets. This is our American freedmen seniors. Put language in a budget that puts a guaranteed income direct cash payments program in the budget for them.

Lastly, I just wanna lift up the name of my grandmother, Virginia Richards. She died. She barely made it to 60 years old. I'm here today so that other people's grandmothers, other people's grandfathers don't die before they get the checks. Cut the check. Black power every second of the hour.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

How do you follow that? My name's Lynette Jackson. I'm a part of the California Justice Coalition team and I am the population and the target audience that we're talking about today. I am it. I'm a grandmother, grandmother of six. And I say this emotionally because I've been there. I've experienced what this young man has had.

I'm sure we know somebody who has. I work with the homeless. I work with the population, the most vulnerable population. And their biggest issue when they come to me is they don't understand the paperwork, they don't understand the bureaucracy. I created a service, a volunteer service where I,

Where I removed the chaos out of the community, out of communication so that they were able to come into my office or come to me or meet me at a local, a public place and we sit in front of the computer and I hand pick and print out every document that supports them so they'll be able to have services that is so needed.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Yes, thank you, Aisha Kareem. And I'm also a part of the organization and I ask for your support for the guaranteed income pilot program for seniors. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Yes. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Darlene Crumminy. I am member of the Coalition for Just and Equitable California as well as the American Rejoice Coalition California Bay Area.

As a Jim Crow survivor, I'm here today to advocate for the implementation of the guaranteed income program of unrestricted cash payments program to be placed in the 2025 budget for seniors 60 years and over who are descendants of persons enslaved and emancipated in the United States, American Freeman.

After the separate but equal laws in 1964, a decade following the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, it's crucial that we recognize that the incidents and badges of slavery that still persist in the United States.

For example, in 1966, my neighborhood school in San Francisco, Douglas Stone, was forcibly closed and I was bused to an all white school where I became invisible, highlighting the systemic injustices that I endured.

Furthermore, I stand here today to shed the light on the financial burdens faced by my family where it takes a combined financial efforts of four family members, myself, my brother, my sister, and niece to provide the necessary inner life care for our 90 year old mother that enables her to stay home.

As seniors ourselves, we experience the strains of diverting funds from our own, mostly fixed, income to support her care, resulting in a devastating reversal of wealth transfer. Within my family unit, we must address these intergenerational transfers of wealth transfers and implement guaranteed income for American Freeman seniors within the 2025 budget. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Good afternoon, My name is Kim Mims. I'm with the Coalition for a Just Inequitable California, American Redress Coalition of California, as well as Amend the Mass Media Group. I'm here today to also advocate for a guaranteed income for black American freedmen descents in the upcoming 2025 budget as a line item, and here's why.

I only had one conversation with my mother about reparations that I can recall. We were watching a Spike Lee movie. At the end, the credits roll up and I say, hmm, 40 acres and a mule. And she said, 40 acres and a mule, huh? You know that's never going to happen. Whoop, whoop, whoop.

And I said, well, what is it? I hadn't been educated on this in the school system, had no clue what it meant, and I think it was just too painful for her to talk about. And I pressed her on why we wouldn't be receiving it, and she said, they're just never going to give it to us.

She didn't say, this is something that's not deserved to the black American community. She said, this is something there they're just never going to give to us. My mother passed away. Vivian Mims. I want to lift her name up. Ashe. In April 28, 2019.

Before I got involved in the reparations movement in 2020, it made me realize that she died knowing that this debt was due, but she had given up any hope that they would give it to us.

The State of California cannot in good conscience let more of our elders and seniors die knowing that this debt of reparations is due and that our lawmakers and legislators and leaders are just not going to give it to us. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello, My name is Dr. Troy Williams. I'm the Chief Impact Officer of the Greater Sacramento Urban League. The Urban League is the nation's second oldest civil rights organization in the United States.

Today I stand here to tell you to put direct unrestricted cash payments programs to the descendants of chattel slavery in the United States in the 2025 budget. Currently, our organization has been working closely with UC Davis and the City of Sacramento to uncover what reparations could look like for those who were displaced.

Even here in Sacramento, right out there in that Capitol Mall, there was a community of black folks who were removed from that community. But I think it's equally important for me to tell you why this is important to me.

Both of my grandmothers, because of racist Jim Crow policies, did not have the opportunity to get jobs with pensions, retirement plans, or 401ks. My paternal grandmother, Ms. Irene Brown, was a sharecropper for most of her life, and so was my father.

My maternal grandmother, Ms. Sally Ruth Cox Tolbert, was a housekeeper and a cook for most of her adult life. Both of my grandmothers left the south to escape Jim Crow. And when they arrived in these new cities, they struggled to find adequate housing and jobs that could provide for their families. A debt is owed. The policy is long overdue.

And as a resident of California and an Executive of a civil rights organization, I am here to advocate for this to be added to the 2025 budget. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello, my name is Jamil Washington and I'm deaf. I'm here representing CJEC, California Justice and Equity Coalition. I'm here because this is a personal note. American Freemasons our seniors survived Jim Crow redlining the generation to stolen wealth. Yet they're struggling on fixed income while homelessness rises at an alarming rate.

In 2023, California Reparations Task Force confirmed what we already knew the state robbed freeman of wages and opportunity. In 2024, a guaranteed income program for seniors was approved. Now it's time to expand it and make sure those most impacted get what's owed. It isn't a handout, it's a debt. Do what's right. Prioritize justice in the 2025 budget.

Thank you.

Thank you. Well done. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, my name is Molly. I am with the Coalition for Just and Equal at Equitable California. I'm here today to tell you to put a guaranteed income and direct unrestricted cash payment program for the seniors who are descendants of persons emancipated from chattel slavery in the United States in the 2025 budget.

The reason why I'm here is A, it's the right thing to do, this money is owed point. Like, there's not really. I don't really need to be here for another reason. But the other reason would be taking care of our elders is our responsibility. By doing so, we can create equitable.

I'm sorry, economic success in younger generations because they're no longer carrying the burden and taking care of their elders. And also if we are taking care of our elders, they can contribute into our economy because they can contribute medically and be able to be out in our world. So it's the right thing to do.

It benefits us in all. It benefits all of us in every single way if we do this. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello, Chairs and Members. My name is Abraham with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. I am here, number one, to support the governor's proposal to maintain the 75 minute allocation for California's immigration legal services.

And two, to respectfully ask the state to increase funding for Immigration Legal Services. As the Trump Administration enacts mass raids and deportations across California. California should be increasing funds for immigration legal services defend children, youth, student workers, and families from deportation and family separation.

State-funded immigration legal services help keep thousands of California families together and safe by helping students, workers, and families across the state and defend their civil rights every year across California. Again, we respectfully request you to increase the funding for immigration legal services that thousands of California families rely on. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Eddie Turner, Amalgamated Transit Union Black Caucus, also the Black and Jewish Coalition. I'm here to ask you to or to tell you to put a guaranteed income direct unrestricted cash payment program for the seniors and descendants of personal persons emasculated paid at 20 from chattel slavery United States.

My mom, when she retired, she could not afford to live on her own. If it wasn't for myself and my siblings, she wouldn't have been able to make it with her retirement check, and paying rent and food costs. She applied for EBT. Excuse me, EBT. And they only gave, offered her $16. $16 for the month.

So this is a necessary function or necessary payment that is needed for our seniors so they can have a quality senior life, you know, life after retirement or just as being an older person. This is something that is definitely needed. That's all. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Hi, my name is Brent Turner. I'm one of the co leaders of the San Francisco Bay Area Black and Jewish Unity Coalition. I'm here today to tell you to put a guaranteed income direct unrestricted cash payments program for seniors who are descendants of chattel slavery in the 2025 budget.

I had a nice little speech, but I'm gonna go ahead and speak from my heart. I've witnessed my grandmother, she wasn't afforded that affirmative action, she didn't benefit from that. So she lived off Social Security which came up about $400 short every month for her rent.

So I saw my parents, uncles, aunts trying to support her and they didn't have enough money to support their kids. We had to find a way ourselves. Also, I heard you all talk about immigrants, marginalized communities. These descendants are forced immigrants here and they are marginalized communities.

I've also seen the state lose a few $1.0 billion in homeless funds and the majority of the homeless people in the Oakland San Francisco Bay Area were black seniors. So if you guys would put some money for these people, I think that would help solve some of those issues and also to get the President from talking crazy about California also at the same time.

Take care of the people. These are people's parents and grandparents. We're one of the largest clergies of activists in the Bay Area, and you guys are supposed to be serving us. We vote for you all. Take care of the people. We're watching and God is watching y'all. Do what's right.

Write it in there. It's not gonna hurt you. It's actually gonna help you and it's gonna help more. A lot of people around here and the money will go back into our communities. Help these people. Don't just turn a blind eye to them. Everybody's watching, y'all. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Hello Chairman Jackson, Members of Subcommitee two. My name is Shane Henson and I'm a public policy advocate and legal aid attorney with Inner City Law Center. ICLC is a nonprofit located in Skid Row, Los Angeles dedicated to providing free legal services to homeless and at-risk homeless folks throughout LA County.

Today I want to highlight the importance of the Bringing Families Home Program or BFH. Yesterday and today, your offices should have received a sign-on letter from Inner City Law center, homeless service providers, and philanthropists throughout LA County opposed to the elimination of this essential program.

Established in 2016, the BFH program aims to assist families who are dealing with two twin crises, the specter of homelessness and the separation of their families. The BFH program provides holistic wraparound services to families interacting with the child welfare system to help them achieve housing stability and reunite with their families.

BFH provides numerous services to participating families including rental assistance, housing, navigation, legal services and more. Since its inception, the BFH Program has achieved measurable impacts in cost savings for its participants. The BFH program assisted over 2,200 children and 1700 families during the first two years of the program alone.

Additionally, the California Policy Lab completed a study of the BFH program which found the following More than half of the families who exited the BFH program exited into permanent housing. Children enrolled in BFH and receiving Family unification services were 68% more likely to reunify their families by the 180 day mark than non-BFH families.

In 2023 and 24, BFH legal services recovered close to $400,000 for families struggling with housing insecurity within LA County alone. Unfortunately, the Governor's Budget eliminates the BFH program. The Assembly Budget Committee has itself already noted these cuts will quote result in the near term elimination of resources for this program.

We ask you to please restore this humane cost saving and vital program for low-income families facing the loss of their home and the separation of their family. Restore funding to the Bringing Families Home program. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

My name is Marvel Wilson. I am an advocate for the Coalition for Attention.

Justin Ecuador, California. I am a member of the community Grassroots, working with nonprofits to help build communities within our neighborhoods, and I stand here urging the consideration, a strong consideration for the direct payments to descendants of chattel slaves that are seniors in this country.

However, I also stand here to report to you that in my experience with grassroots works that I'm finding that there's very little confidence in our, in our communities. I won't even call them communities. I call us our neighborhoods. We don't--we're building communities now.

But there's very little confidence in the people that I talk to regularly because they don't really think that their interests and our interests are really a serious consideration for these panels, as can be told by the fanning out of the panel. We were talking with six or seven, eight people; now it's four that we're talking to.

So it's kind of like endorses the apprehension that people have and not the confidence that we can look forward to you operating in our best interest. And furthermore, we have several instances where there have been apologies.

With the HR 194, 2008, there was an apology for--with the 17 whereases talking about how we were being mistreated and how we should be considered, yet there has been no real effort to counter that with some--balance that out with some sort of effort to compensate. Then we have also the American Psychiatric Association who has apologized for what they call scientific racism.

So we got a whole lot of evidence saying clearly that there is a disparity in dealing with our seniors and other people in our group. It's just that we're not experiencing very much in result, and we see now a lot of people don't seem to want to take it too seriously.

Now, wondering if we can have confidence that you will put effort behind funding this effort to get this, the seniors awarded.

Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, my name is Charlton Curry. I'm with the Big C Sports corporation. I advocate for CJEC Coalition for a Just and Equitable California. I want to ask that today we put guaranteed income, direct unrestricted payments for programs that benefit seniors, descendants emancipated from chattel slavery in the United States in the 2025 budget.

I appreciate the fact that we're all here listening. This room is full of people here, but there's a direct group of people that came from descendants of childhood slavery, never got one penny from 1619 to 1865, and we're passing budgets to make sure that immigrants come here and get money when our ancestry died. Every single one of you get a paycheck for your work.

If you have beautiful Black skin, you could trace your ancestry to the original people of this planet, 9 series DNA, but in this country, fought in every single war from the Civil War to even the war on the streets, most of our people, our elders, are struggling. They're last hired, first fired, the worst treated when it comes to health care, told, 'oh, he just has a problem. He doesn't want to listen.'

We have been dealing with a lot of trauma that you can solve by putting some money in the budget so at least our seniors can get what their ancestry never got, which is cash payments, free health care, free education, free housing. We're the only group that served this country for free, beaten, raped, murdered, lynched, and we stand here today.

If you have ancestry that's listening, you know they deserved it. They got nothing, couldn't bequeath anything, no life insurance, no property, no land, no anything. And now you have a chance to change that in God's eyes, and I thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Yeah, good afternoon. My name is Johnny Smith. I'm a member of a few organizations here, but I'm really an advocate for the youth, you know, and the young incarcerated men that, you know, that need some help because I've been there where they're at.

But when I started learning about this, it really, it really got to me, you see, because I'm a senior now. I'm a senior, man, and I thought about this and I was thinking about it the other day. I say, 'mama will be 106 years old in April.' She's up there in heaven.

My grandfather, Steve Tyler, was born in 1860--no, 1887. I believe my grandparents, my great grandparents were slaves. They worked in the cotton field that my mama came out of. My mother only had a sixth grade education, but she believed in the Lord, you know, and she raised us that way.

And for me, being 72 years old and I'm a great grandfather, you know, I would love to get that money that's owed to me for my parents. It's owed to me, and I would invest it in doing the right things, like open up Uncle Johnny's Transitional Home, which I have a nonprofit.

And I need the money to open that second so that I can help other kids, other people. You know, it don't matter what race help people, but we're here, man, and we need ours, and it would be, it would be a true blessing if I got guaranteed money before the Lord called me home. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

My name is Malik. I'm with the Marin City Reparations Coalition, and obviously I'm for the guaranteed income. The last thing I remember, I was about 37 or 47 years old, and now I'm 75. So you know I'm for it, and I just realized last night that I was a product of what they call the Jim Crow Era coming out of the rural South. I didn't know it because I was born into it, but I remember having to step off the sidewalks because you couldn't chance even being accused of bumping into a White person.

If you went to their house to work, you had to go to the back door. That was shocking when we moved to California because if Californians catch you in their backyard at their back door, you got a problem there, right?

So what I'm saying is that when a people have been by force and law, forced to live in the cesspool of society for a guaranteed 300 plus years, it's not a far stretch to think that they might need a little bit of a hand trying to come up out of that, but I don't think anybody can point when I bring that up to certain people in our groups about what's needed. They say, 'well, what more do you want? You got affirmative action and the right to vote, right?'

But I'm saying to you all as young elected officials and for the children that are not here yet or that are coming and grandchildren, this monster will not go away, and when they ask you, what did you do to help, I would say that you're, not your job, but your responsibility is to right as many wrongs as possible during your ten years in office and make sure that in this budget you're able to say, I pushed this reparations and guaranteed income as far forward as we could as Assembly people.

And that way, as I say, when you talk to your grandchildren about it and they ask you, what did you do, Grandpa? Because believe me, you guys are young now. I was like you yesterday. I was 30--

Thank you.

Okay. I'm 75.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. A name and affiliation, please.

Hello, chairs and members. Pricilla Ramos with Education and Leadership Foundation. Thank you. I am here to support the 75 million annual allocation for California Immigration Legal Services Program, but also to request to support increasing this funding so that more families can have access to these essential services.

As a partially DOJ-accredited representative working directly with the community, I can speak firsthand to the immense value of these services, from legal consultations to answering questions about immigration applications or potential relief options.

Additionally, our removal defense team works tirelessly to defend clients facing deportation proceedings and has witnessed an alarming increase in racial profiling detentions within our state. We have seen a significant rise in demand for our legal services. These immigration services are crucial and the community desperately needs our support during these challenging times.

We anticipate with the new Administration that our legal services demands are heightened even more. With the president's continued push for mass deportations, the need for these services is more urgent than ever. Protecting immigration legal services is a vital step you can take, and increasing funding would have a transformative impact on California. These programs help thousands of students, workers, families, and vulnerable individuals access the legal access they need every year. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Dr. Jackson, members. Noé Páramo. I'm with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. We're a one California services provider in the Central Valley, I myself in Modesto, Stanislaus County, which has a gap in terms of services that we need in consultations and legal defense and also detention and deportation services. Moreover, we need to provide navigation services.

We want to thank the Administration and Legislature for the 25 million in the special session for immigration protection services as well as the legal assistance programs, and then in terms of the Governor's Budget, we want to thank the 75 million that's in there.

One thing we've learned in the Central Valley, in Modesto, is that there's these concerns, these fears that are going on. And so we've also learned that we need additional services. And those services have to do with outreach and education, detention and deportation, family preparedness.

And we also need to have these navigation services to support our families to stay together, whether it's rent assistance, food assistance--I support Issue One. We need food assistance for all our communities. Very crucial. And keep in mind, we're also asking additional funds because in the Central Valley, in our rural areas, they're very isolated geographically, linguistically, and just the whole aspect of traveling is a challenge.

And the thing what we have here is the need for these resources. Our communities are farm workers, dairy workers, child caretakers, day laborers, and their street vendors. They are productive to the U.S. and California's economy.

I emphasize productive because the president this morning said he wants to give $5M to gold collar hoarders who are productive. Our communities have been productive and continue to be productive in providing food and essential services even during the pandemic for our communities. And when the Congress is going to cut 880 billion, 100 billion will go to border enforcement.

Thank you.

That investment on the one California stakeholders is modded. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. My name is Cynthia Valencia. I am a legislative advocate with the ACLU California Action. We are--I'm here to support the Governor's proposal and hoping to maintain that $75M that have been allocated for immigration legal service programs. We're also asking for an increase in the funding for the Immigration Legal Services.

We have already seen that the Trump Administration is enacting mass raids and deportations, and California must increase funding for immigration legal services to defend our families and--from deportation and to prevent family separation. Just today, while we were in this meeting, our ACLU affiliates in California have filed a lawsuit in response to the brazen and unlawful raids by federal agents in the Central Valley.

The January operation has been designed to stop, detain, and arrest people of color who appear to be farm workers or day laborers, regardless of their actual immigration status. That is why our partners who have been speaking up, who received these, these legal service fundings are so important, especially in the Central Valley.

We must help to keep California families together and safe by helping thousands of vulnerable individuals access immigration relief. So we're respectfully requesting that you increase the funding for legal services that thousands of Californian families rely on. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. My name is Maria Flores with the Mesa Verde Group, here on behalf of Inclusive Action for the City. We are here in strong support of the government's proposal to maintain the 75 million of immigration legal services and would encourage the legislation to increase funding for these services to adequately support immigrants and their community in these times. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Chair Jackson and members of the committee. Danielle Bradley, on behalf of the California State Association of Counties, representing all 58 counties. We are here today to voice our support for two budget requests being championed by the by CWDA.

First, we joined CWDA's request for an additional 245 million to meet counties whole for the CalWORKs eligibility component under CalWORKs single allocation as well as request--the request for an update in the single allocation methodology beginning in 2026-2027. Second, counties support CWDA's request for ongoing annual funding to bolster county--Human Services Department's emergency preparedness, disaster planning, and response. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Monica Miller, on behalf of the National Council of Jewish Women, LA Chapter, and we are here today to support the ongoing and continued discussions and hopefully additional funding on behalf of the Guaranteed Income Program.

We are one of the seven pilot programs or one of the recipients of the seven pilot programs in Los Angeles and we're so excited once we are ready to release our data, but we're still in the middle of the program at this point to show the direct cash benefits and how it's really helped our constituents and therefore your constituents. Additionally, we support the idea of looking at additional funding, taking the program statewide. We've had some very successful programs in California. We're the leader in guaranteed income.

We actually have a policy bill this year moving through the Legislature that will indeed look at taking guaranteed income statewide, looking at scaling the program that one of your colleagues, Assembly Member Lee, Assembly Member Schultz, and Assembly Member Rodriguez are all joint authors and co-authors on.

So again, to look at the opportunities and to attempt to take these programs statewide, take the policy data that we have and see where we can scale these programs. We think these programs are so critical for our constituents in an effort to try and make sure that we give them the stability that they need and the ability to make their own decisions on how to utilize that cash to lift them out of poverty. So thank you for your time today.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon. Karina Laigo, Senior Staff Attorney with the Child Care Law Center. Childcare is essential for strong, thriving families and justice in communities. We want to highlight issues five, seven, and eight from the agenda. Regarding Issue Five, we align our comments with Parent Voices who are coming up and Andrew Chin's comments in the hearing, and we also want to support the efforts of the Reimagined CalWORKs Coalition.

Regarding Issue Seven, we want to uplift that not discussed in the agenda is how much California relies on federal funding for CalWORKs childcare programs. California childcare heavily relies on federal funding and has taken advantage of federal dollars, yet the state only serves about 14% of eligible children.

Losing federal funding would make the situation worse for families, especially since one-third of childcare and development program funding comes from federal government money. CalWORKs Stage One, which is California's TANF Program, is an entitlement program for families with the lowest incomes.

In this year's $580M budget, almost 70% is from federal dollars. Additionally, the state eliminated the Safety Net Reserve last year, which was meant to, quote, 'offset the impact of a revenue downturn or economic impact on health and safety programs.'

However, now that it's been eliminated, $900M, the state does not have the money to cover programs in a crisis event. For non-CalWORKs childcare, the state also relies on federal funding and the Governor has requested $240M for wildfire relief for LA and Ventura Counties.

Regarding Issue Eight, we align our comments with the Early Care and Education Coalition budget letter specifically that childcare providers need to be prioritized and funding needs to be equitably distributed to ensure that they can recover. California care providers are dedicated professionals that the state must value and support for their dedication and hard work in our communities. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi. Itzúl Gutierrez with the California Association of Food Banks, and we support Reimagine CalWORKs. These are the poorest kids and families who face the greatest poverty related hunger. The Reimagined reforms help make sure they have the basic cash to meet their need for food, rent, diapers, and other basic needs. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, my name is Robert Copeland. I, a member of DACA with Disability Rights Group here in Sacramento and volunteer at a Meals on Wheels cafe, part of the CDSS Coalition. I'm asking increase in CalFresh benefits or we going to see more people going to Meals on Wheels cafes, more people going to food banks, and just the last two days we have more people come to that cafe where I volunteer at. Thank you.

Thank you. Good to see you again. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Maria Gutiérrez, and I am the State Representative for and the representative for the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, also known as LULAC. LULAC is the largest and oldest Hispanic Latin American civil rights organization in the United States.

The goal of LULAC is to advance the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, housing, health, and civil rights of Hispanic people in the United States. LULAC uses nationwide councils and group community organizations to achieve all these goals.

I am here to request--I'm here to support the Governor's proposal to not only maintain the $75M annual allocation for California's immigration legal services programs, but also to increase that funding appropriation. This fund is necessary to pay for immigration legal services to defend children, youth, students, workers, and families against infringement of their California and federal rights. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello. My name is Selam Jaser. I am a parent leader with Parent Voices San Francisco. I have two children and I'm a CalWORK participant. This has been my main reason to help cover basic--CalWORKs has been my main reason to help cover basic needs like food, financial support, and childcare. CalWORKs aim to help families achieve self-sufficient and improve quality life, and without CalWORKs, would have been homeless, and Reimagining CalWORKs is a real buss that pulls children and families out of poverty.

I'm here today to uplift the demand of the Reimagining CalWORKs Coalition. We want to implement the recommendation from the January CDSS report as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Hong Nguyen. I'm a parent leader with Parent Voice in San Francisco. I am here today to uplift the demand after Reimagine CalWORKs Coalition. We want to implement the recommendation from the January CDSS report as soon as possible. I was a CalWORK participant when I experience from domestic violence and become a single parent of two.

Without CalWORK, I wouldn't be able to--be able to support my children. We must make CalWORK work effectively for the family. I was even eventually able to move from the Welfare-to-Work and buy my own house in San Francisco. Again, please implement recommendation from the January CDSS report as soon as possible, end unnecessary sanctions, and increase funding for immigration legal services. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, my name is Lourdes. I'm with Parent Voices San Francisco, and I'm here to advocate for the immigrant and the CalWORKs Program. Like 15 years ago, my husband was deported and I became a single mother. So CalWORKs Program was supporting me in order for me--help me to go back to school and then get a job and provide a childcare for my children. I also was able to get CalFresh and was able to put food on my table.

So I'm really like the victim of this broken system and I wish you can also invest in the families and the communities and the children for their education and the breaking the chain of poverty. Thank you very much, Chair Jackson and all the committee of the of the Committee of the Budget. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Assembly Members and staff. My name is Maria Luz Torre. I'm the organizer of Parent Voices in San Francisco. I was a parent on TANF. With a high cost of living, parents cannot do it alone, and so California's young child population is declining and I think it's more important than ever to support our families, our parents raising young children. So I am here to ask that we end unnecessary sanctions, increase cash grants, and expand access to supportive families.

Many of our families are even afraid to apply for CalWORKs and they would have qualified. That application or registration is--participation has declined through the years, so we must make CalWORKs work. This war on poverty requires warriors like you, and we need your support. We need champions to help families.

We need people like you who understand what these policies mean and what potentially they could do to help families because it has saved a lot of families, including mine, from extreme poverty. So again, please implement the recommendations from the January CDSS report as soon as possible, end unnecessary sanctions, increase cash grants--0.02% is not enough. That's $2 for a thousand. That's not enough. That cannot even buy like two eggs--and increase funding for immigrant legal services. Thank you very much for your service.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Good day, gentlemen and gentlelady. My name is Omolara Odofin. I'm representing CJEC, the Just and--Coalition for a Just and Equitable California. My grandfather fought in the First World War. He was a naval man out of rural Alabama. Our names are in the Book of Indian. He was a Jones, and something happened where his parents couldn't keep him, so he had to become a Coleman.

His family took him in, and he joined the Navy, came to California, ended up getting asbestos from working on the shipyards, and couldn't get his pensions to bring my family--he had ten children with my grandmother in Alabama--back to California.

Little by little, he began to bring the family over as the children were older and those who could work, and he helped them find and sustain jobs, but we as African Americans and Indigenous Indian American people have always pulled ourselves up from our bootstraps. I just want to read to you guys the 1866 Indian treaties.

This was a treaty that a lot of people don't know. The Five Civilized Tribes, they fought with the South to keep African Americans enslaved. A lot of people don't know this, that Article 5, or, excuse me, Article 6 of the Constitution even states that all these treaties and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

And these treaties were supposed to be upheld. And all the congressmen and legislators who take an oath were supposed to do their job to make sure that these things get enacted. Now, the 2021 revamping of the 1866 Indian treaties by the Cherokee Indians, which is where my descendants--our names are written in those books--they've done a great job trying to recompense what was done.

One hundred and sixty acres were supposed to be given to the African or the freedmen who were in those territories, $150 in gold, and the interest on that today, just imagine how much that could be, but as we know, our Indian brothers and sisters get their payments from little children all the way up to the adults.

Thank you.

So the fact that we need this for our--

Thank you.

People 65 and over, please, please help us get those things enacted.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Chair Jackson and members. Thank you. My name is Lynn Berkley-Baskin, representing Bend the Arc. Bend the Arc organizes and advocates for a more equal and just society in the United States.

Just a minute. It's fine. You don't have to take him out if you don't want to. It's up to you. Uh huh. This is, this is for him. I understand. He's probably telling me, give me some money too. Okay, go ahead now.

Okay. Let me see where I was. Bend the Arc organizes and advocates for a more equal and just society in the United States. We continue to build a multiracial, multiethnic, intergenerational movement of Jews and allies all across the country who are rising up to build an American future free from White supremacy, antisemitism, and racism.

For that reason, we fully support adding language to the budget that supports California's Reparations Task Force's recommendation that the state return the wages and wealth--and I just lost my statement. Hold on. I apologize.

No pressure. Clock is ticking.

Sorry. Sorry about that. Here we go. Recommendation that the state return the wages and wealth it stole from residents who descend from persons emancipated in the United States by creating a direct payment Guaranteed Income Program starting with persons who are seniors. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Thank you, Chair Jackson. My name is Audra Walton. I am--just, just to be clear, I'm the Vice Chair of the City of Marina Planning Commission and I'm on the Coordinating Committee for the Green Party. Although we recently adopted a lineage-based reparations platform plank for Black American Negro freedmen descendants, I'm here today in support of CJEC and many others that spoke before you today. I am not here in any official capacity with respect to those--to City of Marina. I'm here today to urge you to prioritize American freedmen seniors in the 2025 budget.

In 2023, California's Reparations Task Force recommended returning stolen wages and wealth to descendants of persons emancipated in the United States. These recommendations recognize the unique harm caused by generations of systemic wage theft and economic exclusion. This issue is deeply personal for me.

My aging family members in Seaside, California are part of a community that has been struggling since the closure of Fort Ord. The population has declined dramatically and freedmen in the peninsula continue to face discrimination with many being denied opportunities for employment.

And I mean many, including me, that have the merit, that are prior service, that have the degrees, and we still don't have the jobs because they won't hire us. I respectfully asked this committee to update the Guaranteed Income Program to provide additional support for freedmen seniors or create a new program exclusively for them. This is about justice, recognition, and ensuring that those who have endured the longest wait for equity are finally prioritized. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

[Testimony in Spanish].

So in short, I'm asking that we not only support that Governor continue immigration services, but we need you to do additional emergency crisis funds in order to help the families where the breadwinner is taking out of the family, and they need three months of assistance to pay for the rent, utilities, gas. That's what we need from you.

Muchisimas gracias.

Thank you.

Gracias. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello. My name is Lativia Burks, and I'm a parent leader with Parent Voices. I live in Contra Costa County. We want to end unnecessary sanctions for the CalWORKs Program. Sanctions keep families in poverty, which is the opposite of what CalWORKs is intended to do. Thank you.

Thank you. Was that your daughter right there? Who's--all right.

Hello, my name is Rebecca Gonzalez. I'm with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. I want to thank the committee for convening this hearing on the Safety Net. On Issue Number Five, the Western Center is an active partner in the Reimagine CalWORKs Coalition.

We're excited at the prospect to truly reform CalWORKs to be more family-centered and less punitive. The pilots present a perfect opportunity to take these reforms. I want to, I want to also just stress that we need to align the Welfare-to-Work sanctions in federal law, improve access to supportive services, ensure a family-centered Welfare-to-workflow, and reduce administrative burdens. These reforms all improve the program for the better and help support families on the road to self-sufficiency.

It is important to remember that every dollar in CalWORKs aid families receive saves $8 in the child welfare system. We appreciate your partnership as well as partnership with the Administration to make this happen. I also want to thank the committee for protecting CalWORKs from deep cuts last year.

Briefly, Issue Number Three, we want to fund the Guaranteed Income Program, support for Issue Six for the 75 million annual allocation for the state's immigration legal services, under food issues, sustain CalFood at 60 million, fund the Summer EBT statewide application, fund caregiver meals at summer food sites, expand Food4All to all ages, and increase CalFresh minimum benefits statewide.

Lastly, I want to thank the Chair for your leadership on SSI/SSP, speaking for the Californians for SSI Coalition, reinstating the cost of living increase. We appreciate your leadership there and we also want to eventually see those grants go up to the 100% of the poverty level, and if we could also reinstate the Special Circumstances Program so people can receive grants for unexpected expenses. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please. Superwoman is here.

How are you?

Holding it down with her child who ain't acting right, but he gonna appreciate you one day.

I hope.

All right. You here for a reason. Thank you.

My name is Harnesha Burks. I'm from Contra Costa County with Parent Voices. We want to end unnecessary sanctions for the CalWORKs Program. Sanctions keep families in poverty, which is the opposite of what the program is intended to do.

Thank you so much. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, everybody, Chair Jackson. [Testimony in Spanish].

Gracias. Name and affiliation, please.

[Translated] Good afternoon, Human Services Committee and Chair Jackson. My name is Paula Perez, and I am a parent leader from Parent Voices. I live in Mountain View. Thank you for the opportunity to express myself today. I am here to ask that funds be increased for legal services for immigrant communities, especially with the new federal administration. The $75 million in funds that were approved are not enough.

[Translated] Legal services are very expensive, and there are many families in the community that need legal services and do not have enough money. The organizations that are doing this work do not have enough money to continue. The immigrant community is a very important workforce that contributes to the economy of this country and deserves attention to its needs. Please consider increasing funding for legal services. Thank you for your leadership and for addressing the needs of the community. Thank you.

Gracias. Name and affiliation, please.

[Translated] Good afternoon. My name is Azucena Castanon. Chair Jackson, we are living in times full of uncertainty. We ask you to consider increasing funding for legal services for the immigrant community. We thank you very much for listening to us.

Gracias. Name and affiliation, please.

[Translated] Good afternoon. Hello, Chair Jackson. My name is Eulalia Garcia. I am a parent leader with Parent Voices living in San Jose. I am here to support the demands of the Reimagine CalWORKs Coalition. We want to implement the recommendations of the CDSS report from January as soon as possible. We want to put an end to unnecessary sanctions of the CalWORKs program. Sanctions keep families in poverty. This is not the intention of CalWORKs.

[Translated] We also want to increase funding for legal services to immigrant communities, especially with the new federal administration. I am an example. I am a mother who has worked all my time here in the United States. I have given my taxes. Unfortunately, from 2020 on, I got sick. My son, he's supporting me. He's 21 years old. But he gets frustrated because he's gone to programs, and unfortunately, as his mother, I don't get into certain programs like CalFresh, CalWORKs, so he was sad. Right now, he asked me yesterday. We're the only family, he and I, so he's sad right now. He's going through a depressing situation because he says what he's going to do if it happens, I have to go to Mexico.

[Translated] It's unfortunate. As mothers who don't have anyone to care for their children. And for those mothers, for those children who cannot afford daycare because they do not qualify for any reason. Please take all of this into account, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much.

Gracias. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello, my name is LeShay, and I'm a parent leader with Parent Voices. I live in Contra Costa County. And we want to end unnecessary sanctions for CalWORKs program. Sanctions keeps families in poverty, which is the opposite of what CalWORKs is intended to do. So what could be improved about CalWORKs?

Well, what I think is we need, like, a grant. There needs to be, like, a housing subsidy for parents who receive CalWORKs because we live in California. That little grant, they can't even rent a room here. So we need to do something like that. They need, like, some type of housing for themselves. Again, please implement the recommendations from the January CDSS report as soon as possible and end unnecessary sanctions and increase the funding for Immigrant Legal Services. Thank you.

Thank you. Who's that with you? You got something to say to me? Talk to me.

CalWORKs needs more money.

All right. Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon. My name is Savannah. I'm with... I'm a parent leader with Parent Voices, and I live in Contra Costa County. I am here today to uplift the demands of the Reimagine CalWORKs Coalition. We want to implement the recommendations from the January CDSS report as soon as possible, please and thank you. Have a good one.

Name and affiliation, please.

Hi there. Jennifer Greppi, director of parent policy with Parent Voices California. And Chair Jackson, can I just say thank you from the bottom of our heart, like you doing public comment early today is like... It's amazing because we would have been here till 10 o'clock with all those kids. Yes. And so...

That's dangerous.

Right? I mean, y'all, you heard them out there.

It's a public safety issue.

That's right. That's right. And so, you know, just allowing the parents the opportunity to, like, come here and use their voice and, you know, be a part of the democratic process and really, really let their voices be heard, like, it just means the world to us. And I just really appreciate you making this about what it's really supposed to be about, which is about them and their experiences and how, you know, the programs are impacting their lives. So thank you. And you know, as a member of the Reimagine CalWORKs Campaign and, you know, a c- sponsor, we really just want to make sure that the solutions of families are lifted up to make the program better, which I think is what everybody really wants. Right.

And, you know, we have some great partners at the department here that have been really great about working with us, and we want to just make sure that we continue to do that, lift up those recommendations from the January report. And just in closing, I'd like to say that, you know, sanctions really hurt families, and we have to stop doing that. And, you know, there are federal minimums and we need to just do that. Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Jessica Stender on behalf of Equal Rights Advocates, the Lutheran Office of Public Policy California, and Voices for Progress. Here to echo all the comments that were made before by my Parent Voices partners and just urge your support for anti-poverty investments that are urgently needed, specifically issues 3, 5, and 6. And we ask that the Legislature raise any revenues needed to achieve these outcomes and ensure a more equitable future. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Mr. Chair and Members, Tiffany Whiten with SEIU California. Related to CalFresh, appreciate the Committee's attention to this very important issue and underscore the need for access to the aging population. I would also like to thank you, Dr. Sharp-Collins, for your leadership in this space, both in policy committee and here within the budget, and for acknowledging the very serious federal threats that would have drastic implications to our aging and our families.

Related to CalWORKs, I would like to uplift our support and partnership with CWDA to address the single allocation shortfall to counties as well as updating the methodology. It's important to adequately fund the infrastructure of the program to ensure the best results for the recipients, while also adequately funding the workforce.

Additionally, we support the inclusion of California and the FRA pilots to reimagine CalWORKs and look forward to continued conversations to ensure the success of the pilots, support the workforce, and better provide personalized services to recipients. Also support for immigration legal services and supports.

And then lastly, we, like so many others, are extremely concerned about the threats from the federal administration and stand ready to fight back and hope we can work with you, Mr. Chair, in partnership, and your Members, to protect our aging children and families. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. My name is Kevin Buffalino. I'm with Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services. I'm here today to talk about CalFood, which is a program that helps 41 state food banks throughout the state purchase California grown and California produced products.

For the past several years, thanks to the Legislature, we've received one time investments that have brought that funding to an average of $60 million a year to split between the 41 food banks. That is in danger of falling back to the baseline of $8 million starting on July 1st.

For our food bank here in Sacramento County, that would be devastating. We're currently feeding over 310,000 people each month, which is more than double the number we were feeding just five years ago prior to the pandemic. Actually, last year in 2024 was our largest year ever. We've never fed this many people. We've been around for 49 years.

So hunger really is at an all time high here in Sacramento County, but also throughout the state. For us, our food bank was receiving about $2 million a year of that funding allowing us to purchase products. We would go back to about $200,000. That cut of $1.8 million is not going to allow us to feed and to meet the level of demand that we have here in our community. It really would have a devastating effect on food banks and then the people we serve throughout the state. It's also a win win for the state.

It allows us to purchase those products, keep the money here in California. We support local farms, we support California grown products, we support California producers. So really is a win win program. So we have a budget request through our partners at California Association of Food Banks for to keep $60 million in the budget moving forward. We urge you to support that request, both for the people of California and the food banks. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation please.

Hi. Dear Chair and Members, Yesenia Jimenez, Senior Policy Associate with End Child Poverty California, also including LACAN, Los Angeles Community Action Network, National Council of Jewish Women California, WAVE or Women for American Values and Ethics, Courage California, Evolve California, Friends Committee on Legislation of California, Thriving Families California, who all couldn't be here, but are also collectively urging the Legislature to protect and strengthen proven programs that prevent poverty, fight hunger, and support immigrant communities that are critical for millions of Californians.

I don't have to tell you, but approximately one in three California families are living in or near poverty. This is not something that is just theoretical for me. This is personal for me. And that's why I'm in this work, and that's why many of us are in this work. So we call on the Legislature to advance and end poverty among children and families by supporting issue number five to build on the governor's proposed TANF FRA pilots. Like so many of my colleagues have already mentioned, we need to reimagine CalWORKs. We know the system is outdated, it's racist, it's sexist, it's classist.

And so there's an opportunity we have in front of us to reimagine it. We support issue number three to fully fund the Guaranteed Income Research and Expansion Act to chart California's course from pilots to permanent statewide guaranteed income policy.

We support issue number six to preserve immigrant immigration services and equity programs by not only supporting the 75 million annual allocation to CDSS for immigrant and legal services, but also increasing the funding in light of the billions that are being poured into a mass deportation system.

We also support a statewide web application for summer EBT, extending Food4All regardless of status, supporting statewide implementation of increased CalFresh minimum nutrition benefit pilots, and supporting the diaper banks with their request. Our babies need diapers. And it's really sad that in the fifth largest economy in the world, we're here asking for diaper support.

And lastly, California is facing dual budget challenges. Projected deficits in future years with revenue growth expected to fall short of the cost of current services, which are already insufficient in meeting the needs of Californians. We're asking for a desire to significantly raise revenue. Thank you for standing with us.

Thank you. Name an affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Chair Jackson and Committee Members. My name is Benyamin Chao, and I'm here on behalf of the California Immigrant Policy Center to comment on the CalFresh expansion, aka Food4All, included under issue number one. First of all, we'd like to thank you for keeping the past commitment in the budget and continuing our plan for an expansion to all Californians ages 55 and over in October 2027.

We urge you to take advantage of this momentum that we've built for Food4All and protect our investment moving forward and strengthen food security for undocumented aging Californians. And we also request that you expand the program to include all ages so that everyone at the same kitchen table has enough to eat.

Not only could we save money on implementation overall by rolling out the program for everyone in one go, but we'd also make significant progress addressing food insecurity and poverty for a population whose needs have failed to be addressed for decades. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, just over 40% of undocumented Californians are living in poverty.

This includes hard working families with children and also caregivers for aging adults who are experiencing need today. At a time when the federal administration spreads fear and lies and misinformation about our neighbors because of where they were born, California has a choice. Will we allow these attacks to shape our policies or will we continue to lead with facts, compassion, and a commitment to a truly inclusive safety net? Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. My name is Anallely Martin, also with the California Immigrant Policy Center. And I am here today urging Members to not just protect the 75 million annual allocation for California's Immigration Legal Services programs, but to support increasing the funds of 60 million for fiscal year 2025-26 and 60 million for fiscal year 26-27 so more families can access these essential services.

Our partners at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, ImmDef, are one of the organizations that receive funding through CDSS. ImmDef has been able to use these funds to represent our communities in immigration courts such as the United, such as United States military veterans. I'd like to share with you all one of the many stories they have.

In 2022, they began representing a combat veteran of the United States Marine Corps. After leaving the military, he faced undiagnosed service related PTSD which went untreated for more than two decades. In 2010, he was deported to Mexico, and in 2023, with the support of ImmDef, he returned to the US under humanitarian parole.

He was granted prosecutorial discretion by the Department of Homeland Security and is currently waiting for the replacement of his green card. State funded Immigration Legal Services help keep California families together and safe by helping thousands of students, workers, families, veterans, and vulnerable individuals access immigration relief and defending their civil rights every year across California. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation please.

Good afternoon, Chair Jackson Members. My name is Faith Lee. I am with Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California. First of all, I want to thank you for your positive energy throughout the hearing. Make it so much more enjoyable, as well as your staff.

Ms. Vasquez, always very open to listen to advocates. But I'm here to talk about voicing our support for issue number six. Really want your continued support for the $75 million immigration services program. As an organization that reaches over 11,000 residents annually, really providing them legal services throughout Southern California.

We serve specifically a lot of limited English proficient Californians, such as we have legal intake helpline that's in language in Korean, Khmer, Tagalog, and so many more. And I really want to emphasize how important this funding is for Californians who are limited English proficient.

In the State of California, about 6 million of Californians are actually LEPs, and AAPI data shows that immigrants comprise the majority of Asian American populations. 65% of all residents and 77% of the adults within the Asian American community are foreign born. Specifically in California, 47% of Southeast Asians in California are actually limited English proficient.

It's much more higher than the average Asian American community if you look at desegregated data. So with this one California funding we are able to provide a lot of in language assistance and really outreach and education and really informing folks about their immigration status and what to do.

As an immigrant myself who have worked extensively in my early career with Chinese speaking folks, I understand how important it is to really educate folks about their status and what can be done with their current status. So I urge you to continue supporting the $75 million immigration funding. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation please.

Hello, Chair and Members. My name is Fauziya Faruk. I'm here on behalf of the Council on American Islamic Relations California, the largest Muslim led civil rights organization in the country. We urge you to support the governor's proposal to maintain 75 million in funding for California's immigration legal services programs and increase this funding to meet the growing needs. CAIR California has immigrant rights centers across the state that provide vital immigration legal services and have helped hundreds of families in the last year avoid unjust deportations, submit asylum applications, and gain legal status.

The funding we have received from the state thus far has been well utilized, but it's not enough. As mass raids and deportations continue, California must expand legal protections for immigrants, children, students, workers, and families who face separation and uncertainty. One of our clients shared that the immigration process was overwhelming, filled with fear and uncertainty.

Legal support made the difference between lost and moving forward. This wasn't just about the paperwork. It was about securing a future with her spouse, finding stability, and living without fear. State funded legal services keep families together, protect civil rights, and provide thousands of Californians with access to relief each year. We urge you to increase funding to ensure every family has the support that they need. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Good afternoon, Dr. Jackson and Members. My name is Hortencia Rodríguez. I'm with the Acacia Center for Justice. I'm here to express support for increasing the investments in immigration legal services to further protect our community members, but will limit my comments to the Children's Holistic Immigration Representation Project, also known as CHIRP.

Since 2022, CHIRP has provided essential legal representation and social work support to unaccompanied children residing in 52 counties across the state. These powerhouse teams of social workers and attorneys have helped children enroll in school, avoid homelessness, labor trafficking risks, and help them strengthen their relationships with their caregivers.

There are many people like the youth that came by your office today that support these asks who cannot be here today out of anxiety and fear of being recorded or in a government building only to become targets of enforcement or hate. For this reason, I ask that the state commit to increasing investments in CHIRP, ONE California, and other vital immigration legal services programs that are needed now more than ever. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Thank you, Chair Jackson and Members. Cathy Senderling-McDonald representing the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. CPEHN supports the continuation and increases to the services in item three, the immigration services that you've been hearing about from the fellow speakers who've gone before me.

I'd like to associate my comments with them and just say this is obviously related as well to item seven, and really every item I think on the agenda today. This is a time of great fear and uncertainty for our immigrant communities, their families and friends and supporters. And there are changes literally every day, as you know. And it is really critical that this body, who has been so supportive of these communities, individuals, and families, continue that support and increase it to the extent possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation.

Good afternoon chair and Members. My name is Cynthia Gomez, Deputy Director of State Policy and Advocacy with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. CHIRLA. CHIRLA is dedicated to the protecting and advancing the rights of vulnerable Californians by providing legal services and case management support for immigrants. As a direct service provider, we see

firsthand the increase in need for support services for refugees, asylees, immigrants and undocumented individuals. Now more than ever, vulnerable immigrants are seeking support from trusted nonprofit organizations like CHIRLA and others. The budget allocations the state provides through. CDSs such as One California, the Enhanced Services for Asylees and Vulnerable Noncitizens

program and others provide critical support for immigrants. And like I mentioned before, the need has only increased. We urge the Legislature to continue their Commitment for California for all by ensuring that immigrants continue to have access to these critical services. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation please.

Sure. Good afternoon Mr. Chair, Members Christopher Sanchez with the Mesa Verde Group, here on behalf of CARECEN and the Central American Resource Center. Echoing all the comments of my colleagues related to the encourage supporting the Governor $75 million but also encouraging this Committee and the Legislature to increase that number for several reasons.

One, because the legal process is going to be significantly strained on our community and it is going to take much longer and we have an ethical obligation to continue to represent those clients.

We would also like to recognize that as one of the service organizations in the community we would expect we would ask this Committee to explore flexibility in the funding program to ensure that we're able to respond to real time needs that we're seeing firsthand in communities.

We're able to rapidly response to the changes that are happening in immigration, federal policy memos, and court rulings as well. Without this flexibility, our hands will be tied. We won't be able to fulfill our ethical obligation to fully represent our clients with the strategy that we've put forward forward for their cases.

Lastly, a memo that just recently came out was where every client asked every individual that files an affirmative case has to appear in front of a USCIS officer, which something has significantly changed from the last administration.

So it is now that we need to have ensure that there's quality immigration legal services versus shady notarios that might be acting to consume some of this work. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Name and affiliation please.

Good afternoon Chair and Committee Members. I'm Barbara Schmitz. I'm here on behalf of First Five California, and you know we obviously care deeply about our most vulnerable citizens, babies that are zero to age five, and so I do want to associate myself and echo some of the comments that have been made before.

We are in support of supporting immigration funding and programs and that includes some of our farm workers and individuals in our rural areas. So I just wanted to uplift those additional folks.

In addition, we do also support sustaining the diaper program that is in existence now and then finally some of the guaranteed income efforts, as well as increasing the minimum for CalFresh. So essentially, we just want to ensure that every child in California has access to safe, stable and nurturing environments.

And we believe that helping to sustain our safety net will help to achieve that. Thank you. Thanks for convening this hearing.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hi, I'm Ann Quirk. I'm with Children's Law Center of California. We're the attorneys for children in the foster care system in Los Angeles, Placer and Sacramento counties. I'm here in strong support of budget items number six, specifically the Children's Holistic Immigration Representation Project. Got that right. These funds provide services that are critical

to protect the safety and well being of some of our most vulnerable child clients. I just, I wish you could meet them. They're incredible. And I really truly appreciate your continued attention to and protection of our clients. And, and thank you for everything you do. We truly couldn't do it without you. So thanks.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Kelly Brooks, I'm here on behalf of two clients. First, on behalf of the California Association of Diaper Banks. Diapers are the number one requested item at food banks. In recognition of this, the Legislature has provided funding in the Department of Social Services budget for the last six years.

That funding expires on June 30th and we're urging the Legislature to find $16 million in the budget to continue funding. Previous state funding has allowed diaper banks to distribute 160 million diapers to over 1 million families and 1.6 million infants. Families are making choices between food, rent, utilities and diapers.

57% of parents and caregivers reported missing an average of four days of school or work per month because they did not have enough diapers to drop their child off at child at daycare. Additionally, there are medical issues associated with using diapers for too long.

Secondarily, I'm here on behalf of the urban counties of California and the Rural County Representatives of California. We're here in support of one time funding for county administration of CalWORKS and urged the administration and Legislature to update the CalWORKS budgeting methodology. Thank you.

Thank you. Name and affiliation, please.

Luanne Nguyen with the Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organization., its new Deputy Director. First, I want to thank you, Chair, and thank you Members for restructuring your hearing today to accommodate the public.

I am moved by the consideration of the public in this space and for allowing the public to share the comments so that you can listen and to have that guide your thinking as you go into the panel.

So I really appreciate this new way of thinking and I want to share that with you because I also heard it in the hallway and I haven't, but I think it's worth repeating in public. So there's that.

I also come to you as a woman who grew up on welfare and very much has been doing work in public benefits because I believe in a two generation approach to poverty. I believe that parents are motivated by their kids.

And in order to give children a chance, we have to give them basic necessities that allows for attachment for them, allows them to feel secure with their parents, allows them to have a roof over their head because those are the things that children need in order to thrive.

And if they don't have those things, they do not thrive. And so everything we do should be based on those foundation. And with that in mind, I want to talk about something.

You know, we are a part of the Reimagine CalWORKS Coalition and we absolutely believe in that wholeheartedly, because for too long the approach towards poor people has been to sort of use a stick to beat them over the head and force them to do things.

And I, sort of in the child development space, don't believe that and believe that if we give parents the opportunities and the pathway to choose for themselves that they will choose the right thing. And so with that, I want us to think about COLAs: cost of living increase.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Girl, you're preaching. I don't know. I can keep you on the mic. Thank you very much. Appreciate you. That concludes public comment and we are just going to go right into it. Y'all ready? Let's do this. All right, panel number two, issue number two.

I want to preface this issue just by saying that this is one of the chair's priority items to really ensure that California has a point person when it comes to food insecurity and how we can eliminate food insecurity like other states have done.

Certainly we made a great step forward last year when it comes, when it comes to moving us in that direction, but yet we're still trying to do some cleanup work. It was kind of done in a rushed way last year and so we want to continue this item. Director, you may start when you're ready.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Again, Jennifer Troia on behalf of the Department of Social Services, I want to start my response to this item by affirming that CDSS is committed to maximizing the impact of the safety net and the nutrition programs we administer.

We are focused on data driven and client centered decision making as well as utilizing available federal and state policy options, raising awareness through education and outreach and working closely with our partners including the Legislature, counties, community based organizations to ensure excellent service delivery.

To that end, in the last panel we focused on CalFresh access with that focus on older adults. We also talked some about CalFresh participation rates as they're calculated by the USDA and by CDSS Program Reach Index.

Regardless of the methodology you use, all of the estimates show a large upward trend in closing the participation gap over the last decade, a trend that continues through and after the pandemic, though our work is not complete. Since 2017, CalFresh participation's improved by over 35%. In the last decade it's improved by over 20 percentage points.

What more is needed and what do we know about the participation gaps in CalFresh is part of what you have focused on in the agenda. The CalFresh participation gaps do mirror the gaps that we also see in other safety net programs as well.

Those include that the participation rate is higher for children than it is for adults, though we have closed some of that gap. Speakers of Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese in particular have lower participation rates than the statewide average.

Californians who identify as Asian American also have lower participation than the statewide average, and in General, the lower the household income, the higher the participation rate. We do also see variations by county or geography, but we've not necessarily observed explicit patterns by the region or geography that I would note.

We do continuously work to refine our methodologies for understanding who is accessing our programs and why and why not. We have some planned improvements in how we measure that participation rate to allow us to better understand how to close those participation gaps, including more granular geographic breakdowns.

The legislation authored by Assemblymember Wicks last year, AB 518, was enacted to further a data driven approach to ensuring that whole person no wrong door delivery of services in the safety net.

The statute that resulted from that Bill supports our authorized use of internal administrative data and research to inform decisions about how we ensure that eligible individuals and families receive CalFresh so we can improve delivery of the program and measure its impacts.

We are currently developing a new way to measure CalFresh participation that will replace that program reach index and provide more granular insights into who's utilizing the program. Our plan is to release that updated methodology this summer. Once the methodology is released, we are committed to providing annual updates. We plan to do so on our website.

It will very likely be part of a CalFresh data dashboard that we operate to allow for information to be very accessible to the public.

These data will help to drive insights into the policies that will ensure Californians who are eligible for CalFresh can access the program and help ensure that Californians who receive CalFresh continue to be connected also to other safety net programs for which they are eligible. So I'll pause there, happy to answer questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much.

Next up on the agenda.

Thank you everyone. Good afternoon Chair Jackson and Committee Members. My name is Marchon Tatmon, I'm the Associate Director of Policy and Advocacy at the San Francisco Marin Food Bank. I want to say to families who struggle with food insecurity this issue is forever near and dear to my heart and I'm shocked

In my 40 years of life we're still talking about it. San Francisco Marin Food bank is the original co sponsor of AB 1967 and AB 518. First, I would like to share our appreciation for the efforts to pass AB 518 last session.

I know there was a lot of work to get this deal done, after hours work, calling our Executive Director, working with the Governor and your team. So we really appreciate those efforts. To start, I think all this critical work should be done in a poor view accountability of a food insecurity officer and not someone giving extra duties.

I'm quite sure they already have a lot on their plates, especially in this political climate with the looming cuts or cuts that happened yesterday. Briefly, let me share what we're seeing on the ground as of December 2024.

Like folks shared earlier, five and a half million people are enrolled in CalFresh in California and we know that a lot more people are qualified for these benefits. Californians face a myriad of issues. According to Nourish California's Missing Plates report, 34 eligible Californians are not receiving CalFresh, leaving around 3.6 billion on the table,

as far as the old administration goes for. An estimated 1 in 4 Californians are struggling with food insecurity. These numbers of course are higher in black communities and Latino communities. 30% of Latino households face food insecurity and 40% of Black households.

And to make matters worse, California is still looming at around 66% participation rate in SNAP, ranking us around 6th to last when it comes to participation rates and we behind states like Florida, Texas and there are 10 other states with 100% participation rates. AB518 is a starting point.

Hunger relief efforts from the state will still fall within multiple departments. And although there's the intention to address this never ending issue that continuously reared its head, we might still fall short. The alignment and coordination will still be absent because there won't be an accountable leader for our desired results.

Current mandates of AB518, a report must be produced by July 2025. Work to identify federal waivers. Work on new methodologies so we can see what's happening yearly instead of every three years I believe. A stakeholder group must be created. They need to work across multiple departments in a designated executive level.

Employees should be named to do all this additional work. Among other things, they are tasked with improbably consistently monitoring the federal threat to our social safety nets.

Steps that are extremely vital to gain progress in determining the actual need for those in need and for those eligible for benefits who currently don't receive benefits by targeting them to address hunger across the state equitably. But here are the gaps. No dedicated accountable officer whose sole purpose is this work.

I just heard about it today, but I have yet to see the formula of the stakeholder group. So equitable communication plan need to be reached so the stakeholders and people who receive these benefits know what's going on.

No plan or strategy to actually address food and carry food insecurity and cheat or go is created and no creative thinking whatsoever.

California is stuck inside a box and we must get out that box and either be innovative or explore and examine the work that others are doing to see what's working out there and what's not working out there. So we believe the solution is a Food Insecurity officer.

The San Francisco Marin Food bank believes that food is a fundamental right and California has the opportunity to lead with big bold solutions to truly transform our food security system.

We urge your administration to consider a Food Insecurity Officer and also put under that person's purview to think outside the box, to study other states, and internally look at other counties that's doing something right with higher participation rates. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Department of Finance.

Emily Marshall, Department of Finance. No further comment at this time, but happy to answer any questions that come up.

Thank you. LAO.

Sonia Schrager Russo with the Legislative Analyst Office. Nothing to explicitly call out on this issue at this time and additionally happy to provide any technical assistance as needed on this.

Thank you very much. I do want to ask you to work with my staff on technical assistance on seeing the best ways that we can fully implement the vision of having a Food Insecurity Officer and all the outlined duties. Members of Committee. Any questions on this item? No, just a couple of questions here from Administration.

On page 13 of the Agenda you'll see the outline new criteria. Want to kind of get your take on the feasibility of what we're trying to accomplish both from what we were able to do in this past budget last year and then some of the additional items that we're trying to accomplish. Any any feedback on that?

Sorry, I'm just making sure I'm reading the right part of page 13.

So I think the update we can provide on the stakeholder engagement piece is we mentioned having a methodology prepared by summer that is to share and to get feedback on from researchers, our county partners, our community based partners, not necessarily like the final version of the methodology. So that stakeholder engagement will start in the summer.

Otherwise if there are additional questions or Jen, if you have anything to add.

In terms of the CalFresh participation rate methodology by July 1st, how are we? Are we on track for that?

Yes, yes. That's methodology we're referring to. So a new way to look at participation at a more granular level with some of these demographics and characteristics that we see on this on page 13, race, ethnicity, preferred language, age and location. We're looking into the feasibility of including that in the new methodology.