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 […]

The latest point-in-time count of California’s homeless population shows that it increased at roughly the same pace as previous years, although it appears to have disproportionately affected Latinos. Experts say homelessness interventions are paying off but “the inflow is killing us.”

It’s the white whale of California politicians and policymakers, the problem that only seems to intensify no matter how much attention and money are devoted to it: homelessness. About six in 10 Californians said the homeless population has grown in their community over the past year, according to a recent Public Policy Institute of California […]

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.

Assembly Bill 2011 would streamline approvals to convert empty strip malls, office parks and parking lots into affordable and mixed-income housing, concentrating development in order to build resilient communities and protect our planet.

An emergency housing voucher program offers improvements to the decades-old federal solution to the housing affordability crisis, but landlord reluctance remains a crucial hurdle.

Over the past two years, federal, state and local governments have passed several laws and invested billions of dollars to stave off an eviction tsunami. How have tenants and landlords fared through it all?

The last statewide eviction protections for low-income California tenants affected by COVID-19 ended Thursday, but many still haven’t heard back about their rent relief applications. Some local protections are still in place.