The Brief

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is exploring the idea of giving struggling Americans cash aid instead of vouchers. That might seem like an unlikely, bold new move for the federal housing agency — except it turns out that back in the 1970s, HUD was already testing the idea.

Before the cash-aid results were even in, however, HUD launched its voucher program that now serves millions of people. A few years ago, a HUD employee came across the reports from its 1970s tests and wondered whether the idea was worth a new look.
“It’s taken us 50 years to come back to it and really experiment with it once again,” says Solomon Greene, who helps develop policy at HUD.

Why it matters

The housing voucher program has been a lifeline for millions of people, but there are real problems. There aren't nearly enough federal housing vouchers for everyone who qualifies, and many people wait years for them. What happens next can be even more frustrating.

When Elizabeth Alvandi finally got a voucher in 2022, she drove from North Carolina to Massachusetts to try and find an apartment near her aging dad. “I am sleeping in my car and doing the best I can to make the most of every moment that I'm there,” she recalled. But for three months she was rejected again and again, or told nothing was available.

“There were a couple conversations that just ended,” she says, “when they asked what my income was and how I'd be paying for it.”

No one said it was because of her housing voucher. In fact, discriminating like that is banned in some 20 states. And yet, Alvandi could not find a landlord to take it.

Why vouchers come with problems

“The underlying problem that we're facing is just because you get a voucher allocated to you does not mean you get to use it,” says Preston Prince, executive director of the Santa Clara County Housing Authority in Northern California.

Vouchers allow recipients to pay 30% of their income on rent, with the government covering the rest. But according to one analysis, 40% of all voucher holders were unable to sign a lease after looking for six months. A 2018 study by the Urban Institute found even higher rejection rates in some cities.

Landlords are put off by agency red tape and things like mandatory inspections to make sure a property is safe. That process can drag on for weeks or months, costing owners money as their rental properties sit empty and making vouchers an especially tough sell in a hot housing market.

Prince has been among a growing number of housing officials and advocates pushing for a different way, even though it can feel risky to tinker with a program that still helps 5 million very low-income Americans.

“I've dedicated 35 years of my career to housing,” Prince says. “Asking that question of, like, ‘Have we been doing it wrong?’ is a little scary.”

How we got here

The idea of using cash instead of vouchers has gotten a boost from successful pandemic aid programs, as well as from dozens of basic income experiments around the country. Philadelphia is already testing this, giving cash directly to 300 renters. The federal government is now exploring that on a far bigger scale.

This summer, HUD put out a formal request for more research on the impact of paying renters directly. The department has no new funding to do that itself, so it called on others to organize experiments, though HUD did offer a suggestion on how they could work.

“There are some tricky things that agencies will have to go through when they do this,” says Brian McCabe of Georgetown University, who worked on this issue during a recent stint at HUD.

He says a key goal of cash is getting people housed faster. So one big challenge will be how to carry out inspections without slowing down the lease process. One option could be a self-inspection.

“We might have a checklist and say 'these are the things I'm looking for.' It may be that I move in with cash and then after I've moved in, the agency comes and does an inspection,” McCabe says. And maybe that inspection is done remotely over video.

Another question is whether tenants would be able to spend their monthly cash aid on something other than rent. Advocates say trusting families with that kind of flexibility could help them better manage urgent, competing expenses, although it also opens up the possibility that more people may fall behind on rent. On the other hand, if the cash aid could only be spent on housing, how could that be enforced without re-creating too much red tape?

The potential benefits of cash

James Riccio, with the research group MDRC, has taken up HUD’s call to explore cash payments and will help design one pilot program. It needs more funding, but so far has signed up six housing agencies across the country, including the one headed by Preston Prince in Santa Clara County.

Riccio says they will evaluate whether having money on hand helps more people find a place to live. “Will the whole process of leasing up happen more quickly? Which could save time and money for the housing authority and certainly for tenants as well,” he says.

He also wonders if cash could make it easier for people to move to better neighborhoods.

That was a core aim when then-President Richard Nixon called for letting people make their own decisions about where to live. In a special message to Congress in 1973, he said traditional public housing had left people isolated in “monstrous, depressing places — run down, overcrowded, crime-ridden, falling apart.” But half a century later, Riccio says it’s still the case that “voucher recipients tend to concentrate in a smaller number of higher poverty communities.”

What's next

Solomon Greene of HUD says these new tests will take years. And if HUD ever did want to make a large-scale shift — from paying landlords to paying tenants directly — it would need congressional authority. For now, he says housing vouchers will continue to help the millions of people who depend on them.

“Your cost burden goes down. You are more likely to be able to stay in your unit longer,” he says. “There's a rich body of research showing that vouchers are the most effective way of preventing recidivism or returns to homelessness.”

Could giving renters cash do all that? Greene says emphatically that at this point, “we don’t know.” And HUD won’t make any changes until there’s evidence they work.
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A Cal State University lecturer charged with assaulting federal officers with tear gas was acquitted on Thursday.

Jonathan Caravello, a philosophy lecturer at Cal State Channel Islands, was arrested while protesting a raid at a licensed cannabis farm in Ventura County last summer.

For three days, Caravello’s colleagues, friends, family and students packed the courtroom at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The jury returned a verdict within about two hours, according to Caravello’s attorney, Knut Johnson.

“He was never trying to hurt anyone and didn't hurt anyone,” Johnson told LAist Thursday after the verdict was rendered. “He knows that trying to hurt people or hurting them does nothing to help the cause he supports.”

What was the case about?

The federal government said agents were executing a search warrant at the farm, in search of evidence of unlawful employment. In his opening statement Wednesday, assistant U.S. attorney Roger Hsieh said agents deployed the tear gas because protesters obstructed traffic on a two-lane road. Hsieh said Caravello picked up the canister agents deployed and threw it back at them.

Caravello's legal team, led by Johnson, underscored that the lecturer did not hurt anyone and shared a video showing federal vehicles making their way across the road. The defense also said Caravaello picked up and threw the canister as far as he could—past the agents—to keep protesters safe from harm.

The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU faculty, said in a statement Thursday that they welcomed the jury's decision.

"After a thorough investigation by the court, John was cleared of any wrongdoing," the statement said. "The jury’s decision underscores John’s right to peacefully protest and speak out against the cruelty and inhumanity this administration has shown toward immigrants and other marginalized communities across the country."

Senior editor for education Ross Brenneman contributed to this story.

On Thursday morning, L.A. Councilmember Eunisse Hernandez stood at Lacy Street Neighborhood Park in the shadow of the 5 and 110 freeway interchange. Just last year, she said, the Lincoln Heights park and the areas near the freeway were filled with unhoused people. But now, thanks to a $6 million state grant awarded last fall, the park is clear and dozens of people are in temporary and permanent housing.

“Today we’re here to celebrate that 59 of our neighbors, human beings, finally have a roof over their heads,” she said.

The funds were secured by Hernandez from California’s Encampment Resolution Funds, which targeted a 4-mile stretch of the 110 Freeway.

A long to-do list before housing is secured

The grant helped pay health and social workers from public and private agencies and nonprofits, including employees with USC’s California Street Collaborative.

These workers helped people straighten things out before they moved into housing, like finding IDs, matching housing with disability needs and space for pets.

That kind of help requires building trust between the worker and the unhoused person, said Caitlin Schwan, director of the California Street Collaborative.

“And it takes an investment of resources and a lot of coalitions, a lot of partnerships across street medicine, housing providers, service providers,” she said.

Los Angeles Global Care has been as the primary interim housing provider. It also provides daily meals to those transitioning to housing, help with pets and case management.

Rigo Vega was unhoused and lived near the 110 Freeway for four years.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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“I used to live right here under the bridge for like, four years,” said Rigo Vega, who attended the announcement at the park.

Outreach workers, he said, helped him get food and clothes, and the paperwork needed to get into housing last November. Now that’s settled him enough for him to set a goal for himself, “to work, to get a job,” he said.

Hernandez’s office said the goal is to house 11 more people with the grant funds.

Topline:

What's on offer: The temple's Thai food court is a must-visit for many during regular weekends, when a large collection of food vendors set up stalls around the temple, similar to what you'd see in Bangkok. Expect this and more at the festival. We're told you should try the Thai gelato. The temple itself is also beautiful.

When and where: The temple is at 8225 Coldwater Canyon Ave., North Hollywood. There's additional parking at the Kaiser Permanente in Panorama City with a free shuttle to the festival. The temple is open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day. The opening ceremony starts at 1 p.m. Saturday.

A union-backed proposal to tax California’s billionaires to fund health care has put some progressive lawmakers — and their labor allies — in a quandary.

Taxing the rich to backfill Trump-induced federal funding cuts might sound like a no-brainer policy for the party’s left flank, which counts wealth inequality among its top issues.

But despite a strong show of support from prominent national figures, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and liberal economist Robert Reich, the “2026 California Billionaire Tax Act” has become a hot potato for labor leaders.

The proposed initiative would levy a one-time tax of 5% on any resident of California whose net worth exceeds $1 billion, which applies to around 200 people, according to Forbes. That money would plug an estimated $100 billion hole left by federal cuts to Medi-Cal and other social service programs.

Publicly, prominent labor and progressive players have largely kept quiet, unlike Gov. Gavin Newsom who has aired his disdain loud and clear. Yet in private, some union leaders and their allies in the Legislature rail against the measure. Of the critics who spoke with CalMatters for this story — three union leaders and five members of the Legislative Progressive Caucus — only one lawmaker would criticize the measure openly.

Critics question its feasibility and whether the state even knows how to accurately appraise a billionaire’s total wealth, a crucial step to evaluating how much tax they would owe. They fear long-term revenue loss by driving wealthy people out of California. And some resent that the union sponsoring the initiative, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, designed the measure to predominantly benefit its members rather than boost the state’s general fund, where it could go to all budget needs.

“It's not that taxing billionaires in itself is wrong,” said Keely Martin Bosler, formerly the top state budget officer to Newsom and former Gov. Jerry Brown. She is now a Democratic consultant who has advised several of California’s most powerful labor groups, including the Service Employees International Union of California, the parent union of SEIU-UHW. “The way in which this tax specifically is constructed is problematic.”

Many progressive state lawmakers and Capitol heavyweights, such as Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and the powerful California Labor Federation, have sidestepped the question of whether they’d support it, declining for now to take a position on an initiative that has yet to officially qualify for the ballot.

“The Labor Federation won’t take it up for an endorsement until July,” said Lorena Gonzalez, the organization’s president, in a text message.

Yet if the tax lands on the November ballot, as it appears on track to do, progressive critics will be saddled with the tricky optics of opposing — or at least not supporting — a measure that embodies one of their base’s core tenets: taxing the rich.

Even the mere threat the measure could qualify for the ballot has already spurred a torrent of opposition spending — more than $50 million in total so far — from billionaires such as Google co-founder Sergey Brin and cryptocurrency mogul Chris Larsen. Brin’s group, known as “Building a Better California,” has also spawned three new competing ballot measures designed to undermine the billionaires’ tax.

Critics fear that if billionaires like Brin become even bigger perennial spenders in California politics, they could neuter the progressive agenda by bankrolling more business-friendly candidates and ousting left-leaning, labor-aligned legislators.

But the measure’s proponents say they are undeterred by the secretive detractors and challenge their critics to put their names behind their words.

Dave Regan speaks to the SEIU-UHW Leadership Assembly in 2013.

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Steve Yeater

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Courtesy of SEIU-UHW

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“What we have is a group of so-called leaders who are not reflecting the attitudes of their own constituents,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW and the de facto leader of the billionaire tax measure. “That’s why they want to be anonymous.”

Regan said he’s confident the initiative will amass enough signatures to qualify for the ballot before the end of April. Then, he said, “We believe a lot of those people are going to come around and change because this makes sense, because the public is supportive, because their own members are supportive.”

The case for, and against, the billionaires’ tax

So far, polling has shown the billionaire tax is relatively popular with voters. Recent surveys show just over half of Californians surveyed said they’re inclined to vote for it.

Critics point out that California’s existing state tax structure is entirely based on income, rather than net worth. The state would have to appraise each person’s assets, including real estate, art, automobiles and private and public businesses. The billionaires could pay in installments, handing over 1% of their wealth annually for five years.

Bosler said that with income tax filings, the Franchise Tax Board can use data from federal tax returns to verify its own analysis. Since there’s no federal wealth tax, California would be forging uncharted territory with no tax compliance support from any other source or agency — a risky move that could invite legal challenges.

“The state is not a miracle worker, like, they're not going to suddenly be able to do all of this like perfectly,” said Bosler. “I mean they will do their best, but I just think this is expertise that they have built up over 50-plus years. Like, none of this is in their wheelhouse at this point.”

But champions of the tax argue it is the only real solution on the table so far to save hospitals, health care jobs and, ultimately, patient lives they say are at risk due to federal funding cuts to Medi-Cal and food assistance programs.

Supporters note that the tax is not intended to solve California’s structural budget problems.

“It’s one-time funding to fill what we hope is a one-time hole,” said Brian Galle, a tax law professor at UC Berkeley who helped craft the measure. Galle said only around 200 people would be subjected to the tax, so the extra burden on the Franchise Tax Board wouldn’t be too great.

“It's not like FTB is going to get a blizzard of tens of thousands of new returns that they're going to have to figure out a whole new data system for cracking,” said Galle.

Why some progressives aren’t on board

Those who have qualms with the initiative have largely kept their criticisms private.

One liberal state legislator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the infighting among the unions puts progressive lawmakers in a difficult position. While he empathizes with the urgency that health care workers feel, he and other Democrats are not convinced the policy could withstand legal challenges and worry about the wealthy employing savvy accounting maneuvers to skirt the tax altogether.

Some organizations that are synonymous with progressive politics in California, such as the Working Families Party, also haven’t taken a position, even as other unions such as the Teamsters and AFSCME California support it.

Even the powerhouse labor union SEIU California is choosing not to take a position on the measure, which is spearheaded by one of its local affiliates, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, right, speaks with Assemblymember Chris Ward at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Sept. 12, 2025.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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Assemblymember Chris Ward, a member of the progressive caucus, called the measure a “well-meaning effort by UHW,” but criticized the proposal for being just a one-time tax primarily benefiting the health care sector rather than boosting the state’s overall revenues. Regan said SEIU-UHW made the tax one-time to nullify the argument that it would push billionaires out of the state.

Ward noted that he and his colleagues are considering “superior” bills, such as one that would close a corporate tax loop to generate $3 billion per year, and another that would create a new tax on corporations that pay workers so little that they qualify for Medi-Cal and nutrition assistance.

Regan argued these measures would only make California more unaffordable, since businesses would pass their increased costs along to consumers.

Ward, the sole state lawmaker who would candidly share his concerns about the initiative with CalMatters, said he and his colleagues have heard pushback from “a number of other labor organizations that don't support that initiative,” primarily because its members would not directly benefit from any of the revenue. Uniting labor, he said, is the key to any successful revenue solution.

“There's a need to look at a wealth tax for a more broad range, including health care workers but other purposes that are state priorities,” Ward said, “and that will be left off of the table if this is the only question we're seeing.”

CalMatters' Nadia Lathan contributed to this story.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.