Fighting for our Communities Through State Advocacy
By Shannon Camacho, Luz Castro, Amy Chong, Doug Smith
Over the past year, our team has been on the move meeting with state legislators, building strong coalitions, providing expert testimony, organizing lobby days, and getting to know the inner workings of the state legislature. Together, we have worked with state lawmakers and their staff to advance legislation that unlocks economic opportunity for underinvested communities.
This year, we championed five important statewide policy initiatives – three bills and two budget requests. Our agenda aimed to transform laws that defend street vendors and immigrant workers against federal attacks, advance economic inclusion for entrepreneurs of color, expand the social safety net, increase resources for workers and small business owners, and help ensure a just recovery in Altadena after the devastating Eaton Fire.
We’re excited to provide an update on our 2025 state policy agenda and share our reflections on a year of advocacy in Sacramento!
Federal Attacks and the Impact on our Communities
Our state advocacy has been especially critical in light of federal actions that have targeted our communities. Trump’s draconian policies have rolled back social services, weakened financial safeguards, hurt our economy, and actively threatened to illegally seize private taxpayer data held by government agencies. These policies have had a direct impact on immigrant communities, small businesses, and outdoor workers that we serve. For example, we have seen the targeting of street vendors, landscapers, and recyclers who have been racially profiled and kidnapped by immigration enforcement. Many continue to face the impossible choice between staying home or risking deportation by going to work. ICE and DHS actions are also forcing small businesses to close down or cut their hours.
In the financial sector, recent attacks on the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Fund threaten critical sources of support for CDFIs like our organization. The fund is a critical tool that has allowed CDFIs to drive local economic development – deploying millions of dollars in grants and micro loans to immigrant and BIPOC entrepreneurs. At the same time, attempts to roll back the federal 2023 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which aims to combat discriminatory lending practices, is deeply concerning. The federal CRA has helped direct resources to support affordable housing, small businesses and community land trusts, and Trump’s rollbacks jeopardize decades of progress toward financial inclusion and equity.
Inclusive Action’s 2025 State Policy Agenda
The Trump administration’s actions are having devastating impacts on our economy and community, and we believe that California legislators and the Governor have an opportunity and a responsibility to counter these harms and safeguard our rights. We are proud to have pushed a state policy agenda driven by our values, and to have contributed to significant victories that are both timely and necessary for Californians.
SB 635, Street Vendor Business Protection Act
Alongside our coalition partners and Senator Maria Elena Durazo, we championed SB 635, a significant victory to protect street vendors in California against being targeted by immigration agents. The Street Vendor Protection Act – which goes into effect on January 1, 2026 – prevents federal immigration enforcement from accessing sidewalk vendors’ personal information collected by local governments that could reveal immigration or citizenship status. It also prohibits local sidewalk vending permit processes from asking about immigration or citizenship status or collecting fingerprinting to limit the sensitive data that could fall into the wrong hands. From the creation of the bill and through every step of the advocacy process, street vendor leaders were at the forefront of our work, sharing their lived experience and informing this critical legislation.
AB 613, Community Ownership Real Estate (CORE) Act
Small businesses have long been vulnerable to displacement, a challenge intensified by the pandemic and worsened by the lack of strong commercial tenant protections. To address these challenges, nonprofit organizations have been acquiring real estate to stabilize neighborhoods and prevent further gentrification by leasing properties to community-serving small businesses and organizations at affordable rates.
AB 613 was introduced by Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez to support this effort by lowering the property tax burden for properties acquired by nonprofit organizations for these purposes . Although the bill did not advance out of committee in 2025, the model remains an innovative approach to leveraging real estate for social good. Expanding this model could help sustain small businesses across the state and slow gentrification and displacement. We look forward to expanding our advocacy for innovative real estate models like this and reintroducing this in the years to come.
AB 801, Community Reinvestment Act
Alongside our coalition partners and Assemblymember Mia Bonta, we fought for the creation of a state-level CRA that would require financial institutions to reinvest and provide services fairly across communities where they operate, closing gaps in access to financial capital. AB 801 would require state chartered banks, credit unions, mortgage companies and fintech companies to meet the financial services needs of all communities, including low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color.
This legislation would also increase funding to CDFIs, ensuring that community lenders have the resources they need to expand their impact. It will also support access to capital for affordable housing development and homeownership.
AB 801 passed the Assembly and turned into a two-year bill in the Senate, giving us additional time to educate legislators on its importance for California’s economic development. This bill will continue through the 2026 legislative session where it will go through the Senate process.
A just recovery in Altadena
As if the destruction of the Eaton fire wasn’t devastating enough, an impending land grab by corporate interests now poses an imminent threat to the families and businesses that built the community over generations. In response, we were proud to stand with community leaders to advocate for programs and resources to prevent displacement and keep Altadena lands in Altadena hands. In August, we worked with our partners to publish Confronting Disaster, a comprehensive report that presents original data showing the risk of racialized displacement in post-fire Altadena and proposes policies to bolster community ownership. We are grateful that one of the key recommendations from our report was signed into law – AB 851, banning unsolicited offers for fire-damaged properties! Thanks for Assemblymember Tina McKinnor and our partners at the California Community Land Trust Network for championing this bill. Building on this win, we will continue to advocate for a Community Acquisition Fund to open opportunities for local organizations to acquire and steward property for a just recovery.
Social Entrepreneurship for Economic Mobility (SEED) Initiative
In 2021, we worked with Immigrants Rising to get cash into the hands of entrepreneurs looking for resources to start and build their small businesses. Since then, the SEED Initiative has supported various community-based organizations throughout the state to provide micro-grants, entrepreneurial training, and technical assistance to equip immigrant entrepreneurs and those with limited English proficiency (LEP).
Through this work, SEED supports economic development and bolsters California’s economic prosperity. In our initial budget request, the Economic Mobility for All Coalition and our co-sponsors asked the Governor for continued investment in SEED with $15 million annually over the next four years. Even amid the difficult budget year, and thanks to the leadership of Assemblymember Juan Carillo, immigrant entrepreneurs and our partners, we successfully secured $7.5 million dollars for SEED. SEED 3.0 is expected to start accepting applications from community based organizations in early 2026. We will continue our advocacy for the State to continue to invest in immigrant entrepreneurs.
We are proud to see California counter the Trump administration, and stand up for our values by taking important steps to support those impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires and immigration raids across Southern California.
At Inclusive Action, we will continue our work to support an effective implementation of SB 635, to advance and strengthen the SEED Initiative, and to build stronger momentum to establish a state level Community Reinvestment Act. We’ll also be working to support community ownership and an equitable recovery in Altadena.