Add Contra Costa County General Assistance

[hua7450]

Summary

Implements Contra Costa County, California's General Assistance (GA) program — a county-administered indigent cash-assistance program under California Welfare & Institutions Code § 17000 et seq. GA pays the gap between a grant standard and the recipient's net countable income to adults without dependent children who are ineligible for other cash aid.

Administered by the Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services Department (EHSD). Files live under gov/local/ca/cc/, parallel to the existing Alameda County GA implementation at gov/local/ca/ala/ga/.

Closes #8592

Regulatory authority

• CA Welfare & Institutions Code § 17000 / § 17001 (county duty to relieve indigent residents; Board of Supervisors sets the standards of aid)
• Contra Costa County EHSD — General Assistance program page: https://ehsd.org/aging-and-adult-services/general-assistance/
• EHSD GA brochure (GA-80, Rev. 7/2024): https://ehsd.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GA-Brochure_ENGLISH_July2024_FA_Digital.pdf#page=2
• Western Center on Law & Poverty, 2011 General Relief grant levels (Contra Costa = $336): https://wclp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gr_grantlevels_2011.pdf

Benefit

Fill-the-gap: max_(grant standard - max_(countable income, 0), 0), where the grant standard is ca_cc_general_assistance_maximum_grant. The inner max_(income, 0) floors countable income at zero so net-negative flows (e.g. self-employment losses) cannot inflate the grant above the standard.

Grant standard	Monthly amount	Effective	Source
Single	$336	2011-01-01	WCLP 2011 table ($178 housing + $158 food/needs); still $336 on the current EHSD page
Couple (2 eligible adults)	$454	2011-01-01	Current EHSD page ($454/mo for an employable couple); back-dated to 2011 on the same frozen-standards basis as the single rate (see Verification notes)

Eligibility

The benefit gates on ca_cc_general_assistance_eligible (SPM unit), which ANDs three checks:

Requirement	How modeled
At least one eligible person	ca_cc_general_assistance_eligible_person (per person: age ≥ 18, personal property ≤ $500, qualified immigration status, head/spouse, not receiving SSI/SSDI/UIB/SDI)
No dependent children	is_child & is_tax_unit_dependent summed to the SPM unit == 0 (families → CalWORKs)
Countable income < grant standard	ca_cc_general_assistance_income_eligible: income < maximum_grant ("earnings less than the maximum allowable grant")
Contra Costa County residence	in_cc (county_str == CONTRA_COSTA_COUNTY_CA)

Per-person checks (age ≥ 18; personal property ≤ $500; qualified immigration status — CITIZEN, REFUGEE, ASYLEE, CUBAN_HAITIAN_ENTRANT, LEGAL_PERMANENT_RESIDENT; not receiving SSI/SSDI/UIB/SDI via ssi, social_security_disability, unemployment_compensation, ca_state_disability_insurance) live in ca_cc_general_assistance_eligible_person.

Updates from review

This branch incorporates /review-program findings plus follow-up refactors:

• Eligibility structure. ca_cc_general_assistance_income_eligible is now purely the income test (income < maximum_grant); a new composite ca_cc_general_assistance_eligible ANDs has-eligible-person, no-dependent-children, and income eligibility, and the benefit gates on it (mirrors the San Mateo Add San Mateo County General Assistance #8360 structure). The no-children rule no longer lives inside the income variable.
• Renamed ca_cc_general_assistance_base_amount → ca_cc_general_assistance_maximum_grant — it is the full grant standard, not a base that gets supplemented.
• Dependent children modeled as is_child & is_tax_unit_dependent (explicit; equal to the minor-child count in the current model, since only adults can head/spouse a tax unit).
• Couple amount dating. $454 now dated 2011-01-01 (was 2024-01-01): the single rate is corroborated at $336 from 2011 (WCLP) through today, so the standards appear frozen and the couple rate is applied back on the same basis (the EHSD page lists $336 single and $454 couple together).
• Immigration status. Dropped PAROLED_ONE_YEAR — time-limited parole conflicts with EHSD's "no limitation on your stay" criterion; aligns with Santa Clara (Add Santa Clara County General Assistance Program #8358) and San Mateo (Add San Mateo County General Assistance #8360) County GA.
• Reference accuracy. Re-anchored the personal-property limit, fill-the-gap, and no-children references from the GA-80 brochure (which does not print those figures) to the EHSD program page.
• Tests. Added income=0→$336, income==$336→ineligible/$0 (strict <), three eligible adults→single $336, personal property summed across members, composite-eligibility cases, and an endogenous SSI integration test (an aged adult whose SSI the model computes — not forced as input — is excluded from GA). Test count 46 → 56.
• Comment. Clarified that only SSDI bars eligibility, while OASDI retirement/survivors count as income.

Verification notes / known simplifications

• Couple amount dated on a stability assumption. $454 appears only on the (undated) EHSD page. Because the single rate is independently corroborated as unchanged at $336 since 2011, the GA standards are treated as frozen and the couple rate is applied back to 2011-01-01.
• No earned-income disregard modeled. CC's exact disregard (if any) is not published on the EHSD page or brochure; matches the Alameda GA precedent.
• Immigration-status list. CC does not publish an explicit qualified-status enumeration; the EHSD criterion is the broad "non-citizen legally in the country with no limitation on your stay." The modeled list maps that criterion onto the closest enum members. DEPORTATION_WITHHELD / CONDITIONAL_ENTRANT (used by Add Santa Clara County General Assistance Program #8358 / Add San Mateo County General Assistance #8360) are not added here because the EHSD page does not enumerate them for Contra Costa.
• SSI exclusion scope. GA excludes people actually receiving SSI (ssi > 0). Unlike San Mateo (Add San Mateo County General Assistance #8360), CC does not additionally exclude CAPI-eligible applicants (the aged/blind/disabled-LPR SSI off-ramp); the "apply for potential income" rule is therefore only partially modeled.
• Household sizes ≥ 3 are not separately sourced; 3+ eligible adults fall through to the single amount, and any 2 eligible adults are treated as a couple (marital pairing is not tracked within the SPM unit).
• Personal-property limit. The $500 figure is the EHSD page value. The GA-80 brochure's granular asset rules (home, one vehicle ≤ $4,500, cash < $50) are separate exclusions and are not modeled; personal_property is treated as the net countable-asset figure.
• Authoritative grant table unobtainable online. The Contra Costa GA Standard Practices Manual / Board resolution is not published online; the CCWRO Public Assistance Tables checked contain no GA/GR section.

Not modeled (by design)

• 90-day / 3-month-in-12 employable time limit (lifetime/cumulative limits are a known framework limitation)
• Reimbursement/loan agreement (Form SSP-14)
• Special Need Allowance, shared-housing reduction, vendor/in-kind rent payment
• 15-day residency-duration requirement; granular resource exclusions

Files

parameters/gov/local/ca/cc/general_assistance/
variables/gov/local/ca/cc/ga/
  ca_cc_general_assistance.py            (fill-the-gap benefit; gates on ..._eligible)
  ca_cc_general_assistance_maximum_grant.py   (grant standard: single/couple)
  eligibility/
    ca_cc_general_assistance_eligible.py        (composite SPM-unit gate)
    ca_cc_general_assistance_eligible_person.py (per-person categorical checks)
    ca_cc_general_assistance_income_eligible.py (pure income test)
    ca_cc_general_assistance_age_eligible.py
    ca_cc_general_assistance_immigration_status_eligible.py
    ca_cc_general_assistance_personal_property_eligible.py
  income/  (+ in_cc.py)
tests/policy/baseline/gov/local/ca/cc/ga/
programs.yaml  (registered ca_cc_general_assistance)

Reference implementation

• Alameda County GA: policyengine_us/variables/gov/local/ca/ala/ga/
• Sibling county GA PRs: Santa Clara Add Santa Clara County General Assistance Program #8358, San Mateo Add San Mateo County General Assistance #8360

Test plan

• 56 unit/YAML tests pass locally (policyengine-core test policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/local/ca/cc/)
• make format clean (ruff format + check)
• CI passes

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 100.00%. Comparing base (bd1ae42) to head (7ee6dc2).
⚠️ Report is 2 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff              @@
##             main     #8593       +/-   ##
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+ Coverage   77.77%   100.00%   +22.22%     
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  Files           1        11       +10     
  Lines           9       135      +126     
============================================
+ Hits            7       135      +128     
+ Misses          2         0        -2     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	100.00% <100.00%> (+22.22%)	⬆️

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