ca-divide-housing

Until the pandemic struck, every day for the last 10 years, Isidoro Flores Contreras stood at the edge of the Sand City Costco parking lot, just a few feet from a set of McDonald’s arches, selling $15 flower bouquets.  No matter the weather, he slowly walked back and forth along the sidewalk, a hitch in […]

When coronavirus began spreading in California, public health officials told people who fell ill to isolate themselves in their homes for two weeks. But many California families simply can’t do that. Forced by the high cost of living, parents squeeze into rooms with their children, cousins sleep on couches, grandparents convert living rooms into bedrooms […]

Dalia was working in a clothing factory in South Los Angeles for about five months when the COVID-19 outbreak hit in mid-March. The workload got heavy when the factory started receiving orders to make face masks. Dalia, who was in charge of trimming the masks, sometimes would take extra work home. Like many other undocumented […]

Several cases of coronavirus have cropped up among California's homeless population. Now, Fresno County is reporting its first case. That homeless individual who tested positive is being quarantined in a hotel.

As Fresno County scrambles to get its homeless population indoors during the coronavirus crisis, communication roadblocks are causing confusion.

The wheels of the eviction process are still turning in many parts of the state, and renters can remain subject to ejection for many reasons.

Tanya Harris and her three daughters struggle to breathe in the converted motel room in Salinas they now rent as a studio. Just large enough for a bunkbed and a desk, the room holds all four of them. Harris sleeps on a silver inflatable mattress on the floor. And doctors say the room is making […]

When Resi Salvador’s three little brothers walk through the door, they make a beeline for her, seated at a folding chair at her parents’ kitchen table. They snuggle into her arms. Resi laughs. She’s home. Just a few feet away in the living room stands a bunkbed, where Resi sleeps when she’s home. All told, […]

Every time Salinas third-grade teacher Maria Castellanoz gets a whiff of kerosene, it takes her right back to her childhood in a migrant labor camp. Her parents used to heat the house with the stuff, in a kerosene lamp. When it was cold, her father moved the lamp from room to room to keep his family warm. […]

At a time when rural schools all over California struggle to keep students in school, a three-year-old experiment in the southern Fresno County community of Parlier is showing some interesting results. And, officials say, chronic absenteeism isn’t the only problem the Parlier experiment may eventually solve. Like many Central Valley communities, Parlier doesn’t have enough […]