(The Center Square) — Farmworker families could benefit from proposed funding changes to a home energy program if lawmakers grant an extension to spend up to $10 million to heat or cool farmworker housing, according to documents from the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Human Services.
Changes to funding for such programs and services could be reflected in California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised budget proposal, which lawmakers anticipate will be released in the next couple of weeks.
Officials with the Department of Community Services and Development proposed changes to the Low-Income Weatherization Program, which uses greenhouse gas reduction money to pay for low-income families and farmworker families to heat or cool their homes without increasing their energy bills.
The timeline to spend money allocated to the Low-Income Weatherization Program ends on June 30, 2026. Officials with the department asked lawmakers to extend that timeline to June 30, 2027 for the farmworker portion of the program and June 30, 2028 for the multi-family part of the program.
The second budget change to the Department of Community Services and Development would allow department officials to spend $10 million of Low-Income Weatherization Program money on solar photovoltaic program design and procuring materials to assist farmworker families with paying for solar energy systems for their homes, according to materials from the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Human Services.
Proposition 4, which California voters passed in 2024, approved $10 billion for projects designed to combat climate change. The measure also prioritized projects for low-income communities throughout the state, according to the voter information guide for the November 2024 election.
Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley and chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Human Services, asked during the meeting if there were ways for the Department of Community Services and Development to use current state resources to help Californians who stand to lose services normally paid for by federal taxpayer dollars, like CalFresh or Medicaid, referred to as Medi-Cal in California.
“You have a number of anti-poverty organizations and work that’s under your purview,” Jackson said to Jason Wimbley, director of the California Department of Community Services and Development, during the meeting. “We’ve talked about the possible opportunities to really think about how we can utilize the level of expertise that’s in every county. How can we use that infrastructure to be able to do or to possibly address the ramifications that we anticipate due to H.R. 1 [the One Big Beautiful Bill Act]?”
Wimbley said in response that many of the offices and agencies under the purview of the Department of Community Services and Development are, by nature, anti-poverty organizations. People who work for those agencies will know more in the future regarding how reductions or eliminations of federally-funded social services will impact California communities, Wimbley said.
“I’m confident as conversations continue to evolve with our community action agencies, we will get a clearer sense of what the impacts are for these counties and how these communities responded to the impact changes associated with CalFresh and Medi-Cal,” Wimbley told the committee. “They will put together a plan of attack for how they as an organization can draw on the resources available to them to address the needs of those who have been directly impacted by these changes.”
According to a February 2026 report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, new work requirements instituted by the federal government for food assistance recipients to continue to be eligible will put roughly 665,000 people at risk of losing their CalFresh benefits, known nationally as SNAP, or Supplemental Food Assistance Program. An additional 72,000 illegal immigrants are set to lose CalFresh benefits because of federal rule changes to who can get food assistance, according to that report.
Medi-Cal is also subject to changing federal rules about who is eligible to receive taxpayer-funded health care. While there is no official estimate of how many Californians will lose Medi-Cal this year, many current recipients stand to lose their health insurance because of new Medi-Cal work requirements, shorter timelines between mandatory re-certification deadlines and immigrant status requirements, according to the California Health Care Foundation.
Officials with the California Department of Community Services and Development did not respond to The Center Square on Thursday afternoon. Jackson was not available to speak to The Center Square. Organizations that help farmworkers with housing and other services, like the United Farm Workers, La Cooperativa, the Center for Farmworker Families and Farmworker Justice, were unreachable or did not respond to The Center Square on Thursday.
