The Brief

A law that allowed the sharing of limitless amounts of personal data across the state to find people eligible for CalFresh was rescinded this week.

On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 593 by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, a Democrat from Oakland, that forbids state and local departments from sharing sensitive personal data to increase food stamp enrollment.

But only a year ago, it was Wicks who introduced that same data sharing initiative, to get more people enrolled in CalFresh, the state's federally funded food assistance program. Her bill from last year, Assembly Bill 518, granted state and local public entities involved in education, crime, employment, and other areas the authority to override all state privacy laws to share data about people who could potentially get CalFresh.

CalFresh is funded by the federal government, run by the state Department of Social Services and administered locally. Over 1 in 5 Californians are food insecure. About 5 million Californians are CalFresh recipients, and the state estimates almost 2 million more are eligible and haven’t signed up.

Around 200,000 college students in California receive CalFresh, according to the California Department of Social Services. All recipients must complete an application process many consider time-consuming and confusing.

In May, 20,000 college students applied for CalFresh, and over half of the applications were denied, often because the student couldn’t prove they were eligible, according to the social services department. CalFresh coordinators say students are unaware of their own eligibility, making outreach important. Through data sharing, Wicks intended to identify demographic groups as well as individuals who are eligible for CalFresh, and develop marketing that would appeal to them.

Reversing course on data sharing

In July, Wicks told a Senate committee she had changed her strategy to ensure data could not be shared beyond what is necessary for CalFresh outreach.

She said limitations on data sharing were increasingly important as the “federal government is attempting to weaponize state data to actively prosecute a subset of Californians.” In June, the federal government shared Medicaid data with the Department of Homeland Security for the stated purpose of monitoring alleged Medicaid fraud. In September, Newsom signed Senate Bill 81, which protects medical data from immigration authorities, effective immediately.

The feds have also asked for CalFresh data. In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requested all state agencies send names, addresses and Social Security numbers of people who either received or applied for food assistance, as well as the calculated value of all the benefits allotted over time. The department cited an executive order by President Donald Trump as the basis for the request.

California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta and others representing Democratic states sued the Trump administration in July to prevent this data collection. On Oct. 15, a Northern California court issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the transfer of CalFresh recipient data to the agriculture department.

Using data to help food stamp access

The previous law that allowed data sharing was originally written to expand paid family leave, but the bill was deactivated in September 2023. Wicks and co-author Assemblymember Corey Jackson, a Democrat from Riverside, reintroduced the bill in late August 2024, with an entirely new focus on CalFresh. Within one month, it passed both the Assembly and the Senate and was approved by the governor.

The law granted state and local entities the authority to flag Californians eligible for CalFresh, allowing them to bypass all existing state laws to do so. The law authorized departments overseeing justice, veteran services, employment, financial aid, and homelessness, as well as all three public higher education systems, to share data. Types of data included utility bills, criminal records, immigration and tax records, and health information.

There was no limit on what kinds of information could be shared, which Bill Essayli, acting U.S. Central District Attorney and former Republican assemblymember representing the 63rd Assembly District, criticized.

End Child Poverty California, an advocacy network fighting to eradicate poverty, supported the previous law, saying data sharing could streamline CalFresh enrollment. If the state were provided data, they argued, households wouldn’t have to submit their own verification proving their food stamp eligibility, which could speed up the process.

Though the original law was entered late in the 2024 session, it garnered several opponents, including the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Oakland Privacy. The latter group argued to the Senate that the “preposterously broad” bill didn’t let Californians opt in or out of data sharing.

Assemblymember Alex Lee, a Democrat from San Jose, concurred with Oakland Privacy that the bill was “far too broad.”

“I'm deeply concerned how this will impact low-income individuals,” Lee had said on the Assembly floor. “This population deserves the same privacy as everyone in this room.”

Lee as well as Essayli took issue with the gut-and-amend process that allowed the legislators to completely change the bill without approval from any Assembly policy committees. When bills are rushed in this way, Essayli said, they “can have unintended consequences.”

However, Wicks promised to add clauses limiting the bill’s scope during the following year. Four assemblymembers voted no on the bill, three of them Republicans and the last one being Lee. Newsom signed the bill into law on Sept. 28, 2024.

Clean-up leads to limitations

Wicks proposed initial drafts of the clean-up bill in early 2025. Early drafts set some limits on the scope of shareable data, but were “pretty weak,” according to Tracy Rosenberg, advocacy director for Oakland Privacy.

Another draft of the bill removed the sharing of public data related to income and health. It also required the data only be used for CalFresh outreach, facilitating enrollment, and measuring impact. To Rosenberg, this “catch-all” language was still too broad, and still would have “justified… using the data for all kinds of things.”

Oakland Privacy collaborated with Wicks to draft this year’s bill, and Rosenberg noted Wicks was very open to protecting people’s privacy. “We think the changing political environment probably played a role,” she said.

As proven by federal probes into Medi-Cal data, Rosenberg said, California’s social services department couldn’t guarantee their data was safe from federal interference. “That was certainly a concern in 2024, but it’s a much bigger concern in 2025,” she said.

Finally, after facing Senate amendments, the last bill draft removed authorization for the data sharing entirely. The bill passed the Senate and Assembly with only two dissenting votes in total, and was signed by Newsom and chaptered into law on Oct. 13.

CalFresh data is crucial for colleges

Not all aspects of the data sharing law were rescinded this week. For example, the state social services department is still tasked with developing a methodology for estimating the rate of CalFresh participation, to be released to the public each year.

The department will also determine the typical characteristics of people who are CalFresh-eligible, including but not limited to “race, ethnicity, preferred language, age, and location.” The department is required to develop marketing schemes that correspond to these demographics. Promoting CalFresh in underserved communities could make for more “equitable” SNAP access, Jackson said.

The department is also required to identify all public data sets that could name potential CalFresh participants.

State social services will not receive county data under this new law. But according to the people who run CalFresh programs at colleges and universities, analyzing participation is critical at the local level.

At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, almost 30% of all students are on CalFresh, according to Olivia Watts, program manager of CalFresh outreach at the university. She largely attributes the program’s success to their close relationship with the San Luis Obispo Department of Social Services.

Through the data provided by that department, the university learned that half of all CalFresh applicants in the county are its students.

The data they receive is scrubbed of personal information, Watts said. It’s just numbers, which she said are integral to CalFresh functionality. “Without knowing how many students are enrolled, it makes it difficult for us to do our job, to really see, are we making progress?”

Other university programs strive for that kind of open information. Amy Gonzales, Cal Fresh director at Chico State, has repeatedly requested CalFresh participation data from her local social services department in Butte County. They rejected the requests.

But according to Tiffany Rowe, director of Butte County’s Department of Employment and Social Services, the department doesn’t have direct access to that data, and would have to request it from the state. If they had that data, she said, they wouldn’t deny Chico State’s access.

With access to data, Gonzales said, the CalFresh program at Chico State could improve its outreach initiatives. They could attempt to target student groups that are eligible but under-enrolled.

Gonzales would be “all about” data sharing, even across the state, as long as the information is shared with “trusted” agencies. “I think it can be very beneficial to share that eligibility data,” she said, and flag people for different social service programs based on their characteristics.

Still, Gonzales manages to conduct outreach without countywide data. At Chico State, she partners with some of the college’s academic programs and workplaces to find students eligible for CalFresh.

College students are eligible for food assistance based on their participation in employment training programs. Certain majors count toward this criteria. Students are often unaware of their eligibility, which is why targeted outreach is important, Gonzales said.

But though she’d appreciate data on eligible people, “I do have concerns with data sharing, given the current administration’s priorities and what they have requested,” she said.

Watts and Gonzales both help students at their universities with CalFresh applications. They both said they wish that all college students were automatically eligible for the program.

Under the new law, counties can continue to harvest data about the efficacy of their own CalFresh programs. They’re just prevented from sharing data on eligible individuals with the state. But interagency relationships at local levels, Watts said, need to be protected.

“We’ve had a lot of success… because of our ability to share data, and communicate in these ways, and problem-solve together,” Watts said.

Phoebe Huss is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

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

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Rabbi Amy Bernstein says the wind-whipped fire in January 2025 that scorched much of the Pacific Palisades, destroying her home and damaging her synagogue, “blew everything open” for the community’s faith leaders.

“If our hearts must break, let them break open,” said the rabbi, who leads Kehillat Israel where 300 families out of 900 lost their homes. “This tragedy has really pushed us closer to one another. We’re working to change the things we need changed.”

Faith leaders both in the Pacific Palisades and in Altadena and Pasadena — devastated by the pair of fires that tore across Southern California — have relied on interfaith and community partnerships to rally congregants who are picking up the pieces 16 months later.

They’ve had to learn on the fly about insurance coverage and local land use regulations while still trying to keep their scattered flock together and raising money for basic needs. Pastors in Altadena have had to fight to protect the rights of Black people who decades ago found pathways to home ownership in that community despite redlining — but now risk losing their land to outside developers who sense an investment opportunity.

And throughout this span, faith leaders have had to cater to the emotional and spiritual needs of their communities and think about how they want to rebuild their sanctuaries that were lost or damaged in the fire. More than a dozen houses of worship burned to the ground or were damaged.

Interfaith relationships have become stronger after the fires

This would have been difficult for faith leaders to handle but for the interfaith relationships that became closer and stronger after the fires, said the Rev. Grace Park, associate pastor at Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church, which burned down.

Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Jews and yogis have not just found common ground in human suffering and loss, but have learned how to lean on one another in a time of dire need, she said.

“It’s a sense of mutual affection and respect, learning from each other and leaning on one another,” Park said. “We’re sharing the joys and the deep valleys of what it means to lead through a time of tragedy.”

Brother Satyananda, a senior monk at the Self Realization Fellowship, lost his living quarters and belongings in the fire. Much of the campus, started by Paramahamsa Yogananda who brought ancient spiritual practices from India to the West, fortunately survived the fire.

Satyananda recalls one day when Bernstein picked up on his sadness and offered him “motherly compassion.”

“We share the same profession where we’re tuned to people in need,” he said. “Now, our relationship has changed because we’re tuning into each other. There’s a greater level of trust.”

Pastor BJ King, who leads LoveLand LifeCenter, worked with the late Rev. Cecil B. Murray to heal communities and build interfaith coalitions after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

“Back then, there was a choice whether or not to get involved,” he said. “But with these fires, there is no choice. It has affected everybody.”

Pastors have had to acquire new skills

King’s congregation has switched to online services after their leased church building in Altadena suffered smoke damage. Twelve families lost their homes. In addition to helping meet people’s basic needs, King has created a program organizing gatherings to connect therapists with those in need of mental health.

“Many people didn’t even know they needed that,” he said.

One of the most powerful roles faith leaders have played after the fire is to “continue to talk with power, people in charge,” said Pastor Jonathan DeCuir, who leads Victory Bible Church in Pasadena. He and others in the region have continued to meet with local officials and even conferred with Gov. Gavin Newsom to keep things moving for their communities.

DeCuir chairs the board of a nonprofit called Legacy Land Project, which provides financial aid, legal support and guidance on building contractors, as well as medical care to those affected by the fires.

The disaster has brought a level of camaraderie that DeCuir says he has never seen among the region’s clergy.

“Denominational lines have been crossed,” he said. “Even if we have different theological stances or approaches to ministry, we are all now looking at how to care for our people and community. If we don’t come together, Altadena will never ever be the same. The people won’t be there anymore. That, to me, is terrifying.”

While a church is more than a building, physical churches do appear as “beacons of hope” in traumatized communities, said Pastor Mayra Macedo-Nolan, executive director of Clergy Community Coalition in Pasadena. Her group has lobbied for houses of worship to be prioritized on the same footing as businesses in the rebuilding plan.

“When people start seeing churches rebuilding in Altadena, they’re going to feel like it’s going to be OK because the churches are coming back,” she said.

Reimagining a purposeful future

Pastor Jonathan Lewis, fourth from right, holds a groundbreaking service at the site of the burned Fountain of Life Nazarene Church to mark the beginning of its rebuilding in Altadena, Calif., April 26, 2026.

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Members of the congregation join in prayer during the groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the burned Fountain of Life Nazarene Church, marking the beginning of its rebuilding, April 26, 2026, in Altadena, Calif.

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Pastor Jonathan Lewis poses for a photo with his congregation during a groundbreaking service at the site of the burned Fountain of Life Nazarene Church, marking the beginning of its rebuilding, April 26, 2026, in Altadena, Calif.

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On April 26, the Altadena Fountain of Life Church broke ground to build a new sanctuary after their house of worship, which had stood for over three decades, was destroyed in the fire. Pastor Jonathan Lewis, who ministers to about 75, hopes the church will be ready in time for Easter next year.

“It’ll be a Resurrection Sunday for our church, too,” he said.

Alexis Duncan, who grew up in Altadena attending that church, came to the groundbreaking with her 6-year-old daughter. She lost both her home and her church building.

“It means everything to me that they’re rebuilding because I want the church to be there for my daughter as she grows up,” she said. “This new beginning gives me and my family hope and the encouragement to come back.”

Some churches like Altadena Community Church, a United Church of Christ congregation, are pausing to rethink their future purpose. The Rev. Michael Lewis, who took over in February after the previous pastor retired, said the congregation is looking into several possibilities for the one-acre lot, including affordable housing.

“We know that a church is not intended to be a landlord and the pastor is no property manager,” he said. “But, we’re also thinking about who is able to return to Altadena? How will this rich, economically diverse community that was scattered by the fire come back?”

The church has been around since the 1940s. A haven for actors, poets and musicians, the former sanctuary also served as a vibrant performance space. Lewis said they hope to incorporate a performance stage into the new facility.

“It’ll look different from what we had before,” he said. “Once we figure out how to build community, we can decide what physical structures will help us support that community.”

As for Kehillat Israel, on May 15, members will carry their Torah scrolls back to their sanctuary, marking one of the first returns by a house of worship to the Palisades since the disaster.

Judaism has had “a long history of starting over,” Bernstein said.

“It’s encoded in our cultural approach to the world, that there are things that can always be taken away from you,” she said. “But what you become can never get taken away.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that he has requested a yearlong extension of FEMA funding for L.A. fire survivors. Without the extension, the money will run out July 9.

Now the decision on FEMA support lies with the federal government.

The funds have allowed many survivors to afford temporary housing and other daily needs. Most have yet to return home — 2 in 3 survivors who were living in Altadena or Pacific Palisades at the time of the fires are still displaced, according to the latest survey of more than 2,100 survivors by the nonprofit Department of Angels. Nearly 40% of respondents reported they will either soon run out of temporary housing insurance coverage or have already.

The situation is particularly dire for low-income households: Nearly 80% of respondents making $50,000 or less said they didn’t think they could afford housing for three months once coverage ended.

“The data is clear: This recovery is not over,” said Angela Giacchetti of the Department of Angels at a news conference organized by the Eaton Fire Collaborative in Altadena on Thursday. “If you are a survivor, you know this in your bones. For many families, it has barely begun. People have just begun to stabilize. We need federal support that reflects the scale of this disaster and systems that survivors can actually navigate and access over time.”

FEMA assistance isn’t reaching most survivors

The FEMA Individuals and Households Program can provide funding for survivors of disasters to pay for temporary housing, repair their homes, and respond to other challenges that insurance may not cover. It can also help cover costs if a survivor has no insurance.

Gil Barel has been relying on FEMA funds to pay rent on a small back house for herself and her son for the last year. She said they still haven’t been able to return to their rent-controlled Pasadena apartment because of smoke damage, though she still has to pay the rent for it.

Gil Barel is paying rent on a smoke-damaged apartment in Pasadena while FEMA funds have helped her cut the cost of temporary housing.

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Barel doesn’t know what they’ll do if the FEMA funding runs out.

“ I'm really stressed out,” she said. “I think I'm just kind of trying to put that thought aside and hope for the best.”

But in the 15 months since the fires, most survivors have not accessed FEMA funding. About 60% have received no FEMA assistance beyond the initial $770 payments dispersed in the immediate aftermath of the fires, according to the Department of Angels survey.

Many have faced denials, according to disaster case manager workers with Catholic Charities of L.A. and lawyers with Legal Aid Foundation of L.A.

That’s the situation for Gayle Nicholls-Ali and her husband, Rasheed, who lost their Altadena home of 15 years in the Eaton Fire. They’ve relied on their insurance to pay for a rental in Montrose, but that’s rapidly running out. And because they have that insurance, FEMA has denied further support.

Gayle Nicholls-Ali and her husband, Rasheed, lost their home in the Eaton Fire. They plan to rebuild, but the cost is a major hurdle.

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“A lot of our ALE [Additional Living Expenses insurance] is going to run out before we even are able to get into a house,” Nicholls-Ali said.

Without FEMA or insurance support, they’ll have to find a way to pay rent on top of a mortgage. They also face a big gap in the cost of their rebuild versus how much their insurance covers. Nicholls-Ali said without the help of FEMA and other sources of funding, recovering feels further out of reach.

Funds for long-term recovery still in limbo

FEMA funding extensions have been routine in past disasters, including the 2023 wildfires in Hawaii and after devastating flooding in North Carolina in 2024.

But the agency has faced significant cuts during the second Trump administration, and there are indications that disaster aid is becoming increasingly political. For example, President Donald Trump has approved aid for just 23% of requests from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators, compared to 89% for states that with Republican governors and senators, according to an analysis by Politico.

The state has also not received more than $33 billion for long-term recovery, which can help pay for infrastructure upgrades and repairs, as well as help rebuild schools, parks and homes. That money was requested by state and local leaders shortly after the January 2025 fires and hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.

An international team of disease detectives is now racing to connect with the more than two dozen passengers who disembarked the MV Honius cruise ship on the Atlantic island of St. Helena before the hantavirus outbreak was identified.

These individuals have flown across the world, including to the United States.

The risk of further spread of this virus is low since it requires close and prolonged contact with an infected individual — and those infected seem to transmit the virus for only a brief period of time. But public health officials want to make sure the outbreak is contained.

Here's how authorities are using the practice of contact tracing to contain the outbreak and keep the hantavirus from spreading.

Contact tracing 101

The concept of modern contact tracing dates to the 1930s and was part of an effort to stop the spread of syphilis. It involves locating the close contacts of anyone who may have been infected. "By identifying people who are at risk of infection," says Preeti Malani, an infectious disease physician at the University of Michigan, "you try to get ahead when people don't have symptoms yet with the goal of preventing the infection from continuing to propagate."

This is a well-tested approach for containing an infectious disease. "It's the oldest tool in the epidemiologic toolbox," explains Malani. "We thought about this a lot early in the pandemic with COVID. But we also do contact tracing for sexually transmitted infections, for things like meningitis and even measles."

Malani likens contact tracing to monitoring ripples in a pond, "trying to prevent those outer rings from propagating by isolating individuals and by identifying individuals who might be at risk of infection."

The idea that "there's a time period where people don't have symptoms but could be harboring the virus, that's what contact tracing helps identify," says Malani.

It starts by pinpointing someone with an infection or suspected infection of the disease in question — in this case, hantavirus. Epidemiologists then look to see with whom they've recently had close contact since these individuals are more likely to have been infected.

This hunt for those with the greatest probability of infection is important. "Otherwise, it becomes an impossible web to contain because everyone is connected to everyone," says Boghuma Titanji, an infectious diseases doctor at Emory University. "So you have to stratify by high, intermediate and low-risk contacts."

The next step involves public health agencies ordering precautions for those who are infected or who may be infected but aren't showing symptoms yet. Such measures may include quarantine, so that an individual doesn't come into contact with even more people — who may then become infected.

One challenge that hantavirus presents is that its incubation period can last up to several weeks. In other words, "people take a long time to become symptomatic after they've been exposed," says Titanji. "Some of these primary contacts would have to be monitoring themselves for symptoms for up to 45 days to be at the tail end of that very long incubation period."

Aboard and ashore

The work isn't high-tech but it is painstaking, requiring officials to reconstruct the many interactions someone may have had over days or weeks.

Onboard the cruise ship, "you might have an individual who is a source of an infection," says Titanji, laying out a hypothetical example. "And then they were sitting at a dinner table with one individual who then goes back to their cabin and shares a bed with their partner who has a conversation with someone else on the deck."

Once someone disembarks the ship, the number of potential interactions can grow quite quickly. This is why officials were concerned when a KLM flight attendant fell ill after being aboard a flight with one of the infected cruise ship passengers. Fortunately, the flight attendant ultimately tested negative for hantavirus.

Titanji is heartened by what she's seen playing out so far. "It seems like the international collaborative effort has been really robust and the mechanisms for containment are in place and underway," she says.

Public health officials argue that contact tracing is a powerful approach that will reduce further spread. "We can break this chain of transmission," said Abdi Mahmoud, the director of the World Health Organization's health emergency alert and response efforts, at a press conference on Thursday.

He has good reason to be confident. Contact tracing was vital during the fight against COVID-19 and helped end the Ebola crisis in Liberia, containing the epidemic there more than a decade ago. Some of the contact tracing even involved hours-long hikes through the jungle to a remote village.

Authorities are hoping for similar success with this hantavirus outbreak.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The sky above Los Angeles State Historic Park in Chinatown will be dotted with color Saturday with the annual Kite Festival.

The festival had its beginnings as a joyful protest in 2021, back when a proposal for a Dodger Stadium gondola included cutting through the airspace above the park. Organizers say last year’s Kite Festival drew a crowd of about 7,000.

“The Kite Festival, [for] some people, it’s their favorite day in Los Angeles,” said Sue Bell Yank, executive director of Clockshop, the nonprofit arts org that runs the festival. “It’s the time when they really feel connected to their city. More so than any other time.”

This year’s programming includes a kite-making station where you can build your own flying art for a donation of $5, along with art workshops and the unveiling of a large floating, inflatable sculpture by Guatemalan kite artist Francisco Ramos.