California Policy Lab 2023 Recap

We’re grateful to our government partners, our funders, and our affiliated experts who work with us to generate research insights for government impact.

A few highlights from 2023 and what’s on the horizon for 2024:

Equipping policymakers with insights to address California’s homelessness crisis

This year NPR covered the impact of our research to predict and prevent homelessness in Los Angeles. We also measured the impact of time-limited subsidies on reducing homelessness among adults and estimated how many SF residents may be eligible for referral to CARE Court.

Showing the impacts of state policies like 3 Strikes + evaluating promising reforms to the criminal legal system

Providing people with earlier legal representation led to fewer jail days, more case dismissals, and fewer convictions, according to our research on Santa Clara County’s PARR program. And, as the research partner to the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, we’re helping the committee to simplify and improve California’s legal system, including by quantifying the long-term impacts of policies like sentence enhancements.

Tracking the financial health of Californians

The California Credit Dashboard‘s quarterly updates provide a near real-time look at Californians’ finances – and how they’re different across generations, counties, credit scores and more. In 2024, we’ll continue quarterly updates + share some more deep dive analyses, including on access to credit.

What’s ahead in early 2024?

• An update on our work to predict and prevent homelessness in Los Angeles
• We’ll show how many California college students are eligible and enrolling in CalFresh – and how many are eligible but missing out!
• Our next update on California migration patterns
• More insights on criminal justice policies – including consecutive sentencing

We’ll also continue providing CPL’s first-in-class research infrastructure that helps other researchers conduct their policy-focused research faster and easier through:

• Access to data such as the University of California Consumer Credit Panel, the Life Course and Safety Net datasets, and the Health Data Access Initiative
• Direct financial support with CPL Seed Grants and Graduate Fellowships
• Equipping the next generation of evidence-based researchers through our Undergraduate Summer Institute, Graduate Fellowships, and postdoctoral research opportunities

Please support our work

In your end of year giving, please consider donating to support our work. Your support enables us to continue generating research insights for government impact. If you are interested in making a larger gift, please reach out to Evan White or Janey Rountree to discuss opportunities to support CPL.