Even Californians without Social Security numbers should soon have access to a state subsidy that will make cellphone service more affordable.
The California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposed decision last week that the California Universal LifeLine Telephone Service Program, known as California Lifeline, be offered to Californians without a Social Security number.
The commission needs to formally vote on the matter, with its first opportunity at its Aug. 22 meeting.
The move comes 10 years after the CPUC decided to stop requesting Social Security information from applicants — but then never did. The issue was first reported by CalMatters.
The commission is in charge of California Lifeline. The service offers qualifying participants discounts of up to $19 monthly on cellphone service, up to $39 off a service connection and eliminates a range of local, state and federal fees.
There is also a federal Lifeline program, but its discounts are less, including up to $9.25 off monthly service. Both are concurrently available to customers, according to the commission, but the federal program continues to require a Social Security number.
Chinese national Zhang Hao uses his phone at Iris Avenue Station in San Diego, where he and other asylum seekers were dropped off by Border Patrol agents.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The service consists of unlimited talk and texts, and varying amounts of data.
Users in certain government programs may be eligible for the discounts. Anyone already enrolled in a public assistance program, such as Medicaid and Medi-Cal, Section 8 housing, CalFresh or the Women, Infants and Children Program, also known as WIC, qualifies under program-based assistance.
Applicants can also qualify based on income. For instance, a family of four would qualify with a total annual gross income of $48,400 or less.
It’s unknown how many people the commission’s latest move will affect. About 1.4 million Californians use the service, according to the commission, with program enrollment up 31.1% since June 2023.
Participants are enrolled with a private phone provider. This is generally done by third-party vendors, often “street teams,” who solicit in front of public buildings — such as social service benefits offices — or near supermarkets.
The Public Utility Commission’s ruling isn’t new, however.
The group decided to drop Social Security numbers on applications in 2014, arguing that such an ask was a barrier to usage for some. At the time, the move was opposed by Cox Communications and other telecommunications companies that were concerned with fraud.
In place of Social Security numbers, the commission asked for government-issued identification.
The Public Utility Commission’s decision came two years after the Federal Communications Commission revised the federal Lifeline program to require applicants to provide the last four digits of a Social Security number on applications.
The state Public Utility Commission previously told CalMatters in February that it had already “implemented its 2014 decision.” Yet, California Lifeline applications still asked for Social Security information.
The nonprofit Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles put this issue back in front of the commission with a letter on Aug. 30, 2023, requesting immediate implementation of the 2014 ruling, according to commission documentation.
Once the decision is formally approved, Social Security number requests are expected to be removed from the LifeLine application within three months, according to the commission.
Renting in Los Angeles is about to become more difficult for many people.
The last of Los Angeles’ pandemic-era renter protections expired Feb. 1. For the first time since April 2020, owners of rent-stabilized apartments — 70% of rental units in the city — are allowed to increase rents. And the last chunk of any unpaid back rent is due.
Don’t expect a soft landing. Depending on how the city responds, it could find itself escalating a lose-lose conflict with local landlords, and the pain would be widely felt: More than half of Angelenos live in rental units.
Already the city is bracing for a spike in evictions and homelessness. An estimated 90,000 households have outstanding rent debt from the period when pandemic protections were in place, and roughly 60% may be unable to pay it.
The city’s fledgling renter assistance program has distributed only a fraction of its $30-million budget; it has 30,000 applicants requesting a total $473 million to cover back rent. A small minority of applicants have been approved but have not yet received money; they have been given a 120-day grace period to avoid eviction. But most applicants still have no idea whether they’ll be approved.
The dominoes started falling last year. Eviction filings doubled from 5,000 in February to 10,000 in April and May after tenants were once again required to pay full monthly rent (separate from unpaid back rent) to avoid eviction. Ever since, evictions have remained 20% to 25% higher than the old baseline.
After the uncertainty of recent years, many landlords are likely to be looking for more revenue and stability. The pandemic was a scarring experience for smaller landlords, many of whom found themselves squeezed as their nonpaying tenants were protected by the city and as rents remained frozen amid historic inflation. Of course, landlords are not entitled to perpetual positive returns. Housing, like any asset, has downside risk. Some landlords — especially those who aggressively scooped up new rental units anticipating a surefire payday — lost that bet during the pandemic.
At the same time, landlords are within their rights to evict tenants who don’t pay. They would also be justified in more carefully vetting potential tenants within the bounds of the Fair Housing Act. Rather than rent units quickly, they may let units sit empty as they wait to find more financially established tenants. This could make it even harder to secure affordable housing in L.A. — especially for those with unsteady incomes (gig workers, contractors, artists) as well as those with potential red flags that background checks will inevitably uncover (such as justice-involved individuals and renters with poor credit histories or past evictions).
The city has launched a tenants’ rights awareness campaign, which could deter some overzealous landlords. The city also aims to aggressively expand the availability of legal counsel for those facing eviction.
Legal representation is a core part of the judicial process — and it’s crucial that tenants be protected from unlawful evictions. However, paying a fleet of public defenders to contest and delay every attempt at eviction might add fuel to the fire while draining the resources of the city and landlords alike.
While universal right-to-counsel programs boast high success rates of keeping people housed, it’s unclear what percentage of these successes involve averting an illegal eviction versus a landlord giving up and eating the cost of lost rent. Ninety-six percent of evictions in L.A. in 2023 came from nonpayment of rent, which should mostly be cut-and-dried cases. There are also other, less costly ways to prevent illegal eviction filings from reaching court. In some cities, tenants with complaints about living conditions can protect themselves from landlord retaliation by legally withholding rent and depositing it in a third-party escrow account.
It’s expected that providing counsel will cost the city $68 million each year — and recall that the city dredged up only $30 million for its rental assistance program. These resources could be focused on rehousing displaced families as quickly as possible. Instead the city is pursuing a policy that further antagonizes landlords and sends tenants the message that they might be able to get away with not paying rent if they fight hard enough.
Los Angeles doesn’t have to go straight to the most costly and adversarial policy to reduce evictions and prevent homelessness. In Philadelphia, lawmakers made permanent an eviction diversion program at a cost of $15 million. Landlords seeking an eviction are required to participate in a 30-day mediation period with a single goal: settling disagreements out of court and without an eviction. Under this program, more than 70% of disputes have successfully come to an agreement outside of court. Hawaii did similarly, with 87% of cases resulting in settlement.
Los Angeles can ill afford a drawn-out power struggle with landlords. That risks creating a “survival of the fittest” landscape where only property owners able to weather and adapt to renter protections stay in the market. Corporations already own more than 40% of the city’s rental units, a figure that could grow if smaller landlords make good on their threats to exit the market, either selling out to corporate owners or taking units off the market. That’s potentially a huge problem for this rental market, which is already among the worst in the nation when it comes to housing production.
On a more promising note, the economy has been roaring with job creation and higher wages for those at the lower end of the income distribution. Many have been back at work after a tumultuous year of strikes. That bodes well for tenants facing their first rent hikes in four years.
But the fact remains that Los Angeles is one of the least affordable places to live in the country. That’s the root cause of the impending eviction crisis and why renters needed so much protection in the first place. If the city prefers to keep strengthening renter protections while simultaneously blocking developers from constructing affordable housing, brace for a new status quo: a stricter, even pricier rental market under the growing watch of aggravated landlords and faceless corporations.
George Zuo is an associate economist at Rand and a professor of policy analysis at the Pardee Rand Graduate School.
After a lengthy discussion, the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to prohibit the eviction of tenants whose rental assistance applications have been approved but who have not yet received their funds.
The move comes days before a deadline for tenants to pay pandemic-era rental arrears. Under the city’s plan to end COVID-19 eviction protections, unpaid rent accumulated from Oct. 1, 2021, to Jan. 31, 2023, is due Thursday.
More than 25,000 applicants are waiting to find out if they are eligible for funds from the United to House L.A. Emergency Renters Assistance Program, which provides up to six months of unpaid rent for qualified and selected renters and property owners.
Roughly 3,200 applicants were approved for the program, but most have not received their aid. Only 25% of the $30.4 million allocated for emergency assistance has been distributed.
Renters who did not apply for the program or were not approved could face eviction if they do not make their outstanding payments by Thursday. The deadline to apply was in October.
The City Council motion, introduced by Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Paul Krekorian, originally aimed to protect every renter who applied to the United to House L.A. program, regardless of their application status.
After pushback from groups representing property owners, the motion was amended to prohibit evictions only for applicants whose applications have been approved. Those individuals will be protected from eviction for 120 days after Feb. 1 while their rental assistance funds are processed.
“Tenants who have already been approved for emergency rental assistance should not be evicted while they’re waiting for their checks,” Krekorian said. “Their landlords are going to get paid, so they shouldn’t be putting tenants out just because the city took a little longer to get them the money.”
Applicants who have not yet been approved but are qualified will receive the same protections once granted approval.
Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, said the motion was unfair to small property owners who rely on rent payments for their livelihood.
Before the amendment was enacted, the motion would have prevented landlords from evicting tenants for an indefinite period of time while they waited for their application to be processed.
“Owners would not be participating in the program if they knew this would be the ramification,” he said. “It’s not as egregious as it would have been without this amendment.”
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Fred Sutton, senior vice president of local public affairs for the California Apartment Assn., also said the amendment was key. But he’s still wary of how long it might take for renters and owners to receive their money.
“It’s just a matter of those funds getting to the individual,” he said, “but we are very concerned about the procedural bureaucracy that takes so long to get these dollars out the door.”
Sutton also criticized the “rushed” timeline of the City Council motion, which was introduced on Wednesday.
“There was one business day to review a very broad and somewhat complicated motion and on a procedural level, that shouldn’t be acceptable,” he said.
Hernandez said it was necessary to get the motion approved prior to the rent payment deadline.
“With the Feb. 1 rent debt deadline looming and thousands of tenants at risk of eviction, it’s incumbent on us to do everything we can to stop the eviction-to-homelessness pipeline and keep people in their homes,” she said. “The city can and must do more to keep Angelenos housed.”
An $18,500 stipend to help pay for graduate school. Student loan forgiveness. Free on-the-job training. All license fees paid. And the chance to serve the under-served — “with dignity.”
“Do Worthwhile Work,” the new marketing campaign of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, highlights these perks on its website in the hope that job candidates will see the benefits of public sector mental health work, and apply.
“Your work can change lives,” the campaign reads. “Leave today better than you found it, LA County DMH has a place for you.”
Many places, in fact: As of mid-September, the agency had a vacancy rate of 28%, with 1,890 vacant positions and just over 4,800 employees, according to county data.
For decades, the department didn’t need marketing campaigns or too many perks to get people to apply for jobs. But in recent years, the largest county mental health department in America has seen a decline in applicants.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for mental health practitioners was already exceeding the supply. Many in California were retiring, and master’s programs and medical schools were not turning out enough therapists, psychologists or psychiatrists to replace retirees, or meet the growing demand, according to recent research on the state’s behavioral health workforce.
If workforce trends continue, California is projected to experience a shortage of 5,000 mental health practitioners by 2026, according to research by consulting firm Mercer.
Cristina Rodriguez, a psychiatric social worker, counsels a client on a video call at the East San Gabriel Valley Mental Health Center.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
Demand has only grown as more Americans than ever, struck by the uncertainty and misery brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, sign up for therapy. New therapists who would have traditionally started out in the public sector are being recruited by private companies that offer bonuses, flexible schedules and remote work — and patients who, while still struggling, aren’t unhoused or suffering from acute psychosis made worse by years of life outside.
Internally, the Department of Mental Health still hasn’t recovered from the 18-month countywide hiring freeze, implemented by the Board of Supervisors at the start of the pandemic to save money amid disaster. That left many important administrative positions unfilled. And it can still take months to get hired at the county because of civil service rules that dictate how hiring must be carried out.
Of the 103 people the department hired in August , it took an average of 227 days from the time the candidate submitted an application to when they started their job.
The department’s vacancies have stymied progress in addressing L.A. County’s homelessness crisis as pressure mounts from an impatient public. A lack of workers has meant longer response times from teams who respond to mental health crises called in on the 988 hotline. It has delayed care — in 2021, it took an average of 27 days to see a county psychiatrist in clinic. It has also led to burnout among existing staff, who work longer hours to make up for the lack of new talent, a point supervisors discussed at a recent meeting.
And it’s made implementing changes coming down from Sacramento challenging. On Dec. 1, L.A. County will launch Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court. If they don’t have enough staff hired, they’ll pull people from existing programs until hiring is complete, according to department documents.
“There is no doubt we have two crises — the immense mental health crisis in our communities and the challenge in our own Department of Mental Health to hire enough people to respond to it,” Board of Supervisors Chair Janice Hahn said in a statement. “My vision is that we will have enough mental health professionals to not only be in encampments working with people suffering from mental illness on our streets, but also enough to respond immediately to emergency mental health calls, and hiring has held us back.”
These challenges have forced the Department of Mental Health to get creative.
It has started holding hiring fairs where applicants get offers on the same day they interview. These events have especially targeted hard-to-fill positions — and are showing results.
In the last five months, Hahn said, the mental health department hired 272 people at fairs, including 37 to join its homeless outreach teams and 30 who will respond to emergency mental health calls, which have seen a recent improvement in response times.
These hiring events are like a speed-dating session between employers and applicants. On a recent Thursday at the department’s headquarters in Koreatown, dozens of recent master’s of social work graduates filed into a meeting room to hear elevator pitches from almost 20 mental health clinics.
Each hiring manager briefly explained the benefits of working at their location.
“We’re one of the busiest clinics” in our service area in Willowbrook, one manager said. “What helps in our work is to have purpose and meaning, and you can find it there,” a manager from a Compton clinic said.
A supervisor from a San Pedro clinic said it has “one of the strongest housing programs” in its area. “We like to celebrate,” a manager from a Long Beach clinic said, describing its many potlucks and nacho dinners. “We try to support one another.”
The energy among participants was jovial, a mix of nerves and polite laughter — until a social worker in the audience asked about caseloads.
The supervisor from a Skid Row clinic shot straight. If hired there, she said, they’ll have about 150 clients, which will include patients who come in twice a year for check-ups of their medicine regimen as well as clients in crisis who come in frequently.
“Many of these other clinics have that many [on their caseloads] too,” she added, to polite laughter around the room.
Marina Barrios, a substance abuse counselor, meets with a client at L.A. County’s East San Gabriel Valley Mental Health Center. The county is trying to fill hundreds of mental health positions.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
Nicole Pyles sat nearby, reminding herself to start breathing again. Pyles, a recent graduate of the USC School of Social Work, had ranked that Skid Row clinic as her No. 1 choice before the event started.
“I thought, ‘Pssh, I got this, I’m not worried about it, I’ve had caseloads as high as 30 people,’ ” said Pyles, 47. “When she said 150 people, I think my heart jumped out of my mouth and was somewhere on the floor.”
Pyles previously worked as a substance abuse counselor, which doesn’t require a master’s degree to get certified and see clients.
But Pyles knew that for many of her clients, their addiction was much more complicated than brain chemicals making them crave a substance. She wanted to get to the root of the problem, namely the trauma fueling their addiction. Such work requires a master’s degree.
Pyles was happy enough, though, working in her last job with pregnant and postpartum clients struggling with substance use disorders.
That was until a client who’d diligently worked with the program for a few months asked for help. The client’s court date to keep custody over her newborn baby had been moved from Monterey Park to the Antelope Valley, and she needed a ride.
Pyles thought she could help with that. Her supervisor, though, told Pyles she was “enabling” this woman and declined the request.
In that moment, Pyles realized she wanted the power to help in a bigger and more meaningful way.
“A friend of mine told me, ‘If you want to make those calls, and you want to be able to make the decisions, you’ve got to get your education,’ ” Pyles said. “And that’s exactly what I did.”
After finishing her master’s at USC, she agreed to work at the downtown Skid Row clinic — committing to the county for a year after accepting an $18,500 stipend. “My goal is to remain at DMH, and move up to leadership,” she said.
These are the kinds of practitioners that Lisa H. Wong, director of the Department of Mental Health, said her department has started to attract.
The department and its contract agencies did take a hit early in the pandemic, when workers across the country reassessed the type of work they wanted.
Wong said when she worked as a clinical supervisor at a facility in Skid Row 15 years ago, she held recruitment events that brought in dozens of candidates who wanted to work there, even though “admittedly [it] is not for everyone.”
Comparatively, about a year and a half ago, when she held a recruitment effort for adult mental health positions across the county, she got just 13 applicants.
But in recent months, Wong said the department has noticed another shift.
“I know I’ve been accused of being an optimist at times, I do think the tide is turning,” Wong said, noting that hiring and promotions have increased 200% this year. “What we’re seeing now is sort of the blessing in disguise of the nationwide staffing shortage — who we’re getting now are those people who are the true believers, the urban missionaries.”
Beyond the hiring fairs, the department is also renewing academic affiliations with graduate programs, which will lead to more internships there, and for the first time, will start recruiting at conferences and campuses out of state.
The department went to recruit at the American Psychological Assn. conference in Washington, D.C., where LGBTQ+ clinicians told county staff they really wanted to move to California because they didn’t feel safe in their home states.
“But alongside that, we had a lot of people say, ‘I would love to move to California, I would love to live in L.A., but I don’t think I can afford it,’ ” Wong said.
Wong said they will focus much of their attention on recruiting at historically Black colleges and universities, bringing current county staff who are alumni to talk about working at the department.
“We need more clinicians who look like our community,” Wong said. “I would love for an African American little boy to be able to meet with a Black psychologist, and know that not only can they open up and have some cultural understanding but also this is somebody he can aspire to be as well.”
