State rental assistance program: data.

Existing law establishes the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and requires it to administer various housing programs. Existing law establishes a program for providing rental assistance, using funding made available pursuant to existing federal law to provide financial assistance and housing stability services to eligible households, as provided, administered by HCD. This bill, in order to ensure that data is available for research and analysis to inform future state policy and programs, would require HCD to retain data from designated sources for at least 10 years, including data on the state rental assistance program, information submitted by eligible grantees that received the federal funding, and data on rental registries operated by local governments, as specified. The bill would prohibit personal information collected that pertains to the application for or receipt of rental assistance by any individual or household from being subject to public disclosure, as provided. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.