California Divide

Tens of thousands of families still owe juvenile justice fees that California has since abolished.

On a recent school day in Fresno, Fernando Valero repaired a 32,000-pound diesel truck with failed sensors. Then he crawled under another truck before lifting it with a floor jack. The morning school work left his hands black from grease. And his day was just getting started. After lunch, Valero left Duncan Polytechnical High School […]

Children who grow up in the San Jose area are better off than those raised in almost any other metropolitan region in the country, according to a new report measuring which U.S. neighborhoods give children the best chance of achieving economic success and good health. Nationally, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metropolitan area ranked second, just […]

It's easy for volunteer counters to miss unsheltered people, especially when law enforcement clears camps just before counters arrive. And they're not even trying to count people living doubled up, or renting cheap motel rooms. So why is so much riding on a count so bad? 

It’s official: The gap between the Bay Area’s haves and have-nots is wider than anywhere else in the state. Top income earners in the Bay Area make 12.2 times as much as those at the bottom of the economic ladder, according to new research from the Public Policy Institute of California, which analyzed 2018 U.S. […]

Amanda Caballero wishes she could go back to work at Amazon. She made $15 an hour at the Fresno fulfillment center — several dollars more than the state’s minimum wage — and received more than three months of paid maternity leave. Her generous health insurance package covered her husband and five children, and she liked […]

A new Alameda County program focused on the connections between poverty, food and employment opened Friday morning, the latest in a countywide effort to help low-income residents by increasing access to jobs and fresh produce. The newly built, 3,300-square-foot space will provide a commercial kitchen for small, home-based food entrepreneurs, land to grow fresh produce […]

Fourteen states, including California, filed suit Thursday against the Trump administration to block a rule that would eliminate food stamps for an estimated 688,000 Americans. “No one should have to choose between a hot meal and paying their rent,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Yet again, the Trump Administration has failed […]

Each year, the Fresno County Department of Social Services spends over a million dollars to house families in motels. Motel vouchers, good for two weeks at a time, are like a golden ticket for families with nowhere else to go. For many residents on the verge of homelessness, motels are often their last chance at […]

After vetoing a bill to reform the state’s child support payback system, Gov. Gavin Newsom has revived efforts to give families on public assistance a greater share of their support payments in his proposed 2020-21 budget. The changes, which if implemented would go into effect January 2022, would provide funding to boost the amount families […]