Homeless youth: basic material needs assistance.

Existing law establishes various public social services programs to provide protection, care, and assistance to the people of the state in need of those services, by providing appropriate aid and services to the needy and distressed. Existing law establishes homeless youth emergency service pilot projects in the Counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara, and San Francisco. This bill would create the Homeless Youth Basic Material Needs Assistance Program. This bill would require that moneys appropriated by the Legislature for the purposes of the program be allocated proportionally by the State Department of Social Services to each county that elects to establish a program based on the number of homeless youth in the county, which is to be used to establish and operate the program in the county. The bill would authorize a county to join with one or more other counties for the purpose of pooling their respective allocations and establishing a program for those counties. The bill would require each program to solicit proposals from and contract with nonprofit organizations for the purpose of providing basic material needs assistance to homeless youth in the county or counties as directed by the entity administering the program and would require contracted nonprofit organizations to consult with the children and family commission of the county or counties, as specified, if the entity administering the program elects to include homeless youth from birth to 5 years of age, inclusive, in its program. The bill would enact other related provisions.