SACRAMENTO (April 8, 2021) – The Board of State and Community Corrections today released the Request for Applications for $9.6 million in one-time infrastructure grants to help counties prepare for housing young people who after July 1 will no longer be transferred to the Division of Juvenile Justice.

In September, the Governor signed Senate Bill 823, which began closure of the state  DJJ. Those young people will now be held in county juvenile halls, some of which need infrastructure changes to accommodate a broader range of specialized programming and treatment needs.

The Board also approved $27 million in competitive Proposition 64 Public Health and Safety grants to 23 local governments to help mitigate the impacts of legalizing cannabis activities, and made $6.9 million in federal emergency coronavirus funds available to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide reentry services to people being released from prisons in connection with COVID-19.

The Prop 64 grant program is funded by a portion of tax revenue generated from the cultivation and retail sale of legal, adult-use cannabis or cannabis products. The amount of funding available is driven by sales and was at $51 million at the time applications were received for this second cohort of grantees. The successful proposals, including those for substance-use treatment and mitigations of public health risks, are described here: Prop 64 Public Health & Safety Grant Program Cohort 2 Project Summaries

The BSCC received $58.5 million to administer California’s federal Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding grant program. At the request of the Administration, in July 2020 the BSCC made $15 million available to CDCR to quickly transition people held in state prisons into emergency temporary housing. An additional $42 million was made available to counties to help with the costs of responding to the pandemic. However, not all counties applied, and $6.9 million remained available. Left unallocated, those funds would have been returned to the federal government by June 30, 2021. Instead, the Board voted to allocate the money to CDCR to fund its network of nonprofit organizations providing housing and transition services to people newly released from prison.

The SB 823 juvenile funds are being dispersed under a streamlined timeline to help counties quickly ramp up appropriate housing and programming space. The RFA will make $5 million available to create up to five regional hubs for youth with higher needs for specialized programming and treatment. The remaining $4.12 million for infrastructure improvements is available by formula to all counties based on county juvenile population. The RFA will be posted at www.bscc.ca.gov on April 9, 2021. The BSCC is inviting anyone who would like to serve on the grant application scoring panel to submit a statement of interest here: BSCC Executive steering Committees & Scoring Panels

For more information about SB 823 please contact: John Prince at John.Prince@bscc.ca.gov