Editing General Assistance (section)

==California==
{{See also|Welfare in California}}

Since 1933, California law has required counties to provide relief to the poor, including health care services and general assistance.<ref>{{cite web |title=Understanding County Health Services in California: A Brief Overview |publisher=Institute for Local Government |url=http://www.ca-ilg.org/post/understanding-county-health-services-california-brief-overview |access-date=2012-10-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308213832/http://www.ca-ilg.org/post/understanding-county-health-services-california-brief-overview | archive-date=2013-03-08 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The [[California Welfare and Institutions Code]] provides that:<ref>California Welfare and Institutions Code [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=wic&group=16001-17000&file=17000-17030.1 § 17000] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018211550/http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=wic&group=16001-17000&file=17000-17030.1 |date=2012-10-18 }}</ref>

{{quote|Every county and every city and county shall relieve and support all incompetent, poor, indigent persons, and those incapacitated by age, disease, or accident, lawfully resident therein, when such persons are not supported and relieved by their relatives or friends, by their own means, or by state hospitals or other state or private institutions.}}

It has been said that the "provision of general assistance is inconsistent, fragmented, and widely differentiated", with aid ranging from $160 per month in [[Santa Barbara County, California|Santa Barbara County]] to $360 in neighboring [[Ventura County, California|Ventura County]].<ref name="benevolence">{{cite thesis |type=Ph.D. |first=Stacey Heneage |last=Murphy |title=The Politics of Benevolence: Homeless Policy in San Francisco |year=2008 |oclc=436318619 |pages=122–123}}</ref> Los Angeles County has the largest number of general assistance recipients in California and gives aid of $221 per month.

California has provided some form of general assistance since the mid-1800s, and much of the language can be traced back to the Pauper Act of 1901.<ref name="benevolence"/><ref>''Mooney v. Pickett'', 4 Cal. 3d 669</ref><ref>[[California Statutes]] 1901, p. 636</ref> [[San Francisco Proposition N (2002)|San Francisco Proposition N of 2002]], colloquially known as Care Not Cash, was a [[San Francisco]] ballot measure sponsored by [[Gavin Newsom]] designed to cut the money given in the General Assistance programs to homeless people in exchange for shelters and other forms of services.