By Randall Yip & Mary Nguyen
(This story is made possible with the support of the Institute for Non-profit News)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed a budget this month that restores some funding for critical language services to assist Asians and other language minorities in an emergency.
As AsAmNews exclusively reported, her original proposal cut $1 billion from the city’s 2025-2026 budget and included no money for such programs despite local, state and federal laws mandating such assistance.
The City Council however restored some of those funds and Mayor Bass signed it as approved by the council.
“Language access has become a lifeline for our community to access critical services, resources, public health orders, and emergency alerts,” said Chanchanit Martorell of Thai CDC in an email to AsAmNews prior to the budget’s passage. “We need other service providers and governmental agencies to do what they can to make their services more language accessible. We believe language access is a fundamental human right.”
The mayor’s budget message made no mention of the language programs, instead focusing her attention on other services.
“This budget continues to aggressively combat the homelessness crisis and invest in emergency response and vital city services like street repair, parks and libraries,” she said.
In a separate statement to AsAmNews, Bass called language access in a life-saving emergency a “top priority for this administration.”
A city source tells us the $14 billion budget specifically allocates $177,000 to language access services. However, additional money may have been granted to some of the more than 40 city departments in Los Angeles under the general category of contracted services. AsAmNews hopes to have a total figure in the coming days or weeks.
50,000 Asian Americans lived in the evacuation zone during this year’s Los Angeles fires and 12,000 needed language assistance, according to a study from the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
A report released just last month from the city’s Community Investment for Families Department called for 24/7 year-round assistance to City Departments during crises, emergencies, and disasters.
AsAmNews reached out to the department but has not yet heard back. We will update this story as more information is made available.
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