San Joaquin County Housing Articles

Two different state courts have ruled recently that the human noise created by future tenants in housing projects are a form of pollution that cities must address. Lawmakers and the governor are working to reverse that novel interpretation of environmental …

Three of the biggest housing bonds in state history are bound for the 2024 ballot. But with no shortage of crises facing the state, California can only borrow so much and voters may succumb to “bond fatigue.”

Renter protections and eviction bans put in place for the COVID-19 pandemic have expired. By keeping them in place, California could slow the spread of homelessness. But that's not happening.

The homeless population fell by a third in Texas over the past decade as it surged in California. The cost of living is a big reason Texas is doing a better job at alleviating homelessness.

Los Angeles’ new homelessness solution is meant to quickly get people out of encampments and into housing—as the city grapples with the state’s largest population of unhoused residents. But the program is struggling to house people and connect them with …

The California Coastal Commission has broad authority to protect the state's shoreline. Now, some want to curtail its power over affordable housing proposals.

Gov. Gavin Newsom poured ‘unprecedented’ money into homelessness, but providers say his use of one-time grants does not allow for long-term solutions to the state’s biggest crisis. That's what happened in Grass Valley.

After weeks of negotiations, the governor and top Democrats in the Legislature say they have a budget deal. Legislators will start voting today on bills related to the agreement, which sets spending and policy across a wide range of issues …

Zoning laws that restrict new housing development cause environmental damage, racial and class segregation, and force people into cars creating traffic. Now, a new movement wants to abolish zoning in the United States.

Zoning laws determine what can be built and where. These laws have shaped California, but are they really just tools for social engineering? The history of zoning is closely tied to racial segregation, as well as the state's shortage of …

As groups representing landlords and real estate pour millions of dollars into political coffers to influence housing policy, tenant groups are celebrating recent victories.

More than 170,000 people are homeless in California. Some Democrats want to make the state the nation’s first to declare housing a human right with a state constitutional amendment, but opponents worry it would be costly.

‘You small, pathetic man,’ Gavin Newsom wrote in a Twitter post suggesting he’d pursue criminal charges against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over recent migrant flights to Sacramento.

A new interpretation of an old law gives homebuilders leverage over California cities and their zoning codes. They’re using it to push through thousands of new apartments around the state.

A bill to tax Airbnb and other short-term rentals to fund affordable housing projects could be voted on by the Senate as soon as today. The proposal has revived the debate over Airbnb and its role in the housing crisis.

By almost any measure, the balance between advancing projects critical to California's future and environmental protection under the California Environmental Quality Act has been lost. The failure to reform CEQA is not for a lack of knowing what the solutions …

Shopping malls revolutionized how Americans shopped, socialized, and lived. Now, malls face an uncertain future. How did the dream of a new town square go so wrong?

America has become a mostly suburban country, and California is known for its sprawling ’burbs. But what is a suburb? It turns out California may not be as suburban as people believe.

2022 was a year that needed a lot of explaining. And California Local was there. Here are our 10 most important explanatory journalism stories from the year gone by, from immigration to cryptocurrency to wealth inequality and more.

Proposition 13, the popular tax reform law passed in 1978, has driven increases in economic inequality and racial wealth disparities in California. Here’s how.