Assembly hearing spotlights Stop the Hate program as advocates urge reauthorization before July 2026

SACRAMENTO — Lawmakers heard testimony Tuesday that California’s Stop the Hate program has built a statewide network of community organizations that provide culturally and linguistically competent services to victims of bias and to communities at risk — and that the program risks significant service cuts if state funding is not reauthorized.

Advocates, regional leads and Department of Social Services officials described a program that funded about 180 community-based organizations and created regional “leads” to coordinate services ranging from lay mental-health counseling and legal help to youth prevention programs and community healing events. “Without culturally competent support, victims don’t just suffer violence, they suffer erasure,” said Khadija Alam, executive director of the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs, who told the committee the program was designed to meet people “in the languages they speak, through organizations they trust.”

Why it matters: Several witnesses told the Assembly Human Services Committee that the Stop the Hate grants acted as a rapid-response infrastructure during spikes in hate and enabled community-level prevention and healing that state systems alone could not…