ABAWD Follow-Up

Greetings, Union Brothers and Sisters,

On August 13, 2026, your 008 board met with DHA management to follow up on the implementation of ABAWD. Clients are now receiving letters saying that their CalFresh is ending, and workers have not received the info needed to provide clients with how to meet their work requirements and/or receive exemptions. Additionally, training was not conducted in the manner we were told it would, leaving workers unprepared.

We made several proposals in an effort to address these issues:

1. Management needs to send a reminder or refresher to all staff with pertinent information on how to handle calls, what the letters look like that clients receive, and what resources to provide when requested. Management agreed to do this.

2. We were told each bureau has a champion supervisor who knows all things ABAWD, as a resource for staff. We have asked management to let employees know who their champion is.

3. We will be meeting again in a couple of weeks to follow up on our previous proposal that has yet to be completed: a process that streamlines rescheduling intakes when the current one is taking a long time and impacting a future appointment.

More to come. Stay tuned.

UPE thanks advocates Nichole Gorman, Stephanie McCall, and Olivia Brown.

TOGETHER WE ARE STRONG!