Good morning, Inequality Insights readers. I’m CalMatters reporter Wendy Fry.
Sunshine Week is an annual, nationwide celebration of people’s right to the public records and freedom of information. It’s an opportunity to talk about the importance of open government and access to government documents. Here at the California Divide, we have much to celebrate because public records fuel our work covering poverty and income inequality.
In the past year, access to public records helped drive our reporting on reparations, driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, deportations, private equity’s role in rent hikes in San Diego and evictions. Public records and government data helped us explore who got money from a first-time homebuyer assistance program, who got money for storm damage and other stories.
Official paperwork also helped us uncover how often California companies and governments avoid the Golden State’s strict environmental regulations by shipping toxic waste across state borders and into Mexico.
Sometimes access to public records doesn’t come easy. We’ve been waiting months for some records we requested last year. But we keep fighting for documents based on the belief that holding government accountable is essential to the health of our democracy and communities.
Happy Sunshine Week, California!
In other inequality news this week, Justo Robles wrote about how San Diego-area flood victims could be eligible for CalFresh disaster food benefits but had just days to apply. (The deadline is today, Friday, March 15.) “This is a city of juxtapositions,” says Sean Elo-Rivera, San Diego’s City Council president, “we have incredible affluence, and we have tremendous poverty. The (storm) drew more eyes to those disparities.”
Also California Divide’s Alejandra Reyes-Velarde wrote about a California program placing young workers in apprenticeships that has hit a funding snag. She also wrote about a state report that shows high housing costs make it hard for low-wage workers to live and make ends meet, despite minimum wage increases.
DON’T MISS
- Deportation defense. Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat from Los Angeles, has again pulled a bill that would have expanded the One California program to include immigrants with felonies, Politico reports. The state sets aside $45 million annually for nonprofits that provide deportation defense and other legal services to low-income immigrants. A bill expanding that to felons died in committee last year.
- Reconnecting communities. A state pilot program aimed at reconnecting neighborhoods long divided by freeway construction will provide millions for parks, bike lanes and other amenities in Arcata, South San Francisco, southeast San Diego, and National City.
- A parolee’s death. CalMatters investigative reporter Byrhonda Lyons describes how 37-year-old Fredreaka Jack, who needed intense mental and physical health care, didn’t get it from California’s parole system and died at a state-funded reentry home in El Monte, days before she was to be released.
- Persistent pay gaps. The California Civil Rights Department released findings spotlighting gender pay gaps. For every dollar a man earned in 2021, women earned 81 cents. But Black women earned 58 cents and Latinas less than 50 cents to the dollar that white men make.
- Dreams for all. First-time homebuyers can start applying April 3 for the state’s Dream for All down payment assistance. Advocates advise getting application info together now, though the state plans to dole out $250 million by lottery, Divide reporter Felicia Mello writes.
- Storm money update. The Storm Assistance for Immigrants Project, launched in June to distribute $80 million to undocumented Californians who didn’t qualify for FEMA relief last year, has helped 56,378 people as of Feb. 25, a Department of Social Services official told a state Assembly committee.
- Rising rents. California’s tenants in affordable housing have fewer protections than other renters, a report by Urban Habitat and East Bay Community Law Centers says. Assembly Bill 486 from Assembly Member Mia Bonta, an Oakland Democrat, would cap rents on such properties the same way the state limits other landlords to annual rent increases of 10%, or 5% plus inflation.
- Farmworker overtime. California’s new rules requiring overtime pay for farmworkers are being phased in so they’ll make time-and-a-half after 8-hour days and 40-hour work weeks, like other workers. But Assemblymember James Gallagher, a Chico City Republican, says that’s hurting farmworkers and farmers; his bill would partly roll back those changes, The Sacramento Bee reports.
- Flooding help. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors this week set aside nearly $10 million more, after it already spent $10 million, to help house and feed people displaced by a Jan. 22 storm that flooded mostly underserved neighborhoods. It caused $30.8 million in public damage, displaced 1,225 households and affected 7,750 people, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
- Black homelessness. About 26% of California’s unhoused population is Black, though African Americans make up just 7% of state residents, The Sacramento Bee reports. Blame the housing shortage, but add racism, employment struggles, incarceration and mental health challenges, the report says.
Thanks for following our work on the California Divide team. While you’re here, please tell us what kinds of stories you’d love to read. Email us at inequalityinsights@calmatters.org.
Thanks for reading,
The California Divide Team