California Divide

Foster Farms shut down its facility on Cherry Street in Fresno following a coronavirus outbreak but reopened by Monday, according to company officials. Over the past two weeks, 193 workers at the 1,400-person facility in southwest Fresno tested positive for COVID-19, according to Ira Brill, vice president of communications for Foster Farms. None of the […]

A coalition of Los Angeles eviction defense attorneys is seeking postponements of all trials until the end of the pandemic.

More than 2 million Californians are struggling to keep up with rent — many of them single mothers with at least some college education. The situation will be made worse as some unemployment benefits begin to expire after Christmas and landlords begin evicting Feb. 1. This report is part of a multi-month series from the California Divide.

Aleida lost all her work at the start of the coronavirus shutdown. After using up her entire savings to keep her daughter and nephew sheltered, she missed rent for the first time in her life.

Patricia was already spending 75% of her take home pay on rent before the pandemic. Since losing her job as a medical transport driver, the single mother of two has fallen behind on rent.

Susan lost two of her three jobs at the start of California’s shelter-in-place order. She is just barely scraping by each month. Still, this once-homeless single mother says she feels rich compared to what she once had.

In many ways, distance learning is keeping Teresa from making ends meet. The waitress can only work weekends when her son isn’t in class. She’s falling behind on rent and considering moving out of state.

When Colette Barss sold her Seaside home this spring, her new east Garrison-area home had been sitting on the market for about 190 days. She ended up buying it for about $60,000 under asking price.  Today, that would be extremely unlikely.  The price of real estate has soared across the country since the pandemic, and California isn’t immune. […]

Could jobless Californians soon receive benefits by direct deposit? State legislators are considering reforms and asking Bank of America for answers following a CalMatters investigation into payment problems impacting more than 350,000 unemployment debit cards.

Lea este artículo en español. On Sept. 9, a mobile testing site rolled up to Huron Middle School in the 7,000-person rural city 50 miles south of Fresno. In four hours, only four people showed up for free COVID-19 testing. At five other coronavirus testing events organized by the Fresno County Health Department that month in […]