Santa Cruz County Housing Articles

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 …

A Superior Court judge on June 27 denied a temporary restraining order that would have halted a construction project currently underway in Monterey County, which would add three residential buildings with 45 units for 360 seasonal agricultural workers. Residents of …

Hundreds of new homes slated for Town Center, Scotts Valley Drive.

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.

Homeless services advocates from Monterey and Santa Cruz counties are considering placing a small community of modular tiny homes in a church parking lot in Watsonville, aimed at reducing the number of people camped out along the Pajaro River. The …

A new report from the Civil Grand Jury takes square aim at the affordable housing crisis in Santa Cruz County and demands local planners do more to tackle the problem. The document, published June 2, finds that while municipal officials …

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.

The County of Santa Cruz announced a program to assist homeowners in the unincorporated areas of the county with the process of adding an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) to their property.

A local newsroom follows the local, state and federal money spent on homelessness in Santa Cruz County and examines how effectively it was spent.

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.

Scotts Valley hosted a virtual public workshop May 30 to discuss the draft Housing Element that was released May 19, but the meeting yielded few comments and was cut off after less than an hour—before all comments could be aired …

The report calls out Capitola and Scotts Valley for being behind on housing goals, commends Santa Cruz and Watsonville

‘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.