Affordable Housing

California's Civil Rights Department recently filed a lawsuit to crackdown on housing voucher discrimination, which could inspire other states to do the same and help their most vulnerable tenants keep a roof over their heads.

The state is expanding mortgage relief to more California homeowners who are struggling through the pandemic. The program now covers second mortgages and loan deferrals, with a maximum total grant of $80,000.

For northern California housing politics, judgment day has come. Cities across the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area had until Wednesday to show state regulators how they plan to approve a sufficient quantity of housing over the next decade.  Some submitted their plans on time. Most did not. Some made an earnest effort to comply. Others […]

Hanging over the heads of California’s newly sworn-in state lawmakers — and likely to be top of mind when they return to Sacramento next month — are the state’s intertwined housing and homelessness crises. That was made clear Tuesday, when Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco introduced for the third time a bill […]

The incoming class of Los Angeles elected officials should legalize denser buildings and expedite approvals in transit-oriented areas to alleviate the housing crisis.

A specter is haunting California’s affluent suburbs and beachside communities: The “builder’s remedy.” It’s the reason that a single developer submitted plans for 4,500 apartments in Santa Monica — more new units than the city has built in a decade. It’s why notoriously housing-averse Redondo Beach may be forced to permit 2,300 new units along […]

In a nearly hour-long interview with CalMatters, state Treasurer Fiona Ma talks about her accomplishments on housing, her priority to fix up local fairgrounds, and what she's doing differently after a lawsuit from a former employee.

My family has worked relentlessly to maintain its roots in East Palo Alto, because the city is our home. But we can no longer live there because there are no affordable homes. The lack of city plans and policies to keep residents from losing their homes is alarming.

This is CalMatters political reporter Ben Christopher, filling in one last time for Emily, who is scheduled to be back in your inboxes on Monday. Thanks for reading! Gov. Gavin Newsom has some catching up to do.  On Thursday, the governor returned to California after three days in New York City spent touting his administration’s […]

After weeks of negotiation, two major construction unions didn’t reach a compromise on bills about turning commercially zoned land into housing. Legislators congratulated each other anyway.