The Brief

The California Legislature approved a bill Wednesday that supporters say protects residents’ rights to give food or other support to unhoused people without fear of breaking the law.

Senate Bill 634, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, prohibits cities from enacting or enforcing laws that stop people from assisting unhoused residents with basic survival.

That includes providing food, water, bedding, shelter, medical help and legal services. The bill was co-sponsored by the Inner City Law Center, a legal services nonprofit based in L.A.'s Skid Row.

Local advocates for the unhoused say the new law will protect service providers and good Samaritans.

“ You can’t say that it's a crime to give somebody a bottle of water or food or to provide them with legal services or medical services just because they don't have a home,” said Ishvaku Vashishtha, an Inner City Law legal fellow. “That is the fundamental premise of this bill.”

Why this bill?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year in Grants Pass v. Johnson that cities can enforce camping bans even when homeless shelter space is unavailable.

After that ruling, dozens of California cities passed new laws banning homeless encampments — or strengthened their existing anti-camping laws.

In February, the city of Fremont in Northern California voted to criminalize "aiding and abetting" homeless encampments. The city removed that language from its camping ban in March, after public backlash.

But it was a warning sign to homeless-rights advocates.

“ I think this just highlighted the need for some degree of intervention and for drawing a line in the sand and saying enough is enough,” said Vashishtha, who worked on SB 634.

Dozens of cities around the country have bans on food sharing through new restrictions linked to public property or food safety, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. And some local leaders have been critical of programs that feed unhoused people in public places, arguing that they enable street homelessness.

In 2021, the city of Santa Ana in Orange County stopped nonprofit Micah’s Way from running a program to feed unhoused people by refusing to grant the necessary permits.

The organization filed a legal complaint against Santa Ana, arguing that feeding the hungry is protected religious activity under federal law. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement supporting Micah’s Way’s argument.

In 2018, the city of El Cajon in San Diego County cited a dozen people for feeding unhoused people in a public park during a hepatitis A outbreak.

What’s next?

The new law would not override any local ordinances, including public health laws.

With President Donald Trump’s recent executive order seeking to overhaul the way the U.S. manages homelessness, advocates worry more cities will try to make it illegal to help unhoused people.

“ We are concerned about this being the start of something dangerous and trying to nip that in the bud,” said Mahdi Manji, Inner City Law Center’s policy director.

Several California cities, counties, towns, and law enforcement agencies have voiced opposition to the legislation, though many dropped that opposition after amendments to SB 634.

The legislation now heads to the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Trump administration is suing California over a law preventing new oil and gas wells from being located too close to schools, homes and other sensitive sites. The 2022 law, Senate Bill 1137, prevents new drilling within a safety zone of 3,200 feet, a little over half a mile, around schools, hospitals and parks, based on public health recommendations.

In the suit filed in January in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, the U.S. Department of Justice said SB 1137 violates federal law and hampers domestic energy development. “SB 1137 would knock out about one-third of all federally authorized oil and gas leases in California,” said the Department of Justice in a press release. The government’s request for a preliminary injunction stopping the enforcement of SB 1137 is scheduled to be heard on March 20.

SB 1137 went into effect in 2024 after a long battle between environmental health groups and the oil industry. The 3,200-foot buffer was created to reduce exposure to harmful toxins. However, there are already many oil and gas wells within the safety zone protecting schools, and the law allows those wells to continue operating as long as they comply with additional regulations. Those new requirements include closely monitoring emissions, reporting leaks and accidents and limiting dust, noise and light emanating from the facility.

Health and safety risks with exposure to oil wells

As many Californians know, oil extraction has a long history in the state. With urban sprawl, neighborhoods and schools ended up near wells. The close proximity of children to the wells can have deadly impacts, claim environmental justice advocates, due to highly toxic chemical byproducts of oil extraction, including benzene and hydrogen sulfide. Communities close to oil and gas wells, studies have suggested, are at increased risk for asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disorders and negative birth outcomes.

In addition to long-term health impacts, there are immediate safety issues involving oil production sites, with several noted accidents in the past year: an explosion and fire at a refinery in El Segundo and oil spills in Ventura and Monterey counties.

A history of oil wells near homes and schools

Unlike other oil-producing states, California drilling often happens close to homes and directly in neighborhoods. A 2020 analysis found that over 2 million people in the state live within a half-mile of an oil or gas well. About 7.37 million Californians live within 1 mile of a well — nearly one-fifth of the state’s population — with low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately exposed.

Oil and gas wells are concentrated in Southern California, where they appear in often surprising places — like the oil derrick (now decommissioned) once located at Beverly Hills High School. Many schools are even closer than the 3,200-foot setback mandated by SB 1137 for new drilling, with 175 schools within 1,500 feet (a more conservative safety zone used by the Dallas City Council in a 2013 ruling) of an oil or gas well.

A concentration of schools near oil wells in the Los Angeles basin

EdSource’s analysis showed the greatest numbers of schools located in the state’s safety zone are within the Los Angeles basin, including the city of Los Angeles and the nearby cities of Long Beach, Compton, Torrance, Whittier, Montebello and Huntington Beach. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, 165 schools are within 3,200 feet of an oil or gas well, nearly 13% of LAUSD schools. In Long Beach, 23% of schools are in the SB 1137 safety zone — 22 of a total of 94 schools.

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Justin Allen

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EdSource

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Justin Allen

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EdSource

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EdSource Data Journalist Daniel J. Willis contributed to this report.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

With the Trump administration escalating immigration enforcement, a number of California municipal and county governments are setting aside public money to help immigrants and rapid response networks build legal defenses.

San Francisco and Alameda County are among the latest to designate additional money for immigrants to defend themselves against deportation. In October, when President Donald Trump threatened to increase Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors beefed up its defense fund by a unanimous vote with $3.5 million. In March, Alameda County doubled the fund it had started with $3.5 million.

Richmond, Los Angeles and Santa Clara County also have established immigration defense funds. And Bay Area cities have joined forces to create Stand Together Bay Area Fund, a legal resource completely funded by philanthropy.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said it’s in the county’s best interest to protect immigrants, who make up 40% of its population.

“ We have a direct nexus and concern to people who are working, living, raising families, paying taxes, participating in our community and keeping our economy and our social fabric strong,” Ellenberg said. “ So our local dollars are being spent to protect local interests.”

Caitlin Patler, associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy, said the funds are necessary, given the large immigrant population in the United States and the punitive nature of immigration courts.

“I don't think that anyone should be representing themselves in any courtroom when the government comes with an attorney every time,” she said.

Unlike criminal cases, deportation proceedings are in civil court, which means those defending themselves against the federal government do not have a right to a court-appointed lawyer free of charge. But the cases have an enormous impact on people’s lives.

“Immigration judges have said these cases are like adjudicating life sentences in a traffic court setting,” Patler said.

Legal funds precede Trump's election

Local government investments in defense funds for immigrants are not new, and they precede the Trump era.

In 2013, New York City became the first major city to implement a pilot legal defense fund for immigrants, after the Obama administration ramped up enforcement. San Francisco launched a similar program the following year.

A 2014 study by the Northern California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice found that immigrants represented by a lawyer from a number of Bay Area nonprofits won 83% of their removal hearings, substantially higher than those who had no representation. But two-thirds of detained immigrants didn’t have any access to legal counsel.

California established an Immigrant Assistance Program in 2015, shortly after the Obama administration expanded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, enabling more immigrants who came to the U.S. undocumented as children to legally live and work. Known as “One California,” the $45 million fund supports nonprofits that serve immigrants including with legal help. The program prohibits funds to be used for those convicted of a serious felony.

The fund is part of the annual budget year after year, although debates have emerged on whether the funds can be used by immigrants with felony convictions. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a budget bill that some immigrant advocates criticized as too restrictive because it appeared to expand the number of felony offenses that exclude someone from state-supported legal support. Newsom’s stance aligned with Republicans who wanted to tighten access to the fund. 

While immigrant defense funds started more than a decade ago, the trend picked up in late 2016, after Trump’s first election. That year, Trump campaigned on toughening border enforcement and discouraging immigration throughout the country.

Los Angeles soon after Trump’s inauguration in 2017 became one of the cities to set up funds for immigrants to use against deportation.

It was the start of a $10 million public-private fund launched by former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The Los Angeles Justice Fund, which was expanded in 2022 to create RepresentLA, is an ongoing investment by the city, county and philanthropic organizations.

More funding after Trump's re-election

A month before Trump’s second presidency, Santa Clara County allocated $5 million to support response activities related to Trump’s targeting of immigrants. Since then, it has increased that allocation to $13 million.

Santa Clara’s fund is more expansive than most others, Ellenberg said, supporting an array of immigration resource organizations including the Rapid Response Network, as well as legal defense, outreach, education and prevention efforts.

Demonstrators chant during a protest against recent federal immigration enforcement efforts, outside Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Feb. 8, 2026.

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Jungho Kim

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CalMatters

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In September, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stood at a news conference with the mayors of Oakland and San Jose to announce the Stand Together Bay Area Fund, with a goal of raising $10 million to support immigrant families impacted by detentions and deportations. The cities have not allocated any public dollars to this fund, which is being managed by the nonprofit San Francisco Foundation.

“ My understanding is that their role is to support fundraising,” said Rachel Benditt, the foundation’s spokesperson. “I do not believe that they will be donating money from the city budgets.”

In a news release about the fund, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said it will pool resources from individuals, corporations, the faith community, and philanthropic partners to support nonprofit groups working with immigrant communities.

Three Alameda County supervisors are using some taxpayer money to support the effort. It will come from the so-called discretionary budgets they receive to support activities in their districts. Supervisor Nikki Fortnato Bas said she will donate $50,000 to the cause.

“These dollars are one piece of a much larger fight,” she said in a news release. “A fight for dignity, for rights, and for the future of our democracy.”

This story is part of “The Stakes,” a UC Berkeley Journalism project on executive orders and actions affecting Californians and their communities.