Gavin Newsom (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
A California health department poured millions of taxpayer dollars into anti-police groups over the last year for projects ranging from COVID-19 treatment to coaching teens on social justice activism, a Washington Free Beacon review of state grant spending found.
The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), which runs the Golden State’s Medicaid program for some 15 million residents, or a third of the population, doled out nearly $2.4 million to the anti-police groups. Recipients include the Anti Police-Terror Project, an Oakland-based police abolition group, and several organizations that joined its defund the police coalition, such as Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice.
DHCS, which has a $164 billion budget and a staff of nearly 4,700, promises "to use our state’s tax dollars as effectively as possible." The grants, meanwhile, were awarded during the 2023-24 budget year, as California faced a $22.5 billion shortfall. A DHCS spokeswoman said the department wouldn’t be able to provide a response before "the middle of next week."
"The Newsom administration spent itself into a massive deficit, and programs like this are Exhibit A for how it happened," the California State Assembly’s top Republican, James Gallagher, said. "The health department should stick to health programs—not woke nonsense that wastes tax dollars. I’m looking forward to budget hearings next year when they can explain why they think this was an appropriate use of scarce state resources."
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, for example, received $1 million from DHCS in June "to elevate the voice and power of systems-impacted and formerly-incarcerated young people through culturally-rooted healing, education, organizing, and legal support." The project is slated to run through November 2026.
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice is an Oakland nonprofit that lists "Defunding, decertifying, developing community-based alternatives to policing" among its primary goals. Its programs include a paid fellowship for formerly incarcerated young adults aiming to "dismantle the racist institutions of policing and incarceration."
In 2021, the group signed on to a defund the police coalition founded by the Anti Police-Terror Project, which also received DHCS funding. The Anti Police-Terror Project was awarded $75,000 for a program beginning in August 2024 to test and treat homeless people for COVID-19 at its Oakland community center and through its Sacramento affiliate and other local partners. The local health departments no longer report COVID-19 caseloads.
The Anti Police-Terror Project’s ongoing campaigns include defunding Oakland’s police department and stopping police from responding to psychiatric crises. Mitigating COVID-19, however, is omitted.
In fact, the only public health programs the group touts are massages, herbal medicines, and psychological counseling from volunteers administered at a community center. The Anti Police-Terror Project, which grew out of an "Afrikan liberation organization," also provides "mobile peer support de-escalation assistance" for people experiencing drug- or alcohol-induced mental health breaks or domestic violence episodes—incidents it blames on "white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism."
An investigation by the Silicon Valley newsletter Pirate Wires in June found the Anti Police-Terror Project’s co-founder, the partner of an Oakland city councilwoman, sent at least $800,000 to other organizations he ran. He was also arrested and charged with battery during a homeless encampment closure last year, but the charges were dropped in September.
Another organization that signed onto the Anti Police-Terror Project’s defund the police coalition, Filipino Advocates for Justice, received DHCS funding in June. The progressive Bay Area immigrant rights group was awarded $600,000 to help "Filipino and immigrant young adults facing substance use risks" through a "healing-centered approach with therapy and free events."
Filipino Advocates for Justice has a campaign finance arm and is active in voter turnout and advocacy. This year, it tried and failed to push a ballot initiative that would have gutted a law limiting property tax increases. The group has also received funding from left-wing backers like the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation, the New Venture Fund, and the Akonadi Foundation, another anti-police organization.
Gente Organizada, a Southern California immigrant rights group, raked in $700,000 from DHCS in June to "reduce the number of BIPOC youth in Pomona who are at risk of exposure to the justice system." The goal is to give at least 30 youth of color the chance to join "advocacy activities with our youth-led social action group" and to promote jail diversion programs.
On its website, Gente Organizada accuses the city of Pomona of "Upholding White Supremacy through Overpolicing of BIPOC People," calling it "Institutional Violence." It also called for police to be removed from schools.
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