A building set to have forty apartment units with four retail stores is under construction at the intersection of Wilshire and 6th Street in Santa Monica. May 24, 2023. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for CalMatters

Good morning, Inequality Insights readers. I’m CalMatters housing affordability reporter Felicia Mello. 

One in five California children comes from a mixed-status family, in which at least one member is undocumented, according to the California Immigrant Data Portal. Concern is growing among housing advocates that those families risk losing access to federal housing assistance once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

That’s because Trump administration officials proposed such a change during his first term, floating a rule that would have barred mixed-status families from receiving public housing and Section 8 vouchers. (Currently, mixed-status families can get pro-rated benefits based on how many family members are eligible.) The change was never implemented, but Los Angeles housing authorities estimated at the time that it would have led to the displacement of more than 10,000 people in that city alone.

If the federal government were to enact a similar rule today, “there’s a large number of households in California that would be impacted — mixed-status families who would have to make that hard choice of separating as a family or leaving their housing and quite possibly not being able to find an alternative,” Chione Flegal, executive director of the advocacy group Housing California, told me earlier this week.

Trump has offered few specifics about his housing plans. But the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump administration, in a section written by former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, calls for reviving the ban on mixed-status families, along with adding time limits and work requirements for housing benefits and selling off land owned by public housing authorities.

California could push back by supplementing Section 8 voucher funding or using state money to build affordable housing that wouldn’t be bound by the federal rules, Flegal said – though that would be “incredibly expensive.” 
You can find out more about how an incoming Trump administration might affect housing affordability in the state – from raising tariffs on construction materials to building “Freedom Cities” on federal land – in my story.

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  • Fair employment. A new San Diego County ordinance aims to give people with a criminal record a better chance of gaining employment in the unincorporated areas of the county, building on the state’s Fair Chance Act, according to the county news site.
  • Toxic air? State regulators report that they have found detectable levels of pesticides floating in the air in multiple large farming regions. Every year, California growers apply more than 180 million pounds of pesticides to crops in an effort to defend them from weeds, fungi, insects, and other pests.
  • Schools bracing. California schools are bracing for Trump’s attacks on immigrants, trans students and ‘woke’ curriculum. More than 115,000 children in California were undocumented in the most recent census count, and it’s estimated almost half of California children have at least one immigrant parent.
  • Tariffs impact. Trump’s proposed tariffs, especially on China and Mexico, could hit California hard. Trump has threatened new, higher tariffs on two of California’s biggest trade partners, China and Mexico. The state’s workers and economy could feel the most impact.

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

Felicia Mello covers the state’s economic divide, including such issues as affordable housing, labor rights and environmental and social justice. Prior to joining the California Divide team in 2023,...