The API Equity Budget

The Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus Secures a Historic $166.5M to Address AAPI Hate Crimes

 

*UPDATE: The California State Library released the Ethnic Media Grant Outreach RFA to increase the public's awareness efforts of the Stop the Hate Program. Applications are due March 14, 2022 at 5 PM. For more information on the RFA, please click here. 

 

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On July 12, 2021, the California legislature and Governor Newsom passed the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) Equity budget. The API Equity Budget, sponsored by the API Legislative Caucus, is a historic 3-year investment of $166.5 million in California’s API community. The budget will be used to fund critical resources in response to the surge in anti-API hate, as well as address the longstanding racial inequities that have harmed the API community for generations.

 

How $166.5 Million Benefits the API Community

 

$110 million to the California Department of Social Services, who will work with the Commission on Asian & Pacific Islander American Affairs to distribute funds directly to community-based organizations that provide services to help victims of hate crimes and help hate crime prevention services. 

 

The California Department of Social Services' (CDSS) request for applications (RFA) period for the first $20 M to support victim services in 2021-2022 has ended. For regular updates, please click here.

 

$10 million to the AAPI Data Project to improve data equity by conducting policy research and demographic data for the API community.

 

 

$10 million to support the Stop AAPI Hate coalition. This coalition tracks, responds, and helps prevent incidents of anti-API hate.

 

 

$10 million to ethnic media outlets to improve outreach to API and other underserved California communities about grants and helpful services.

 

 

$10 million to an anti-bias block grant that provides funding to schools to create restorative justice programs, providing safe spaces for students and staff to share their experiences with racialized hate and macroaggressions.

 

 

 $5 million to fund a peer social network for APIs to connect with and support each other through the use of social media.

 

 

  $1.5 million to fund a workgroup, coordinated by the Commission on Asian & Pacific Islander American Affairs, to address educational attainment for low-income, first-generation API college students.

 

 

$10 million to create a new Statewide Reporting Hotline. The hotline will be run by a nonprofit entity and will serve as a single centralized hub for individuals to report hate crimes and incidents. Callers will also be connected, in-langauge, to the appropriate local resources and services. 

 

In partnership with: