(The Center Square) – A California bill that aims to help homeless teens is one step closer to becoming law.
Assembly Bill 673, authored by Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley, passed out of the Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday. It now goes to the Assembly Committee on Human Services for further debate and testimony.
The bill would require the California Department of Education to oversee a new pilot program – the Unaccompanied Youth Support Program.
This program would administer five-year grants to school districts throughout the state to provide temporary housing for homeless 16- and 17-year old students enrolled in school but who are not in the foster care system, according to the bill analysis. School districts that get grant funding would have to work with other local agencies that specialize in providing those kinds of services, like nonprofits or local health and human services departments.
“Because we know, we have a moral responsibility to act,” Jackson told The Center Square after the committee meeting on Wednesday. “It’s a multi-systems approach. It’s not just the school system, it’s the county, it’s the community, to find a way to fund this void in our safety net.”
According to statistics compiled by the California Department of Education, approximately 298,254 homeless students are enrolled in school across the state, although Jackson told The Center Square on Wednesday that roughly 8,831 of those students are teens in the age group that the bill aims to help. The department’s data also reflects that roughly 6.7% of homeless students live in shelters, 5.6% live in hotels or motels, 3.9% are temporarily unsheltered and 83.3% are living with other people temporarily.
“Unaccompanied and homeless youth, particularly 16- and 17-year-olds, have significantly lower attendance and graduation rates,” Eric Dunk, legislative representative for the California Department of Education, said during the Education Committee meeting. “At the same time, these young people are especially vulnerable. They are on the brink of adulthood, yet they lack the legal rights and access to housing and services that adult homeless individuals have.”
Federal law does require school districts to identify and provide supportive resources to those students, Dunk said during the meeting, but not many school districts in California have the funding to carry out those mandates. Jackson’s bill closes that gap, Dunk said on Wednesday.
“AB 673 is a targeted solution to support schools in stabilizing students’ lives so they can focus on learning and graduating,” Dunk said during the meeting.
While there is currently no budget associated with the bill if it is passed into law, Jackson anticipates that he’ll know how much of the budget will be allocated to his bill later in the year.
“We’re going to have to dig a little deeper,” Jackson told The Center Square on Wednesday. “In the appropriations process, we’ll start to see how it scored in terms of how much it may cost. I think like anything, if we can get five, ten, $20 million to at least start the grant program, I think that would be a huge win.”
