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cahomelessyouth · 4 years

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Upcoming Measures Impacting Our Young People

This is a bill update on purposed policies impacting youth experiencing homelessness in California. This summary is to serve as an accessible guide to the upcoming measures impacting our young people.

From enacting a specialized office, to expanding higher education services and definitions, to funding distribution, we hope the progress of these bills navigate a path to positively supporting youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.

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AB-1845 Homelessness: Office to End Homelessness (Asm Luz, Rivas, and Chiu; Coauthor: Asm Robert Rivas)

Establishes the Governor’s Office to End Homelessness, which would be responsible for creating partnerships and coordinate homelessness services, data, and policies with local, state, and federal agencies to identify specific strategies to end homelessness. This office is directly responsible for overseeing the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council.

The Governor shall appoint up to 19 members of the council as follows:

● The Secretary of Business, Consumer Services, and Housing, on Housing Insecurity and Homelessness of the Governor’s Office to End Homelessness, or the secretary’s designee, who shall serve as chair of the council. ● Representatives from: o Department of Transportation o Department of Housing and Community Development o State Department of Social Services o California Housing Finance Agency o State Department of Health Care Services. o Department of Veterans Affairs o Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation o California Tax Credit Allocation Committee in the Treasurer’s office o Victim Services Program within the Division of Grants Management in the Office of Emergency Services o State Department of Education o State public higher education system who shall be from one of the following: ▪ The California Community Colleges ▪ The University of California ▪ The California State University o A person who formerly experienced homelessness who lives in California o A youth who formerly experienced homelessness who lives in California o Two representatives of local agencies or organizations that participate in the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care Program o State advocates or other members of the public or state agencies, at the Governor’s discretion

This office’s goals are to:

● Identify mainstream resources, benefits, and services that can be accessed to prevent and end homelessness in California ● Create partnerships among agencies for the purpose of arriving at specific strategies to end homelessness ● Increase efficiency and effectiveness while focusing on designing systems to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness, including unaccompanied youth under 25 years of age ● Coordinate existing funding and applications for competitive funding ● Make policy and procedural recommendations to legislators and other governmental entities ● Identify and seek funding opportunities for state entities that have programs to end homelessness ● Align and coordinate resources, reduce burdens of accessing existing resources, and foster common applications for services, operating, and capital funding ● Serve as a statewide facilitator, coordinator, and policy development resource on ending homelessness in California ● Report to the Governor, federal Cabinet members, and the Legislature on homelessness and work to reduce homelessness ● Ensure accountability and results in meeting the strategies and goals of the council ● Identify and implement strategies to fight homelessness in small communities and rural areas ● Create a statewide data system, with the ultimate goal of matching data on homelessness to programs impacting recipients of state programs ● Set goals to prevent and end homelessness among California’s youth ● Work to improve the safety, health, and welfare of young people experiencing homelessness in the state ● Increase system integration and coordinating efforts to prevent homelessness among youth who are currently or formerly involved in the child welfare system or the juvenile justice system ● Lead efforts to coordinate a spectrum of funding, policy, and practice efforts related to young people experiencing homelessness ● Identify best practices to ensure minors experiencing homelessness who may have experienced maltreatment have the ability to self-refer to the child welfare system

AB-2388: Public postsecondary education: basic needs of students (Asm. Berman)

This identifies that by July 2021, each California community college will establish a Basic Needs Coordinator position to support and connect students with on and off campus resources tending to food, housing, mental health, and other basic needs. Community college campuses will also be tasked with creating a Basic Needs Center to act as a main location where services, resources, resource listing, and staff are easily accessible. Additional requirements will include strategic outreach to students to ensure knowledge of the center and resources, as well as, incorporating a student basic needs tab on the campus website home page.

AB-2416: Postsecondary education: student financial aid: satisfactory academic progress (Asm Gabriel)

Seeks to amend the student financial aid programs requirement of “satisfactory academic progress”, allowing students falling under the McKinney-Vento definition of homelessness to be identified as experiencing an “extenuating circumstance” and be excused from the progress requirement. This act would apply to the Cal Grant Program, Chafee Educational and Training Vouchers Program, Willie L. Brown, Jr Community Service Scholarship Program, California State Work-Study Program, Middle Class Scholarship Program, and the California DREAM Loan Program.

AB-2884 California State Lottery: revenue allocation (Asm. Berman)

Expands use of lottery funds allocated to California community colleges to be used to provide housing and food assistance to students experiencing housing, food, and financial insecurity.

AB-3069 State employment: homeless and foster youth: pilot program (Asm. Lackey)

Creates a pilot state internship program (LEAP) for former foster youth and youth experiencing homelessness. After a completion of 512 working hours, the interns are considered to meet the qualifications of the state position without requiring an examination. Internships can be positioned as paid or unpaid dependent on the department holding the position.

AB-3300 Homelessness: California Access to Housing and Services Act (Asm. Santiago, Bloom, Bonta, Gipson, Quirk-Silva, and Wicks; Principal coauthors: Asm. Carrillo, Gloria, Kalra, and Nazarian; Coauthors: Asm. Chu, Friedman, Jones-Sawyer, Voepel, and Waldron)

Outlines the provisions for the upcoming fiscal year for the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program (HHAP), which originally disbursed $650 million across California in the form of one-time grant in 2019. This bill would transfer $2 trillion to be allocated after administrative and Governor’s Office to End Homelessness costs are deducted. The 2020-21 fiscal year remainder is divided out by 55% to areas that their a County and CoC (Continuum of Care) jointly apply; 45% to large cities that apply; and 5% to developers in areas not covered otherwise, with grant recipients mandated to acquire a 25% match. Grants will be awarded with a significant weight on the latest Point-in-Time Count (PIT Count) and requiring a 10% set aside for youth housing and services.

#Youth Homelessness #end youth homelessness #collegehomelessness

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theaurorfileshq · 4 years

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R I V K A W A L D R O N / A U R O R C O R P O R A L

AGE: Thirty-Three

BADGE NUMBER: R38N11

BLOODSTATUS: Pureblood

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Gendervoid, She/Her

IDENTIFYING FEATURES: blackwork sigil tattoos covering back, shoulders, arms, & feet ; usually wearing black (or red, on occasion) ; hair never longer than shoulder-length, rarely brushed ; constantly has sweets in pockets ; always looks like she’s slept six hours or less

STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES:

(+): Dueling/Combat Magic, Occlumency, Wandless Magic

(-): Protective Magic (Cannot Conjure a Patronus), Touch Aversion, Maledictus - Raven Form (Beginning to Lose Control of Shifting Episodes)

BACKGROUND:

CW: implied domestic abuse, child abuse

Rivka grew up deep enough in the Mississippi swamps that it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly where on a map. It was a place so drenched in old magic that it was palpable in the very air and water, and seemed to make the environment around them constantly shift. She and her mother - Delvene, father - Gil, and paternal grandfather - Lochar lived in an old manor house that had previously belonged to her mother’s proud Pureblood parents… Leaving them the place in their will was just about the best thing they ever did for their daughter, a squib, who otherwise would have inherited nothing. That they died only months after a short & sweet little wedding on the front porch wouldn’t arouse suspicions for many years.

Contrary to her mother, she displayed her magical abilities early, around age four. Young Riva left a trail of mayhem in her wake whenever she went tearing off into the swamps to play. And when she came back it was with all manner of critters and trinkets she shouldn’t have been capable of collecting herself while she was so small… She had a knack for making things move without touching them, going so far as to levitate some crawdads right out of the river. At age five, a particularly bad argument between her parents in the kitchen resulted in a lot of upturned chairs and broken dishes, as well as one dark-eyed toddler up a tree in the shape of a raven. They couldn’t manage to get her down again until she fell asleep and naturally shifted back in the middle of the night. But by then the damage had already been done… she had gained her father’s attention.

Her wild ways would only continue to intensify as time went on, especially after Gil decided in a fit of devilish inspiration he was prone to that he needed to harness the raw potential of her magic as soon as possible. He set Rivka to task running errands for him, usually to harvest potion ingredients, but sometimes to sit in certain places to listen and watch, sometimes to carry little packages or scrolls back and forth… He twisted what should have been a carefree and adventurous childhood into a rigorous training regimen. And the more she tried to resist his lessons, the crueler and more insistent Gil became. He demanded absolute obedience and deference and, brilliant little thing that she was, Rivka realized quickly enough that it was better to do as he said rather than risk the consequences. But, instead of controlling her, as he anticipated, his abuses only made her find every possible route of escape and every reason to buck authority. It made her elusive and feral, incapable of letting anyone in close enough to touch.

The one exception to this rule came in the form of Fidel Romero, a local auror in Mississippi who had been tasked with monitoring large-scale truancy & neglect cases of newly school age magical children in the area. Despite the many messages sent to the manor house in the swamp, the last officially known address for Rivka, now eleven, none of her Ilvermorny letters had been opened, nor had they received any indication she would be attending. When Fidel visited, he found that only Delvene remained, among a mountain of unopened envelopes, in a crumbled shell which had formerly been a stately Pureblood house of some repute. And all he could get out of her as she sat nearly catatonic on the porch in an old grey rocking chair was that a demon had crawled out of the swamp and swallowed her whole. With no other clues to go by, he ended up encountering Riva by chance… when he caught her stealing a handful of candies from a corner store in town. Once he plied her with a sundae the size of her head, Fidel got enough out of her to determine that her father clearly had no interest in her attending Ilvermorny. And so, he didn’t hesitate. He took her into protective custody that very evening.

Riva may have put something of a target on her back when she loudly declared in the entrance hall upon first entering Ilvermorny that she was not afraid of any bullies. That she did so while single-handedly dispatching of one such bully before ever laying hands on a wand did nothing to dissuade the particularly vicious or determined among them; but all the same, she took to Thunderbird house and to her studies like a lightning bolt to the tallest tree in the forest. Contrary to what her wild demeanor and odd social habits outwardly suggested, it was an environment that she thrived in. She was even capable of being attentive and quiet during class, although her reputation of wildness suggested otherwise. All it took was a good teacher to recognize her struggles and advise her to redirect her anger and frustrations elsewhere. After Riva became captain of the dueling club, there was a decided shift around her. The bullies that once targeted her were suddenly less eager to engage when she challenged them to a formal duel, in the proper arena.

In the summers between school, she would return to Fidel’s care briefly before vanishing again into the swamps she loved so dearly. He worried over her constantly, always concerned she was with her father. He had grown to distrust and despise the man over time, after gleaning what he could from Riva about his cruelties. Every time she left, he almost expected to never see her again, but miraculously, about two weeks before the end of summer, she would reliably arrive on Fidel’s doorstep again like clockwork, as if nothing had ever happened. He learned to be content with that for a while, until she came home one year with tattoos on her hands and back. Seeing red, he tore through the swamps looking for Gil for days and found nothing but a low, faraway sound like an echoing laugh taunting him. Despite his best efforts, Fidel couldn’t keep her away from him, as no lock or barrier would keep her. She flew through his fingers time and time again like a bird slipping through the bars of a cage. But he didn’t want to cage Riva… he only ever wanted to protect her.

She managed to hide any new tattoos or bruises she came home with after that, not out of fear of her father, but to protect Fidel and his big stupid heart as best as she could. She knew he wanted to tear Gil apart, that if he could he’d spend his whole life hunting through the ever-shifting landscape of the Mighty Mississippi bogs until he brought him to justice. But as much as she wanted to, Riva found herself unable to resist each time Gil summoned her to that old house constantly moving through the swamps. Somehow he held Dominion over her thoughts and actions, so much like that name she always overheard coming in hushed whispers from the darkest corners. The summer before her final year was when everything came to a head, when one night she returned unexpectedly early, in strange clothes, scratched and bruised and bloody, hands and feet and hair all torn from her flight… She would never fully explain to Fidel what happened, but what she saw that fateful night would come out in pieces, in nightmares, in long silent stares into the darkness. There had been fire, blood, and shadow, ancient tongues, and strangers in the woods. In the end, although she managed to claw herself out of her father’s grasp, she would never feel truly free of him.

The Mississippi River had always been her deepest & truest love, and the most comfortable home she had ever known. And so it only made sense that she’d follow it to its end. Living with Fidel and getting close to his family had helped guide her there, to the NOLA auror academy. Riva knew it was an opportunity, not only to improve her skills, but to further distance herself from the life with her father she had escaped. However, this time had its own share of challenges… It was in the academy that she finally had it explained to her exactly what being a Maledictus meant. To say that the diagnosis devastated her would be an understatement. In many ways, Riva felt that her world ended right there. In others, she knew she needed to do what she could for the people she loved in the time she had left. Becoming an auror was suddenly so much more important and urgent for that reason, and because she wanted to follow in Fidel’s footsteps while still walking her own path. But as it turned out, protecting him would also eventually mean deceiving him.

In her first year as an auror, Fidel got too close to finding Gil, close enough that she took it upon herself to throw him off the trail. Riva knew the swamps better than anyone, knew how to get to her father wherever he was, like her life depended on it. And so she also knew exactly how to keep Fidel away, this man that she had somehow grown to love more than her own blood. She followed him, carefully manipulating the clues as he came upon them, throwing her voice here or there, making just the right noise at the right time to get him to turn and miss something. She always kept just out of sight or out of reach in the dark, her heart pounding in her throat whenever he grew within arm’s length. It was one of the most difficult things she ever had to do, and not just because of the emotional toll it took on her, or the hurt she knew it would cause if he ever discovered the truth; but also because Fidel was damn good at what he did. It would be a few years before she saw him set the case aside, and even then she understood that it wouldn’t be forever.

Despite her adventurous nature, Riva was content to stay in Mississippi for a long while, perhaps because she found it difficult to miss out on even one moment with the ones she loved, knowing she would eventually run out of time with them. Instead of pushing to climb the ranks as quickly as possible, she focused on making herself like water, flowing easily along her path, trying not to rush too quickly towards or away from anything. She worked this way for ten years, collecting cases under her belt but largely avoiding anything that might draw too much attention to herself. But fate, as always, demonstrated that it had other plans for her… that it was not content to see her wasting away in one place, however comfortable she was to stay there. About a year ago, fate quite literally snatched her away in the middle of a case. Her superiors knew for certain that something was wrong when they didn’t hear from her for a week. But as soon as they mobilized a force to search for her, she turned up with a fuzzy memory in northern Minnesota, prompting investigation into the incident from MACUSA (since she had been transported over state lines such a significant distance). In the days following her recovery, she fervently worked on a list of codes that would not stop running through her head, insisting to anyone who would listen that they were significant to her abduction. Finally, about five days after turning up on the other side of the country, she saw the strange messages for what they were: a set of clues she had left for herself. Once she deciphered them, she was able to lead MACUSA to the northern branch of an Animagus trafficking ring operating along the Mississippi River, where they managed to take five or six smugglers into custody. This prompted her superiors to recommend her to MACUSA, after over a decade of solid work for them. And after meditating on it for a while, and receiving some vital encouragement from a certain gruff father figure, she agreed to apply.

#riva waldron #written by spooky #aurorx

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rivawaldron · 4 years

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RIVKA “RIVA” WALDRON | TATTOOS [ X ]

( cw ;; implied child abuse )

Riva’s tattoos were applied over a number of years by her father Gil, who wanted to use her potent natural magic to his advantage. Most of them are related to Herbology & Potionmaking - he often sent her out into the swamps to fetch ingredients for him. He has a special fondness for poisons, but she never followed his work closely enough to know what he made with what she collected. She learned rather quickly that she would rather not know or be involved.

A few of her other tattoos are meant to be used as tools, for example - a lockpicking tattoo on her hand, a wayfinding tattoo on her wrist, a voice modulating tattoo below her throat, and a “riverwalking” tattoo on both her feet (meant to help prevent her from drowning). Her palms are tattooed with designs that help her steal or otherwise acquire items & successfully conceal them on her person. There are even a few tattoos meant to protect and help her, although his considerations for her safety were few and far between, and it’s more likely his intentions were to protect his most valuable asset.

Pictured above is one of Riva’s most significant tattoos, a sigil on the base of her neck that stretches from her hairline down between her shoulder blades. Gil designed this tattoo for the purposes of controlling her, and compelling her to follow orders. It is, for all intents and purposes, a form of the Imperius curse. When he touched the mark, it forced her to listen and obey, and any of her other tattoos associated with his orders would itch or burn. And when she resisted or avoided his touch, there were consequences. He demanded her total deference & subjugation.

Her aversion to being touched stems from this particular tattoo, as does her fear of intimacy. Letting someone physically close has been dangerous ever since her childhood, and the sort of gestures associated with emotional closeness often seem caging to her at best, insidious at worst. She will sometimes initiate physical contact, but more often than not she prefers to avoid it entirely. Although sometimes the other tattoos still burn occasionally, the Control tattoo has not been activated by Gil again since their separation over fifteen years ago.

#( riva. )#( i. )#( cw ;; implied child abuse )#here you go a glimpse into what a piece of shit gil is #also on the pinterest it lists the locations of each of these just in case anyone (like me) has to know #( looking for your crimes. )

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