Scates v. Rydingsword

• Decision Date: 01 May 1991
• Docket Number: No. A047712,A047712
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Stewart SCATES et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. James RYDINGSWORD et al., Defendants and Appellants. Frankie RANDOLPH et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CONTRA COSTA COUNTY et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Page 544

280 Cal.Rptr. 544

229 Cal.App.3d 1085

Stewart SCATES et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. James RYDINGSWORD et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Frankie RANDOLPH et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CONTRA COSTA COUNTY et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. A047712.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 2, California.

May 1, 1991.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing

May 31, 1991.

Victor J. Westman, Contra Costa County Counsel, Arthur W. Walenta, Asst. County Counsel, Martinez, for defendants and appellants.

Ralph Murphy, Jodie Berger, Philip J. Bertenthal, Contra Costa Legal Services Foundation, Richmond, for plaintiffs and respondents.

SMITH, Associate Justice.

In the fall of 1988, Contra Costa County's Board of Supervisors (board) adopted an innovative Winter Relief Program which served the county's homeless population by opening state national guard armories in Richmond and Concord for overnight shelter during the ensuing winter months. Unused funding for that program was then used to help fund another such program, the Spring 1989 Shelter Program, and county emergency-assistance funds were used during both programs to operate a motel hotline program.

In these class actions brought by and on behalf of county homeless indigents, the superior court issued preliminary injunctions against reducing or terminating the spring shelter or emergency assistance programs without first conducting "Boehm studies"--studies of minimum subsistence needs mandated whenever counties alter grant levels under general assistance (GA) programs. (Boehm v. County of Merced (1985) 163 Cal.App.3d 447, 209 Cal.Rptr. 530; Boehm v. Superior Court (1986) 178 Cal.App.3d 494, 223 Cal.Rptr. 716 (Boehm II ).)

Defendants appeal, urging that the programs were never a part of Contra Costa County's GA program and that the court therefore abused its discretion. We agree.

BACKGROUND

Contra Costa County (county), like other counties, provides GA grants as a means of discharging its duties under Welfare and Institutions Code sections 17000 and 17001 (hereafter sections 17000 and 17001). "GA is a program of last resort for indigent and disabled persons unable to qualify for other kinds of public benefits. GA is often the only means by which they can obtain the basic necessities.... The program is unique because the responsibility for funding and administering it rests entirely upon individual county governments." (Boehm II, supra, 178 Cal.App.3d 494, 499, 223 Cal.Rptr. 716, citations omitted.)

Section 17000 mandates that counties provide aid to resident indigents and dependent poor, and section 17001 vests county boards of supervisors with broad "discretion to determine eligibility for, the type and amount of, and conditions to be attached to, indigent relief" (Boehm II, supra, 178 Cal.App.3d 494, 500, 223 Cal.Rptr. 716, fn. omitted). ¹ In order to determine the level of GA to be paid, counties must conduct a study of what is needed for minimum subsistence. "Minimum subsistence, at the very least, must include allocations for housing, food, utilities, clothing, transportation and medical care." (Id., at p. 501, 223 Cal.Rptr. 716.)

As will be seen, the ultimate issue on this appeal is whether the superior court usurped the board's statutory duties by declaring, in effect, that programs affecting the indigent poor but never intended to discharge section 17000 obligations were nevertheless terminable only if supported by a Boehm study.

Emergency Assistance

The county's policy on "emergency assistance" is defined in excerpts from the November 1987 version of a "Social Services Department Manual" (hereafter GA Manual), which begin: "This section contains policies and procedures relating to the issuance of County Emergency Assistance. Under certain conditions and at the Department's discretion, County funds may be issued for emergencies when a person does not meet the standards for General Assistance or when s/he has received all aid for the month to which s/he is entitled. Since there is no legal obligation for the County to provide Emergency Assistance to meet unusual situations, there is no basic entitlement for a person to receive these funds even though s/he meets the conditions under which they may be authorized. For this reason, there is no formal application for Emergency Assistance, nor is there a right to appeal a denial of the request." The manual goes on to stress, through criteria and examples, that emergency aid (ad hoc amounts for one month maximum) is purely discretionary and available only to persons who lack other resources or program eligibility, including GA. ²

The scheme thus afforded GA as a matter of right for qualifying individuals. This included "Basic Need" grants and, for those with demonstrated needs beyond the maximum allowances, supplemental "Special Need" grants. Emergency assistance took up where GA and other programs left off. It covered short-term emergencies for persons ineligible under GA criteria and not receiving categorical state or federal aid. It was administered in a purely discretionary manner.

Emergency assistance at the time when these cases arose was implemented as part of board resolution No. 88/576, which contained standards for administering GA. Part VII of the resolution ("Additional Provisions") states in part "B": "Emergency Assistance [p] Not withstanding the provi sions above, the County Social Service Director, or his designee, may determine in writing that an applicant not otherwise eligible to General Assistance, or further General Assistance, may be granted emergency assistance for not more than one month because of emergency circumstances which are caused by fire, accident, illness, natural disaster, unemployment, crime against the applicant, agency delay or error, [for] causes which result in formal notice of eviction, in utility shut-off, or in lack of food and there are no other resources to meet the need." ³ The language is similar to a 1976 resolution by which the board first added emergency assistance to a then-current GA standards resolution. The main difference is that, as originally enacted, the program was restricted to GA applicants. But the program, according to uncontradicted evidence below, was recast sometime before 1980 into the form described above--a program assisting those not eligible for GA and not receiving categorical aid. Despite the change, the program continued to be carried as part of county GA ordinances.

Evidence corroborates the evolved administrative view of emergency assistance as a discretionary supplement to, not a part of, county GA. Eventually, the program came to be used as part of efforts to relieve a growing problem of homelessness in the county. ⁴

Winter Relief Program

The board adopted the Winter Relief Program (hereafter Winter Program) in November 1988 at the urging of James Rydingsword, the director of its Department of Social Service (DSS), funding it with a county grant of $100,000 to be matched by funds raised in the community. The program opened armories in Richmond and Concord to single adults from November 1988 through April 1989. ⁵ During those months, emergency assistance funds were used to operate an emergency shelter hotline on evenings and weekends and to pay for motel referrals when other shelters were full.

Both programs were made available to all, without regard for GA eligibility. The coordinator of county homeless services programs declared: "The provision of shelter in the Armories and housing through the hotline to homeless persons was made without consideration of such persons' entitlement to benefits under County General Assistance. Some ... were not indigent persons, some were not Contra Costa County residents, and some were adequately financially supported under State or Federal aid programs. Homeless persons who were furnished shelter in the Armories and/or housing through the hotline were not screened for eligibility to General Assistance, and were not obligated to provide their own efforts and cooperation to find housing and employment, which is a requirement under County General Assistance."

Spring 1989 Shelter Program

In March 1989, with the armories set to close at the end of April, the board adopted the Spring 1989 Shelter Program (hereafter Spring Program). The program called for development of county-sponsored shelters in the West and East/Central County plus continuation of the shelter hotline. Funding was pieced together from about $24,000 left over from a 1987-1988 winter relief program, a $12,500 community-development grant and unused funds raised by the Community Homeless Action and Resource Team (CHART) for the Winter Program. ⁶

The armories ultimately closed on May 15, two weeks later than anticipated. Nevertheless, for reasons not explained in the record, the Spring Program shelters were not in place by then. Faced with the prospect of placing all homeless in motels through the more expensive hotline program and a resulting funding drain that would leave the county unable to serve all of the homeless through the fiscal year, DSS director Rydingsword restricted the hotline program to serve those with the most critical needs--families with children, the disabled and those discharged from hospitals.

Litigation, Repeal and the New Program

That action prompted plaintiffs Stewart Scates and Dean Spencer to sue on behalf of themselves and other homeless indigent county residents (Scates et al. v. Rydingsword et al. (Super.Ct. Contra Costa County, 1989, No. C89-02060) (hereafter Scates )). Their action alleged failure of the county to fulfill its duties to the homeless under section 17000 and failure to conduct a Boehm study before restricting the Spring Program. On May 25, the court issued a temporary restraining order preventing the county from failing to implement the Spring Program or its equivalent pending a hearing on plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction.

On June...