California Policy Lab January 2025 Newsletter

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Developing performance metrics to help reduce homelessness in Los Angeles

CPL is working with our LA County government partners to establish metrics measuring progress towards four goals focused on reducing homelessness. A new draft report includes these metrics as well as trend estimates for the previous five years. This analysis will help inform the County’s Measure A spending plan and setting performance targets. Report

CalFresh use at California Community Colleges

About 1 in 5 California Community College students were eligible for CalFresh in Fall 2019 (346,000 students), but only 26% of those eligible individuals (88,000 students) participated. The brief provides campus-level data on the share of eligible students, the share of eligible students who participated, and take-up rates in Fall 2019.  Policy brief

How enrollment at California Community Colleges changed during the pandemic

A new policy brief shows how CalFresh eligibility among California Community College students was impacted by changes in enrollment and by temporary policy changes that added two exemptions for college students to be eligible for CalFresh. Among students who were income-eligible, a much larger share met an exemption (which are required for college students to be eligible for CalFresh), increasing from 35% in Fall 2018 to 69% in Fall 2021. Policy brief

Interview: Short-term impacts of bail policy on crime in Los Angeles

Dr. Johanna Lacoe, Research Director at CPL’s UC Berkeley site, was interviewed about CPL’s recent report that focused on three distinct policy changes to bail policy in LA to estimate the short-run effects on jail populations, crime reports, and arrests. The report found that while the changes impacted the number of people who were held in jail, for the most part, there were no changes in total crime reports or arrests following the changes. Interview

CPL speaks at “Research to Solve Problems” conference

Evan White, Executive Director of CPL’s UC Berkeley site, spoke about the role that university-based research labs (like CPL) can play in supporting state and local government innovation. He focused on the role of long-term partnerships and shared data infrastructure in improving policies and programs  — such as increasing access to anti-poverty programs during the pandemic.

Interview: Who benefits from automatic record relief in California?

Alissa Skog, Researcher at CPL’s UC Berkeley site, shared insights from CPL’s report, which focused on California’s expansive laws to automate record relief for people with criminal records. One key finding from the report is that nearly 70% of people with a conviction between 2010-21 likely had all of their convictions and non-convictions automatically “relieved,” granting them a “clean slate.” Interview

A preview of 2025: What research will CPL publish this year?

We will:

• Show how many students stay enrolled in CalFresh in the move from high school to college
• Partner with LA City and County to finalize metrics and targets for Measure A, which will fund $1.1 billion per year in homelessness services and affordable housing construction
• Share new insights on migration patterns into, out of, and within California
• Simplify and improve California’s criminal justice system through our research partnership with the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code
• Share evidence on educational and labor market outcomes for California’s 16 adult workforce education and training programs
• Evaluate the impact of time-limited housing subsidies on homelessness among Transition-Aged Youth
• Assess the impact of CalHFA’s “Dream for All” shared appreciation mortgage, in partnership with UCB’s Terner Center
• Share new insights on how emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence, will impact workers and firms

CPL is carefully following how the new federal administration affects California, and we are well-positioned to assess those changes because of our pre-existing partnerships and ready access to government data.

California College Data and Policy Project awarded $200k grant from College Futures Foundation

“We’re thrilled to receive this grant, which will support our work with our partners to use enrollment, financial aid, and safety-net data to identify students who are eligible for these supports, and then target outreach with a goal of increasing the number of students who enroll,” explains co-faculty director Jesse Rothstein. This is the first external support for the new California College Data and Policy Project, which is led by Prof. Rothstein. Press release

Reminder: CPL datasets and funding opportunities

CPL facilitates dataset access for external researchers and most dataset applications are accepted either on a monthly or ongoing basis. Receive a quarterly reminder about these opportunities. CPL datasets

Welcome new CPL staff! 

Kelsey is focused on CPL’s research focused on homelessness, and Paul is working on unemployment insurance research.

New posting: researcher, homelessness policy

This is an exciting role for an early- or mid-career researcher who wants to design and conduct policy-relevant research with administrative data in California. The new role will focus primarily on homelessness prevention. The role can be hybrid or remote. Researcher job opening

LA thinks AI could help decide which homeless people get scarce housing — and which don’t

In this article, Brian Blackwell, Senior Data Scientist at CPL’s UCLA site, shares his insights from CPL’s work to streamline a triage tool used to assess people for homelessness services —and to make sure the new tool did not introduce racial inequities.

Fed lowers interest rates again but pares back plans for more cuts in the future

This article cites rising delinquency rates, especially for millennials (ages 28-43), based on trends from CPL’s California Credit Dashboard, which provides near-real-time updates on the financial lives of Californians.

Policy experiment stations to accelerate state and local government innovation

Evan White was part of a team that wrote this Day One memo, which suggests that a national network of university-based “Policy Experiment Stations” in each state, supported by federal and state appropriations, could help accelerate state and local government innovation.

How LA County is using AI to predict and prevent homelessness

This article focuses on the Homelessness Prevention Unit (HPU), a program that CPL partners on with Los Angeles County. Janey Rountree explains that addressing the homelessness crisis requires also focusing on prevention programs like the HPU.

Support our work
Consider donating to support our work generating research insights for government impact. If you are interested in making a larger gift, please reach out to Evan White or Janey Rountree to discuss opportunities to support CPL.