Bill Text: CA AB71 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Introduced

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Homelessness funding: Bring California Home Act.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 8-0)

Status: (Failed) 2022-02-01 - Died on inactive file. [AB71 Detail]

Download: California-2021-AB71-Introduced.html

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CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill

No. 71

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Introduced by Assembly Members Luz Rivas and Chiu
(Coauthor: Assembly Member Quirk-Silva)

December 07, 2020

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An act relating to homelessness.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 71, as introduced, Luz Rivas. Statewide homelessness solutions program.

Existing law requires the Governor to create the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (referred to as “the coordinating council”) and to appoint up to 19 members of that council, as provided. Existing law specifies the duties of the coordinating council, including creating partnerships among state agencies and departments, local government agencies, and specified federal agencies and private entities, for the purpose of arriving at specific strategies to end homelessness. The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law impose taxes upon taxable income for the taxable year, as specified.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to create a comprehensive, statewide homelessness solutions program. This bill would create the Bring California Home Fund in the State Treasury for the purpose of providing at least $2,400,000 annually to fund a comprehensive, statewide homeless solutions program upon appropriation by the Legislature. The bill would require the Bring California Home Fund to contain revenues derived from specified changes to the Personal Income Tax Law or the Corporation Tax Law that are enacted on or after the effective of the date of this bill.

Digest Key

Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

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Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) In January 2019, an estimated 151,278 people experienced homelessness in California at a single point in time, as reported by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is the highest number since 2007, and represented a 17-percent increase since 2018. Experts predict significant increases in homelessness in 2021 resulting from the COVID-19 economic downturn.

(b) African Americans are disproportionately represented among California’s homeless population. While 6.5 percent of Californians identify as Black or African-American, almost 40 percent of the state’s homeless population is African-American. Indigenous populations are over six times more likely to experience homelessness than the general population. Latinx Californians are least likely to access housing and services available in their communities.

(c) Research suggests homeless populations are at far greater risk for consequences of COVID-19. Early studies estimated people experiencing homelessness are two to three times as likely to die from COVID-19 than the general population. COVID-19 is putting pressure on local homeless systems to open safe sites for people to shelter, in noncongregant settings, to avoid the spread of COVID-19.

(d) Homeless is a statewide crisis in California which requires a statewide, comprehensive solution that meets its scale.

(e) While California has made significant one-time investments in local homelessness solutions through the successful Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) Program, and Homekey program, multi-year, predictable investments are needed to support a sustained strategy.

(f) The state must lead in coordinating with local governments and the private sector to solve homelessness and to prevent discharges from institutional settings into homelessness.

(g) It is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to create a comprehensive, statewide homelessness solutions program. This program will fill gaps within the state’s response to homelessness, scale evidence-based solutions while promoting innovation to move people quickly into permanent housing, establish greater flexibility and a more nimble process in implementing a comprehensive response to homelessness, facilitate critically needed collaboration between different levels of government, foster a streamlined process at the local and state levels to fund and build housing opportunities more quickly, hold local governments and the state accountable for achieving results, and focus on evidence-based housing and housing-based services solutions and long-term state and local structural changes.

(h) Furthermore, it is the intent of the Legislature that through the adoption of these strategies, the state and local governments will achieve measurable reductions in homelessness, ensuring that it becomes brief, rare, and nonrecurrent.

(i) Furthermore, it is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to fund this comprehensive program with new, ongoing revenues of at least $2.4 billion per year from one or more of the following sources:

(1) An increase in the personal income tax on incomes over $1 million.

(2) An increase in the corporate income tax to historical rates, a more progressive corporate income tax, and conformity with the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including the inclusion of Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI).

(3) Eliminating or limiting corporate tax loopholes, including the water’s edge election.

(4) Marking to market unrealized capital gains and the repeal of stepped-up in basis of inherited assets.

SEC. 2.

 (a) The Bring California Home Fund is hereby created in the State Treasury for the purpose of providing at least two million four hundred thousand dollars ($2,400,000) annually to fund a comprehensive, statewide homeless solutions program upon appropriation by the Legislature.

(b) The Bring California Home Fund shall contain revenues derived from any of following changes to the Personal Income Tax Law (Part 10 (commencing with Section 17001) of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code) or the Corporation Tax Law (Part 11 (commencing with Section 23001) of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code) that are enacted on or after the effective of the date of the act adding this section:

(1) An increase in the personal income tax on incomes over one million dollars ($1,000,000).

(2) An increase in the corporate income tax to historical rates, a more progressive corporate income tax, and conformity with the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including the inclusion of Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI).

(3) Eliminating or limiting corporate tax loopholes, including the water’s edge election.

(4) Marking to market unrealized capital gains and the repeal of stepped-up in basis of inherited assets.