Add Contra Costa County General Assistance

[hua7450]

Summary

Implements Contra Costa County, California's General Assistance (GA) program — a county-administered indigent cash-assistance program under California Welfare & Institutions Code § 17000 et seq. GA pays the gap between a grant standard and the recipient's net countable income to adults without dependent children who are ineligible for other cash aid.

Administered by the Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services Department (EHSD). Files live under gov/local/ca/cc/, parallel to the existing Alameda County GA implementation at gov/local/ca/ala/ga/.

Closes #8592

Regulatory authority

• CA Welfare & Institutions Code § 17000 / § 17001 (county duty to relieve indigent residents; Board of Supervisors sets the standards of aid)
• Contra Costa County EHSD — General Assistance program page: https://ehsd.org/aging-and-adult-services/general-assistance/
• EHSD GA brochure (GA-80, Rev. 7/2024): https://ehsd.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GA-Brochure_ENGLISH_July2024_FA_Digital.pdf#page=2
• Western Center on Law & Poverty, 2011 General Relief grant levels (Contra Costa = $336): https://wclp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gr_grantlevels_2011.pdf

Benefit

Fill-the-gap: max_(grant standard - max_(countable income, 0), 0). The inner max_(income, 0) floors countable income at zero so net-negative flows (e.g. self-employment losses) cannot inflate the grant above the standard.

Grant standard	Monthly amount	Effective	Source
Single	$336	2011-01-01	WCLP 2011 table ($178 housing + $158 food/needs); still $336 on current EHSD page
Couple (2 eligible adults)	$454	2024-01-01	Current EHSD page

Eligibility

Requirement	How modeled
Age ≥ 18	age >= 18
Personal property ≤ $500	personal_property <= 500 (EHSD "up to $500" → inclusive)
Qualified immigration status	CITIZEN, REFUGEE, ASYLEE, CUBAN_HAITIAN_ENTRANT, PAROLED_ONE_YEAR, LEGAL_PERMANENT_RESIDENT
No dependent children	spm_unit_count_children == 0 (families → CalWORKs)
Not receiving SSI / SSDI / UIB / SDI	excluded via ssi, social_security_disability, unemployment_compensation, ca_state_disability_insurance
Net countable income < grant standard	income < base_amount (brochure: "earnings less than the maximum allowable grant")
Contra Costa County residence	in_cc (county_str == CONTRA_COSTA_COUNTY_CA)

Verification notes / known simplifications

• Couple amount pre-2024 unverified. $454 appears only on the current EHSD page with no historical source, so it is dated 2024-01-01 (the parameter extrapolates $454 backward for periods before 2024). The single $336 is independently corroborated to 2011.
• No earned-income disregard modeled. CC's exact disregard (if any) is not published on the EHSD page or brochure; matches the Alameda GA precedent (also none). If CC applies a disregard, benefits here are understated.
• Immigration-status list mirrors the Alameda GA precedent. CC does not publish an explicit qualified-status enumeration; the EHSD criterion is the broad "non-citizen legally in the country with no limitation on your stay." The list may be under-inclusive (e.g. DEPORTATION_WITHHELD, CONDITIONAL_ENTRANT, TPS are arguably "legally present").
• Household sizes ≥ 3 are not separately sourced; 3+ eligible adults fall through to the single amount, and any 2 eligible adults are treated as a couple (marital pairing is not tracked within the SPM unit).
• Authoritative grant table unobtainable online. The Contra Costa GA Standard Practices Manual / Board resolution (the canonical grant-by-household-size table, disregard, and effective dates) is not published online; the three CCWRO Public Assistance Tables that were checked contain no GA/GR section.

Not modeled (by design)

• 90-day / 3-month-in-12 employable time limit (lifetime/cumulative limits are a known framework limitation)
• Reimbursement/loan agreement (Form SSP-14)
• Special Need Allowance, shared-housing reduction, vendor/in-kind rent payment
• 15-day residency-duration requirement; granular resource exclusions (home, one vehicle ≤ $4,500, cash < $50) — personal_property is treated as the net countable-asset figure

Files

parameters/gov/local/ca/cc/general_assistance/
variables/gov/local/ca/cc/ga/   (+ in_cc.py)
tests/policy/baseline/gov/local/ca/cc/ga/
programs.yaml  (registered ca_cc_general_assistance)

Reference implementation

• Alameda County GA: policyengine_us/variables/gov/local/ca/ala/ga/

Test plan

• 46 unit/YAML tests pass locally (policyengine-core test)
• make format clean (ruff format + check)
• CI passes

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 100.00%. Comparing base (fbb907a) to head (2e8349d).
⚠️ Report is 2 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

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  Coverage   100.00%   100.00%           
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  Files            3        10    +7     
  Lines           68       121   +53     
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+ Hits            68       121   +53     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)

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