AB 790 amends Welfare and Institutions Code sections 8264 and 8266 to explicitly include "women with children" among the vulnerable populations that cities, counties, and continuums of care (CoCs) must plan for when using state homelessness funding. The bill requires jurisdictions to develop analyses and measurable goals — in consultation with victim service providers — using data beyond the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), to account for needs not captured there, and to submit those analyses to the Interagency Council on Homelessness, which must post them online.
The Interagency Council must also set and measure progress on goals to prevent and end homelessness for women with children, domestic violence survivors and their children, and unaccompanied women, define outcome measures, provide technical assistance when funding allows, and evaluate its goals at least every two years. The bill creates potential state-mandated local costs and includes the statutory reimbursement mechanism if the Commission on State Mandates finds a mandate.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill inserts "women with children" into the list of vulnerable populations covered by state-funded homelessness planning and requires jurisdictions to develop analyses and goals with victim service providers using data not captured in HMIS. Jurisdictions must send those analyses to the Interagency Council, which must post them online and set measurable statewide goals and outcome measures.
Who It Affects
County and city homelessness programs, HUD-funded continuums of care, victim service providers (including shelters that do not report to HMIS), and the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. It also creates a state-mandated compliance task for local governments.
Why It Matters
The bill forces jurisdictions to measure gaps that HMIS misses (notably services from confidential victim programs) and to coordinate with victim service providers, potentially changing local planning, resource allocation, and how shelter capacity is counted and reported at the state level.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 790 makes a targeted change: it explicitly places "women with children" alongside families, domestic violence survivors, and unaccompanied women as a named vulnerable population that jurisdictions must plan for when they receive state funding to address homelessness after January 1, 2024. That naming matters because it triggers the rest of the bill’s requirements — jurisdictions must now treat women with children as a discrete population for analysis and planning purposes.
The bill requires cities, counties, and continuums of care to work with victim service providers to produce local landscape analyses and goals that rely on data sources beyond HMIS. The text specifies several analytic elements: incorporate aggregate data from victim service providers, ensure victim service organizations are included in family-response planning, address the intersection of homelessness and justice involvement (especially for women and survivors), and disaggregate the count of beds provided by victim service providers.
Those directions push jurisdictions to measure services that are often invisible in HMIS — for example, confidential shelter beds and specialized DV services — and to set goals based on that broader picture.Once a jurisdiction develops the analyses and goals, it must provide them to the Interagency Council on Homelessness, which is then required to post that information on its website. The Council itself must set specific, measurable statewide goals aimed at reducing the number, duration, and recurrence of homelessness for domestic violence survivors and their children, unaccompanied women, and women with children; define outcome measures and gather related data; and offer technical assistance to jurisdictions when funding permits.
The Council must establish initial goals by statute and reevaluate them at least every two years.Finally, AB 790 acknowledges the fiscal implication of imposing new duties on local governments: if the Commission on State Mandates determines the act creates state-mandated costs, reimbursement will follow existing state procedures. Practically, the bill is as much about tightening measurement, coordination, and transparency as it is about program expansion — it requires jurisdictions and the state Council to see and report gaps that previously were often left out of standard homelessness data.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill explicitly adds "women with children" to the list of vulnerable populations jurisdictions must include when receiving state homelessness funding after January 1, 2024.
Jurisdictions must develop local analyses and goals with victim service providers and incorporate aggregate victim-service-provider data and other non-HMIS measures into those analyses.
Analyses must disaggregate the number of beds provided by victim service providers and address the link between homelessness and justice-involvement for women and survivors.
Cities, counties, and continuums of care must submit their analyses and goals to the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Council must post those materials on its website.
The Interagency Council must set measurable statewide goals, define outcome measures, offer technical assistance when funding allows, and evaluate those goals at least every two years; the bill also preserves the Commission on State Mandates reimbursement process if mandated costs are found.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Adds "women with children" to the vulnerable populations list
This amendment changes the statutory roster of vulnerable groups that trigger state-funded planning obligations. By naming "women with children" alongside families and unaccompanied women, the law requires jurisdictions to consider their specific needs in system supports and housing delivery plans. Practically, programs that previously grouped all families together must now surface services and outcomes specifically for women with children.
Requires local analyses and goals with victim service providers using non-HMIS data
This subsection directs cities, counties, and CoCs to develop landscape analyses and measurable goals in partnership with victim service providers and to use data not included in HMIS. It prescribes four analytic guidelines: incorporate aggregate victim-provider data, ensure victim service inclusion in family response planning, examine the homelessness–justice nexus for women and survivors, and disaggregate bed counts by victim service providers. Those mechanics force jurisdictions to collect and rely on alternative data sources and to count confidential shelter capacity that typically falls outside HMIS reporting.
Submission and public posting of local analyses
Jurisdictions must provide the analyses and goals developed under subdivision (b) to the Interagency Council on Homelessness. The Council is then required to post those submissions on its website. This creates a transparency mechanism: local planning documents become part of the statewide record, enabling cross-jurisdiction comparisons but also raising questions about confidentiality and how aggregate victim-provider data will be presented online.
Council-level goals, outcome measures, technical assistance, and evaluation cycle
The Interagency Council must set and measure progress toward goals specifically for women with children, domestic violence survivors and their children, and unaccompanied women. The Council's duties include defining outcome measures, gathering data, providing technical assistance to jurisdictions when funding is available, and coordinating with HUD for assistance. The Council must also establish initial goals by a statutory date and reevaluate them at least every two years, creating an ongoing measurement and assistance framework.
Reimbursement path if costs are found to be mandated
This provision does not create funding itself but preserves the reimbursement process: if the Commission on State Mandates determines the bill imposes state-mandated local costs, local agencies and school districts may be eligible for reimbursement pursuant to existing Government Code procedures. The provision flags fiscal risk for local governments while leaving actual payments subject to the Commission’s findings and the state's budgetary process.
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Explore Housing in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Women with children experiencing homelessness — they gain explicit statutory recognition, which should drive tailored planning, visibility in data, and potentially better-targeted services.
- Domestic violence survivors and victim service providers — the statute forces jurisdictions to include victim providers in planning and to count their capacity, increasing the chance that survivor-centered shelter capacity is considered in local and state resource decisions.
- Statewide planners and advocates — the Interagency Council’s requirement to collect, post, and measure analyses creates a consistent dataset and transparency useful for policy analysis, funding requests, and cross-jurisdiction comparisons.
Who Bears the Cost
- Cities, counties, and continuums of care — they must develop additional analyses and goals, incorporate non-HMIS data, submit materials to the Interagency Council, and potentially change reporting practices; these are new administrative obligations for which the bill flags a state-mandated-cost process.
- Victim service providers — they will need to provide aggregate data to jurisdictions and participate in planning processes, which can impose reporting and coordination burdens on often resource-constrained organizations.
- The Interagency Council on Homelessness and state agencies — the Council must collect submissions, post them publicly, set and track outcomes, and offer technical assistance when funded, increasing administrative workload without a defined funding stream.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between the need for better, more inclusive data to design services for women with children and survivors, and the competing imperatives of confidentiality and limited capacity: producing the granular, non-HMIS data the bill demands risks exposing sensitive information and imposing burdens on under-resourced victim providers and local agencies unless the state supplies clear technical standards and funding support.
AB 790 tightens measurement and coordination around populations that standard homelessness data streams often miss. That creates two core implementation challenges.
First, victim service providers frequently operate outside HMIS for confidentiality and safety reasons; asking jurisdictions to incorporate "aggregate data from victim service providers" will require careful design to protect survivor confidentiality while producing useful counts. The bill does not specify data formats, privacy safeguards, or whether and how jurisdictions must reconcile different data systems, leaving significant operational work for localities.
Second, the bill increases administrative tasks for local governments and the Interagency Council without earmarking funding. Although the statute includes the standard reimbursement trigger if the Commission on State Mandates finds costs, actual reimbursement is a separate process and often slow.
Jurisdictions may face immediate workload increases — data collection, analysis, coordination with victim providers, and preparing materials for public posting — with uncertain fiscal support. Finally, posting local analyses online increases transparency but could also expose sensitive system details (e.g., locations or capacities of confidential shelters) unless the Council and jurisdictions adopt redaction or aggregation standards.
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