You can also subscribe to us on iTunesStitcherSoundcloudGoogle Play and Overcast.

Gimme Shelter’s tour of California’s housing woes takes them to Sonoma County this week, where the devastating North Bay fires have thrown a harsh spotlight on the region’s housing shortage. First, Liam and Matt discuss an initiative possibly headed for the November 2018 ballot that would dramatically expand rent control in California (1:30). Then Liam describes the destruction he saw firsthand in Santa Rosa (8:00), and Matt poses the question of whether the city can and should rebuild in a denser way (14:00). Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey (18:30) joins the pod to talk about where the city heads from here. And finally Liam chats with Santa Rosa resident John Thill, whose house and business were both destroyed in the fire and who plans to live in an RV for as long as it takes because housing is so hard to come by.

If you’d like to donate to John’s GoFundMe page, you can here: www.gofundme.com/john-colleen-thill-rebuild-fund

We want to hear from you

Want to submit a guest commentary or reaction to an article we wrote? You can find our submission guidelines here. Please contact CalMatters with any commentary questions: commentary@calmatters.org

Matt Levin was the data and housing dude for CalMatters. His work entails distilling complex policy topics into easily digestible charts and graphs, finding and writing original stories from data, yelling...