Monterey County Housing Articles

The highest court in the land will soon decide how much leeway cities and counties have in offsetting new construction with fees to pay for infrastructure.

San Francisco provides all tenants facing eviction access to an attorney. Across the Bay, in Contra Costa County, it’s a different story. Two tenants’ stories show the difference a lawyer can make.

California lawmakers made an effort in 2023 to remove red tape around new affordable houses, but obstacles such as high interest rates, sluggish local approval processes and a shortage of skilled construction workers remain.

The state has hundreds of millions to spend on affordable housing. Developers say they need billions.

Local officials counted on the state’s Homekey program to convert hotel rooms. But now a major developer has defaulted on loans and the state housing department is investigating.

California’s rent cap doesn’t apply to some kinds of low-income housing, which has its own rules. But with inflation, some tenants have gotten much higher rent increases, even though affordable units were built with taxpayer subsidies.

More than 70,000 households who needed and applied for state aid to pay their rent during the COVID-19 pandemic by the March 2022 deadline still have their applications listed as "pending." Now they could be evicted from their homes.

Assembly Speaker Rivas puts key allies into leadership posts and shuffles the top posts on committees heading into the 2024 session of the Legislature. One big winner: pro-housing advocates.

The number of Californians facing eviction was relatively low for years during a lengthy statewide moratorium. In the year after it ended, cases soared and still remain high in large counties.

Like Willy Wonka, in the world of California’s cities and counties, a housing plan that’s been certified by the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development is as good as a golden ticket – one that means escaping potentially serious…

Of the 9,660 students in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, about 20 percent are defined as homeless. That doesn’t mean they are unhoused, necessarily – some students and their families cram into a single room in a home, for…

A hotel in Hollywood is receiving more than twice it would get per room by renting to the city of Los Angeles rather than to long-term tenants.

On the Monterey Peninsula, the lack of available water is often highlighted by public agencies, and residents that favor a local desalination project, as the primary reason the region lacks adequate housing.

As Salinas Valley cities like Soledad and Gonzales look to expand their footprints by annexing surrounding farmland and converting it into housing and other uses, there’s an ongoing debate over the rules requiring that cities and developers make up for…

Tenants of two farmworker apartment complexes, Tesoros Del Campo in Salinas and Vista Del Valle in Chualar, received a shock in August, when their landlord, the Housing Authority for the County of Monterey, sent out notices of potential rent increases…

California’s COVID-era rent relief program, long saddled with delays, criticisms and legal woes, appears to be running out of money. What does that mean for the more than 100,000 renters still awaiting help?

If a housing plan exists on paper, it doesn’t mean it will put a single roof over someone’s head, unless, perhaps, a visionary architect took all the paper that cities have generated for their state-required housing plans – which are…

Like the waves crashing into the coastline along Point Pinos in Pacific Grove, a chorus of conflicting wants and needs are now crashing together just feet from the shoreline, on a four-acre strip of land occupied by a research building…

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara unveils a plan to shore up the California insurance market for homeowners. Insurers would return to wildfire zones, but would have an easier path to rate increases.

The landlords, property managers and real estate industry representatives came out in force on Tuesday, Sept. 5, to vociferously voice their objections to the Monterey City Council’s creation of a rental registry. Renters stayed away—save for one long-time representative—but their…