Add Orange County General Relief

[hua7450]

Summary

Adds a partial Orange County, California General Relief (GR) screen — categorical, income, and resource eligibility plus the maximum aid payment (MAP) — from the official Orange County SSA General Relief Regulations Manual. Registered as partial because Orange County does not publish the component-value (in-kind aid) deductions needed to net the grant against in-kind aid met at no cost.

Closes #8556

Regulatory Authority

• Orange County General Relief regulations — Sec 20 (economic unit), Sec 40 (noncitizen eligibility), Sec 50/60 (resources), Sec 70 (income), Sec 80 (benefits)
• Orange County General Relief FAQ

What's modeled

Area	Modeled	Basis
Geography	Current Orange County residence	county_str == ORANGE_COUNTY_CA
Categorical	At least one eligible adult: qualified noncitizen, not receiving SSI/SSP, CalWORKs, or CAPI	Sec 40.1, Sec 20.4
Income	Net income below the MAP; 20% earned deduction; medical-insurance and court-ordered child/spousal-support deductions; income of other-cash-assistance recipients excluded	Sec 70.2, 70.3, 80.2.d
Resources	Cash plus vehicle value above the $4,650 exclusion, capped at $1,000 per economic unit	Sec 60.2.a, Sec 60.4.c
Payment	MAP by eligible-person count; flat 15% shared-housing reduction with a Housing Support Program exemption	Sec 80.2.d, Sec 80.3.a

Key design decisions

• Eligibility = categorical & income & resources. ca_oc_general_relief_eligible checks (1) at least one eligible person, (2) net countable income below the MAP (Sec 80.2.d financial eligibility), and (3) resources within the limits.
• The MAP is sized on the eligible-person count, not the economic-unit size. Sec 80.3.a(2) bases the MAP on "the number of eligible persons in the GR-EU" — adults, excluding any child and any member excluded for cause (SSI/SSP, CalWORKs/CAPI, noncitizen status). ca_oc_general_relief_eligible_person_count computes exactly that. The full GR Economic Unit (Sec 20.4) is the income/resource pooling group (the SPM unit), a superset of the eligible persons.
• Resources use only cash and vehicles. The resource check is cash + (vehicle value − $4,650 exclusion) ≤ $1,000 per economic unit (Sec 60.2.a, 60.4.c). Cash (spm_unit_cash_assets) is treated as a resource, not income; the $4,650 vehicle exclusion is a deduction (excess counts). We use the common partner-collectable inputs (spm_unit_cash_assets, household_vehicles_value) and drop the $5,000 home-equity cap, non-vehicle personal property, and secondary real estate — inputs partners do not collect and that default to 0.
• No separate "no minor children" rule. Units with a child are excluded organically: a parent receiving CalWORKs is an excluded GR-EU member (Sec 20.4.b), and a working family with a child whose income clears CalWORKs also clears the GR income limit — so the income test and other-cash-assistance exclusion already remove them, with no extra demographic gate.
• CAPI exclusion. CAPI (California's SSI-equivalent cash aid for immigrants) recipients are excluded under Sec 20.4.b's non-exhaustive "another type of public assistance." This is the case ssi > 0 misses: a recently-arrived aged/disabled permanent resident who receives CAPI rather than SSI but is otherwise GR-eligible.
• Shared housing via a generic is_shared_living input. Adds an is_shared_living Household input and applies a flat 15% MAP reduction (Sec 80.3.a(3)) when it is set, waived for housing-assistance recipients to honor the "individuals placed in Housing Support Programs … may be receiving a shelter subsidy" carve-out (proxied by receives_housing_assistance). The manual's graduated 20%/25% tiers are simplified to a single rate for the boolean input.

Who is eligible

The modeled eligible population is narrow: able-bodied, non-aged, childless adults who are citizens / permanent residents / deportation-withheld, with cash and vehicle value below the limits and net income below the MAP. Aged or disabled applicants are swept into SSI or CAPI; applicants with children are routed to CalWORKs.

Not modeled (deferred)

• Component-value (in-kind aid) deductions for housing/utility, food, transportation, clothing met at no cost (Sec 80.3.b) — Orange County does not publish the component dollar values (the reason this is a partial screen).
• Graduated shared-housing reduction tiers (20% / 25%) — simplified to a flat 15% for the boolean is_shared_living input.
• The $5,000 home-equity (primary residence) cap (Sec 50.2), non-vehicle personal property, and secondary real estate — partners do not collect these inputs (they default to 0).
• Liquid-resource handling beyond the flat $1,000 resource cap: the initial-month grant reduction (Sec 60.2.a) and the multi-month period of ineligibility (Sec 70.2.r) are not modeled.
• Mandatory federal/state income tax on unearned income (Sec 70.2.p(3)) — negligible for this very-low-income population.
• Work requirements (Section 30) — GRWP/CFET registration and participation (§30.7), the employability classifications (Employable / Conditionally Employable / Incapacitated, §30.5–30.7), the 90-day-per-12-months time limit for Employable individuals (§30.7.c — a cumulative benefit cap, the same class as the federal 60-month TANF clock that the monthly-snapshot model doesn't represent), and sanctions (§30.8). None of these have a corresponding PolicyEngine input (orientation completion, work-program cooperation, compliance history). The earnings-based denial in §30.9 (aid denied when an adult is fully employed, earning ≥ the grant) is captured indirectly — such a unit has net income ≥ the MAP and so fails the income test.
• 15-day prior residence; sponsor deeming (Sec 70.3.b / 50.3 / 60.3); 2-year property-transfer lookback (Sec 50.8 / 60.5); Refugee Cash Assistance (no California RCA variable); the T/U-visa / VAWA crime-victim immigration pathway (no enum value).

Assumptions

• The MAP schedule's size-1 October 2016 increase ($350 → $355) is documented; the 2016-10-01 values for sizes 2–10 assume the same flat $5 increase.

Tests

Tests describe families with real inputs (age, disability, immigration, work history, income, assets) and let the model determine SSI / CalWORKs / CAPI receipt and its effect on GR eligibility — including an eligibility-map integration set that demonstrates the narrow eligible population.

• policyengine-core test policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/local/ca/oc/general_relief -c policyengine_us — 56 passed
• make format

Files

• policyengine_us/parameters/gov/local/ca/oc/general_relief/
• policyengine_us/variables/gov/local/ca/oc/general_relief/
• policyengine_us/variables/household/demographic/household/is_shared_living.py (new generic Household input)
• policyengine_us/tests/policy/baseline/gov/local/ca/oc/general_relief/

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 100.00%. Comparing base (fbb907a) to head (5b73ca4).
⚠️ Report is 17 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

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  Coverage   100.00%   100.00%            
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  Files            3        18    +15     
  Lines           68       210   +142     
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+ Hits            68       210   +142     

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