Palo Alto's foray into rent stabilization blew up at the starting line Monday night after the City Council majority struck down a proposal from three council members to strengthen the city's tenant-protection laws.
Stacey Falls, a science teacher at Santa Cruz High School, has been keeping a nervous eye on rents in recent years, as she’s watched friends and colleagues move away.
Falls, who sat on the high school’s hiring panel, says Santa Cruz High won’t even consider candidates who would have to relocate to Santa Cruz “because it would be too challenging.”
Today, the “housing package” passed by the state Legislature was signed by Governor Brown. Two bills - SB 2 and SB 3 - will raise desperately needed funds for affordable housing. AB 1505, known as the “Palmer Fix” and previously vetoed by Governor Brown, will at long last restore the authority of local government to require a percentage of affordable housing units in new rental housing developments. Together, these bills will help get back some of the affordable housing funding that California has lost thanks to drastic cuts under the Brown Administration.
We're blown away.
State leaders have finally woken up to the affordable housing crisis raging throughout California. A slew of housing bills were introduced this year with different approaches to the problem. The governor and real estate companies sought deregulation of high-priced housing construction, while affordable housing and community advocates pushed for what families being priced out of neighborhoods need most urgently: funds to build more homes that low-income people can afford and removal of state constraints on local affordable housing and anti-displacement policies.
As Pete Yamamoto recalls the events of Aug. 4, 1977 — the infamous eviction night at Kearny Street’s old International Hotel — his eyes are closed.
For several minutes, he seems to be trying to concentrate as he recounts what occurred 40 years ago. But after a while, he pauses, bows his head and trembles silently.
The number of people living on the streets in San Diego County may be 50 percent higher than thought, according to a new study.
That means the annual count of homeless people overall could be much greater than numbers the federal government uses to fund housing programs.
The study, led by University of New Hampshire statistician Chris Glynn and sponsored by the real estate database company Zillow, factored in the relationship of housing costs to homelessness, a departure from the traditional head-count method in determining the number of homeless people.
Los Angeles and New York City top the list of U.S. cities with the most poor people laboring under heavy rent burdens, living in substandard housing, or both, according to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs study released Wednesday.
More than half of Los Angeles’ 1 million very poor households, or 567,000, spent more than half their income on rent or resorted to undesirable housing in 2015, the study said.
Activists erected a mock tent city outside the Grove shopping complex on Friday afternoon while calling on city leaders to create more affordable housing in Los Angeles.
"You may think this will never happen to you," said Section 8 housing resident Emily Martiniuk, who lost her job and then her home several years ago. "And please believe me, I hope it doesn't. But it happened to me."
Protester Dina Brown, of the nonprofit group L.A. L.O.V.E., wore a T-shirt that read "Gentrification is Warfare."
National City residents called for rent control laws and demanded more affordable housing Thursday.
Community groups, tenants and other allies launched a campaign for local rent control and just cause eviction protections, according to the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
The group met at the 130 block of East 8th Street at noon to call for change in their city.