Housing

A patchwork of bills are giving housing developers and local governments more options to reduce red tape for housing projects.

California voters likely will see a mental health ballot measure on the March 2024 election. One would issue a $6 billion bond to create housing for people with mental illnesses.

Police can’t force homeless people from encampments unless the city in question has “adequate shelter” to offer the people getting forced off the street, according to courts. Now everyone involved wants to know what “adequate shelter” is.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s big new experiment to push people with mental illness off the streets and into treatment starts this fall. Counties responsible for the rollout say it may end up being more modest than advertised.

Two different state courts have ruled recently that the human noise created by future tenants in housing projects are a form of pollution that cities must address. Lawmakers and the governor are working to reverse that novel interpretation of environmental law.

Many local governments have more than half their voters approve a bond measure… but fewer than the two-thirds supermajority required. An effort to change that would drastically alter the ability of local governments to fund housing and infrastructure projects.

Three of the biggest housing bonds in state history are bound for the 2024 ballot. But with no shortage of crises facing the state, California can only borrow so much and voters may succumb to “bond fatigue.”

California’s experimental new program targets methamphetamine addiction by rewarding patients with gift cards for negative drug tests.

The lack of enough places for everyone to live has sent coastal rent prices inland, removing large swaths of previously cheaper rental units.

Los Angeles’ new homelessness solution is meant to quickly get people out of encampments and into housing – as the city grapples with the state’s largest population of unhoused residents. But the program is struggling to house people and connect them with social services.