News

1.57 million claims unresolved

California’s unemployment department is in the hot seat — again.

Excerpted from Irvine Community News and Views

Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris has announced her selection of Families Forward of Irvine, as the 74th Assembly District’s 2020 Non-Profit of the Year.

Families Forward is a non-profit focused on ending homelessness for local Orange County families.  Families Forward exists to help families in need achieve and maintain self-sufficiency through housing, food, counseling, education, and other support services.

Excerpted from Orange County Breeze

Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris announced her selection of Families Forward of Irvine, as the 74th Assembly District’s 2020 Non-Profit of the Year. Families Forward is a non-profit focused on ending homelessness for local Orange County families. Families Forward exists to help families in need achieve and maintain self-sufficiency through housing, food, counseling, education, and other support services.

Excerpted from OC Breeze

Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris has announced that the California State Coastal Conservancy has allocated a $2,460,000 grant to acquire the 44-acre Newland Marsh property in Huntington Beach from the California Department of Transportation, and to transfer the property to the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy (HBWC).

Excerpted from OC Breeze

In an effort to keep high-paying jobs in the state and maintain a robust laboratory force to provide COVID-19 testing, the Legislature has passed Assembly Bill 1327 with bipartisan support.

Excerpted from Coast Online

By Oceana Christopher

Share Our Selves (SOS), the Costa Mesa-based community health center, celebrated its 50th anniversary this August with the unveiling of a new mobile health unit.

Excerpted from Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s unemployment agency is not answering 60% of the calls it receives for help as the overwhelmed department struggles to work through a backlog of more than 1 million pending claims five months into the pandemic.

Employment Development Department Director Sharon Hilliard told a panel of frustrated state lawmakers on Monday that the agency is on pace to have 3,700 people working in its call center by January, up from the 350 employees prior to the pandemic.

Excerpted by Daily Pilot

By Sara Cardine

For the past 50 years, community health center Share Our Selves has made strides to serve as many vulnerable and low-income people as possible, offering medical, dental and social services throughout Orange County with a main office in Costa Mesa.

Excerpted from OC Breeze

Sixty-one California lawmakers sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom advocating for immediate and structural reforms at the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD). Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, EDD has displayed a shocking inability to disperse unemployment benefits as millions of Californians struggle without income. (Full Letter Attached)

Excerpted from Associated Press

By Kathleen Ronayne

The agency is working to merge the call centers and train more workers to handle complex calls to eliminate the need for call backs, Hilliard said. But she could not give a timeline for when that would happen despite repeated questions from Democratic Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris. Other lawmakers said it was unacceptable that so few workers are able to answer questions about claims over the phone.