Existing law establishes various public social services programs to provide eligible recipients with certain aid or health care benefits, among others. Existing law also requires each county to provide aid to its indigent residents who are not supported by other means under programs known as general assistance programs.

Existing federal law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), makes specified persons without lawful status in the United States ineligible for state and local public benefits unless a state law is enacted that affirmatively provides for that eligibility, and defines “state or local public benefit” to mean, among other things, any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for which payments or assistance are provided to an individual, household, or family eligibility unit by an agency of a state or local government or by appropriated funds of a state or local government. Existing state law authorizes a city, county, city and county, or hospital district, at its discretion, to provide aid, including health care, to persons who, but for the previously described provision of the federal PRWORA, would meet the eligibility requirements for any program of that entity.

This bill would clarify that the above-described authorization for provision of aid is an authorization to provide a state or local public benefit, as defined by the federal PRWORA.