Good morning, Inequality Insights readers. I’m CalMatters reporter Wendy Fry.
This week California Divide reporter Alejandra Reyes-Velarde wrote about the state’s unfulfilled promise to provide low-income undocumented immigrants with state subsidies for phone and internet services. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented residents are excluded from the California LifeLine program because they don’t have Social Security numbers, she found.
Natchelly Ruvalcava, an undocumented 51-year-old mother of one, said she could have used LifeLine’s discounts on cell phone service. “Twenty-five dollars saved a month is really helpful to buy things for my son,” she told Reyes-Velarde.
To qualify, a customer must earn less than 150% of the federal poverty line, which is about $45,900 a year for a four-person household. Most recipients of other social services, such as CalFresh or Medi-Cal, would qualify for LifeLine.
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The California Public Utilities Commission said it has implemented its 2014 decision to stop using Social Security numbers to determine if someone is eligible for the LifeLine program. The commission said it does not use Social Security numbers to verify applicants’ identity.
But advocates say the LifeLine application still asks for Social Security numbers, shutting people out of the program who don’t have them.
Julie Rattray, an attorney for Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, said she discovered the state’s unfulfilled promise last year when a client who already had Medi-Cal tried signing up for LifeLine. The client was turned down.
“If people are missing their medical appointments, if they miss their benefit renewals, if they can’t make an appointment with social service providers, you’re going to see significant impacts on households and their health,” Rattray said.
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Reparations rebranding? Members of California's Legislative Black Caucus on Wednesday detailed 14 reparations bills modeled after recommendations that a state reparations task force spent years studying and developing. In the proposed laws: the state would compensate people whose property was taken in race-based cases of eminent domain, apologize for human rights violations, and fund programs to decrease violence in Black communities.
None of the bills calls for direct cash reparations, which has sparked criticism from some. "Reparations will not be rebranded or redefined. If it doesn’t include direct money payments and compensation to California residents who are descendants of those emancipated from Chattel Slavery in the U.S, it’s not Reparations," said Chris Lodgson, lead organizer of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California.
Hotel becomes home. California is sending the city of Fresno $9.6 million to convert an old hotel into 33 permanent affordable units for at-risk residents, Fresnoland reports. The funding is part of the state’s Project Homekey program that provides funds to cities “to sustain and rapidly expand housing for persons experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.” In total, Fresno has received about $31.5 million from the
state since the program began in 2020, according to the California Housing and Community Development Department’s Homekey Awards Dashboard.
A crop duster plane flies over a field outside of Mendota on March 3, 2023. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local
Disparate impact. Farmworker advocates are calling on State Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate pesticide abuse, saying the California Department of Pesticide Regulation is not providing enough oversight to protect their communities. Advocates last week announced findings from a report they’ve been working on since 2021, which showed California’s 11 majority-Latino counties experienced 900% more pesticide use per person and per square mile than the 25 counties with the lowest populations of Latinos.
Banking on the unbanked.The California State Treasurer’s Office is holding public meetings in Fresno, Oakland, and Los Angeles for the CalAccount Blue Ribbon Commission. The 9-member commission is discussing how the state could provide low-income Californians free, federally insured bank accounts. The CalAccount program aims to serve some 5.6 million “unbanked” and “underbanked” Californians and help “limit the reach of predatory, discriminatory, and costly alternatives,” said State Treasurer Fiona Ma.
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Slowing the roll. In the Inland Empire, the once booming growth of warehousing and storage jobs is falling into a slump, the Los Angeles Times reported. Last year warehouse and storage jobs shrank in the area for the first time in more than two decades. Once-booming truck transportation slowed since early summer and wholesale trade employment is dropping fast, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Farmworkers' rights. Despite California’s strict laws, programs, and resources aimed at safeguarding its nearly half a million farmworkers, significant challenges persist in protecting them, experts and advocates said at a CalMatters panel on farmworker health Thursday. A recent UC Merced study documented significant gaps in the health and well-being of these workers. “We agree that enforcement needs to improve,” said Sebastian Sanchez, a panelist and deputy secretary at California's Labor and Workforce Development Agency. Areceli Barrios, an audience member who worked 28 years in the fields, described in Spanish having to work at night and without sufficient water at times. She said she suffered abuse, heat, and sexual harassment: “There were many injustices, but (a person) tolerates it because they don’t have papers. No one helps you.”
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California Divide is a statewide media collaboration to raise awareness and engagement about poverty and income inequality through in-depth, local storytelling and community outreach. The project is based at CalMatters in Sacramento with a team of reporters deployed at news organizations throughout California.
