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"content": "\u003cp>In California, where affordable housing is increasingly difficult to find, youth exiting the foster care system disproportionately face higher rates of homelessness, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.chapinhall.org/research/calyouth/\">CalYOUTH\u003c/a>, a study on foster youth conducted from 2012 to 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two federal programs, the Family Unification Program (FUP) and the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative (FYI), work to reduce these rates of homelessness by providing targeted housing vouchers commonly referred to as Section 8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But FUP and FYI vouchers go largely underutilized in California, according to \u003ca href=\"https://jbay.org/resources/2023-fyi-report/\">a recent report\u003c/a> from \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2023/quick-guide-federal-financial-aid-for-foster-youth/693575\">John Burton Advocates for Youth\u003c/a>, or JBAY, a nonprofit focused on supporting California foster and homeless youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the authors of the report, child welfare agency representatives from 37 of the state’s 58 counties responded to the survey, and the counties that responded are in charge of 93% of the state’s FUP and FYI vouchers for eligible young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results from the survey provide critical insight into these two housing vouchers for former foster youth, such as how often they are being distributed and various challenges with more widespread issuance. Some of those challenges include a lack of awareness regarding recent policy changes that simplify the voucher distribution process and insufficient funding for the supportive services offered in coordination with the voucher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This quick guide provides insight into what the FUP and FYI programs are, how the housing vouchers can be accessed, the challenge of California’s current housing climate, and where additional information can be found.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What do the FUP and FYI housing vouchers provide?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Both the Family Unification Program and the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative vouchers provide eligible youth with up to three years of housing assistance, plus additional support such as locating available housing and covering some move-in costs. The housing vouchers, known commonly as Section 8, pay for all or part of the youth’s rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A three-year voucher can be extended for an additional two years if the youth meets certain criteria. Those criteria include opting into a Family Self-Sufficiency program if one is offered by the local public housing authority issuing their voucher. In an FSS program, these youth can receive additional support services, including child care, job training and transportation. If a family self-sufficiency program is not offered, or if it’s impacted, youth can also meet the criteria by fulfilling education or employment conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More detailed information regarding those education or employment conditions can be found on Page 9 of \u003ca href=\"https://jbay.org/resources/2023-fyi-report/\">this report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who is eligible for the FUP and FYI?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Family Unification Program, or FUP, was established in 1992 and provides housing vouchers for families involved in the child welfare system and for transition-age former foster youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11969623,news_11970332,news_11971908\"]The Foster Youth to Independence Initiative, or FYI, launched nearly three decades later in 2019, is specific to transition-age youth leaving the foster care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to qualify for both programs, transition-age foster youth must be between the ages of 18 and 24 and cannot have reached their 25th birthday. Additional eligibility requirements include having exited the foster care system or being about to do so within 90 days and being homeless or at risk of homelessness at age 16 or above.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It should be noted that transition-age foster youth age ranges might differ for other services, depending on the specific resource and the person’s location. In \u003ca href=\"https://socialservices.sccgov.org/other-services/transitioned-age-youth-services\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a>, for example, some foster care transition services are available for 15-year-olds, while the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/information/transitional-aged-youth-housing-tay#:~:text=TAY%20are%20young%20adults%2C%20ages,a%20successful%20transition%20to%20adulthood.\">city of San Francisco\u003c/a> offers support for some former foster youth up to age 27.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How many youths have been administered housing vouchers?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There has been a 54% increase in vouchers administered in the past two years, from 870 in 2021 to 1,341 as of Oct. 1, \u003ca href=\"https://jbay.org/resources/2023-fyi-report/\">according to the JBAY report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why don’t more eligible California youth have a housing voucher?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There are multiple reasons for these housing vouchers being largely underutilized in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One key challenge is that not every county participates in the FUP and FYI voucher programs. While those youth may likely still be eligible for other state or county-funded housing support, such programs are hard to get because they are utilized at higher rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, the FUP and FYI vouchers are linked with offering supportive services, and despite new designated allocations to cover those supportive services, the costs remain prohibitive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some county representatives are also unaware of key details that would facilitate the issuing of more vouchers. For example, about 65% of county child welfare agencies remained unaware that vouchers can be extended from three to five years for all youth with a voucher. Plus, recent federal policy changes have simplified the process that county agencies must follow when requesting certain vouchers, but many of the county representatives interviewed in the JBAY survey were unaware of those changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How long does it take for youth to find adequate housing if they are administered a FUP or FYI voucher?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The length of time for identifying housing ranges from less than one month to over six months, with 45% of California counties that responded to the survey indicating that the average search was one to two months. The range includes the beginning of the housing search to the moment the housing is secured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finding adequate and affordable housing in California is increasingly one of the most significant barriers to using or even issuing the vouchers. Transition-age foster youth are particularly susceptible to this challenge, as they often have little to no income to rely on, no rental history and are less likely to have a co-signer to rely on.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How can transition-age foster youth apply for FUP and FYI housing vouchers?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If a transition-aged former foster youth thinks they might be eligible for a FUP or FYI voucher, they should connect with their child welfare or independent living worker. A direct point-of-contact for their county, if they offer vouchers, \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YOcsbSUwokL-t2PZRfheGPvp1F8hcMT5a_fmFDPn2NA/edit#gid=0\">can be found at this link (DOC)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their local public child welfare agency makes the referral to the public housing authority and certifies whether the youth is eligible based on their history in the foster care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the youth is eligible and the housing authority has FUP vouchers, that’s the type of voucher offered to the young person. Otherwise, an FYI voucher is requested from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Once housing is secured, the FYI voucher is administered to the landlord.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where can additional resources and information regarding housing vouchers for transition-age foster youth be found?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Those potentially eligible for a FUP or FYI housing voucher can find contact information for their county \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YOcsbSUwokL-t2PZRfheGPvp1F8hcMT5a_fmFDPn2NA/edit#gid=0\">on this spreadsheet compiled by JBAY (DOC)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ylc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/March-2023-Update_-YLC-Housing-Resources-2020-present.pdf\">This fact sheet by the Youth Law Center (PDF)\u003c/a> provides an overview of the housing resources available in California for current and former foster youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2024/two-types-of-housing-vouchers-for-foster-youth-quick-guide/703347\">\u003cem>This story originally appeared in EdSource.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In California, where affordable housing is increasingly difficult to find, youth exiting the foster care system disproportionately face higher rates of homelessness, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.chapinhall.org/research/calyouth/\">CalYOUTH\u003c/a>, a study on foster youth conducted from 2012 to 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two federal programs, the Family Unification Program (FUP) and the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative (FYI), work to reduce these rates of homelessness by providing targeted housing vouchers commonly referred to as Section 8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But FUP and FYI vouchers go largely underutilized in California, according to \u003ca href=\"https://jbay.org/resources/2023-fyi-report/\">a recent report\u003c/a> from \u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2023/quick-guide-federal-financial-aid-for-foster-youth/693575\">John Burton Advocates for Youth\u003c/a>, or JBAY, a nonprofit focused on supporting California foster and homeless youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the authors of the report, child welfare agency representatives from 37 of the state’s 58 counties responded to the survey, and the counties that responded are in charge of 93% of the state’s FUP and FYI vouchers for eligible young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results from the survey provide critical insight into these two housing vouchers for former foster youth, such as how often they are being distributed and various challenges with more widespread issuance. Some of those challenges include a lack of awareness regarding recent policy changes that simplify the voucher distribution process and insufficient funding for the supportive services offered in coordination with the voucher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This quick guide provides insight into what the FUP and FYI programs are, how the housing vouchers can be accessed, the challenge of California’s current housing climate, and where additional information can be found.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What do the FUP and FYI housing vouchers provide?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Both the Family Unification Program and the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative vouchers provide eligible youth with up to three years of housing assistance, plus additional support such as locating available housing and covering some move-in costs. The housing vouchers, known commonly as Section 8, pay for all or part of the youth’s rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A three-year voucher can be extended for an additional two years if the youth meets certain criteria. Those criteria include opting into a Family Self-Sufficiency program if one is offered by the local public housing authority issuing their voucher. In an FSS program, these youth can receive additional support services, including child care, job training and transportation. If a family self-sufficiency program is not offered, or if it’s impacted, youth can also meet the criteria by fulfilling education or employment conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More detailed information regarding those education or employment conditions can be found on Page 9 of \u003ca href=\"https://jbay.org/resources/2023-fyi-report/\">this report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who is eligible for the FUP and FYI?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Family Unification Program, or FUP, was established in 1992 and provides housing vouchers for families involved in the child welfare system and for transition-age former foster youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Foster Youth to Independence Initiative, or FYI, launched nearly three decades later in 2019, is specific to transition-age youth leaving the foster care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to qualify for both programs, transition-age foster youth must be between the ages of 18 and 24 and cannot have reached their 25th birthday. Additional eligibility requirements include having exited the foster care system or being about to do so within 90 days and being homeless or at risk of homelessness at age 16 or above.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It should be noted that transition-age foster youth age ranges might differ for other services, depending on the specific resource and the person’s location. In \u003ca href=\"https://socialservices.sccgov.org/other-services/transitioned-age-youth-services\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a>, for example, some foster care transition services are available for 15-year-olds, while the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/information/transitional-aged-youth-housing-tay#:~:text=TAY%20are%20young%20adults%2C%20ages,a%20successful%20transition%20to%20adulthood.\">city of San Francisco\u003c/a> offers support for some former foster youth up to age 27.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How many youths have been administered housing vouchers?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There has been a 54% increase in vouchers administered in the past two years, from 870 in 2021 to 1,341 as of Oct. 1, \u003ca href=\"https://jbay.org/resources/2023-fyi-report/\">according to the JBAY report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why don’t more eligible California youth have a housing voucher?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There are multiple reasons for these housing vouchers being largely underutilized in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One key challenge is that not every county participates in the FUP and FYI voucher programs. While those youth may likely still be eligible for other state or county-funded housing support, such programs are hard to get because they are utilized at higher rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, the FUP and FYI vouchers are linked with offering supportive services, and despite new designated allocations to cover those supportive services, the costs remain prohibitive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some county representatives are also unaware of key details that would facilitate the issuing of more vouchers. For example, about 65% of county child welfare agencies remained unaware that vouchers can be extended from three to five years for all youth with a voucher. Plus, recent federal policy changes have simplified the process that county agencies must follow when requesting certain vouchers, but many of the county representatives interviewed in the JBAY survey were unaware of those changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How long does it take for youth to find adequate housing if they are administered a FUP or FYI voucher?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The length of time for identifying housing ranges from less than one month to over six months, with 45% of California counties that responded to the survey indicating that the average search was one to two months. The range includes the beginning of the housing search to the moment the housing is secured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finding adequate and affordable housing in California is increasingly one of the most significant barriers to using or even issuing the vouchers. Transition-age foster youth are particularly susceptible to this challenge, as they often have little to no income to rely on, no rental history and are less likely to have a co-signer to rely on.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How can transition-age foster youth apply for FUP and FYI housing vouchers?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If a transition-aged former foster youth thinks they might be eligible for a FUP or FYI voucher, they should connect with their child welfare or independent living worker. A direct point-of-contact for their county, if they offer vouchers, \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YOcsbSUwokL-t2PZRfheGPvp1F8hcMT5a_fmFDPn2NA/edit#gid=0\">can be found at this link (DOC)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their local public child welfare agency makes the referral to the public housing authority and certifies whether the youth is eligible based on their history in the foster care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the youth is eligible and the housing authority has FUP vouchers, that’s the type of voucher offered to the young person. Otherwise, an FYI voucher is requested from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Once housing is secured, the FYI voucher is administered to the landlord.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where can additional resources and information regarding housing vouchers for transition-age foster youth be found?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Those potentially eligible for a FUP or FYI housing voucher can find contact information for their county \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YOcsbSUwokL-t2PZRfheGPvp1F8hcMT5a_fmFDPn2NA/edit#gid=0\">on this spreadsheet compiled by JBAY (DOC)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ylc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/March-2023-Update_-YLC-Housing-Resources-2020-present.pdf\">This fact sheet by the Youth Law Center (PDF)\u003c/a> provides an overview of the housing resources available in California for current and former foster youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://edsource.org/2024/two-types-of-housing-vouchers-for-foster-youth-quick-guide/703347\">\u003cem>This story originally appeared in EdSource.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "will-uc-berkeley-finally-win-the-battle-over-peoples-park",
"title": "Will UC Berkeley Finally Win the Battle Over People’s Park?",
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"headTitle": "Will UC Berkeley Finally Win the Battle Over People’s Park? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since its founding in 1969, People’s Park has been a symbol of Berkeley’s radical history of protest, resistance and mutual aid. But after years of efforts by UC Berkeley to build on the land, the university is getting closer and closer to taking back control. KQED’s Vanessa Rancaño breaks it down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3961822451\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13917145/a-brief-history-battle-peoples-park-berkeley-protests\">A Brief History of the Never-Ending Battle for People’s Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11971858/berkeley-locals-lament-the-closure-of-peoples-park-as-shipping-container-barricades-go-up\">Berkeley Locals Lament the Closure of People’s Park as Shipping Container Barricades Go Up\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. People’s Park looks much different than how locals might remember it. This once public green space and symbol of Berkeley’s history of protest, resistance and mutual aid is now surrounded on all sides by shipping containers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>[protest audio] \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>But not before protests by defenders of the park who came face to face with police in riot gear in an attempt to stop UC Berkeley from closing off the area in order to build student housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>They’ve mutilated what it was, but, like, give me the park, how it was 4 or 5 years ago. Like that was beautiful. I don’t know why we can’t work toward restoring that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Since its founding in 1969, People’s Park has always been a contested space. UC Berkeley has tried to take back control of the land for years, but this time around, the university is closer than it’s ever been to doing what it wants with the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kyle Gibson: \u003c/strong>We’re looking at taking more than just 1100 students with this project alone out of the private Berkeley rental market. So that not only helps our students, but helps raise up over a thousand units of housing for the broader Berkeley community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, the latest battle over People’s Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>This is the university’s latest attempt to prepare the land for development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Vanessa Rancaño is a housing reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>It was pretty wild to see what the park looked like after law enforcement had cleared it early that Thursday morning. There was a ton of law enforcement like at one point, this failing of officers was like 20 or 30 or in riot gear. They had helmets, face shields, these padded vests, pads strapped to their arms and legs. They were carrying batons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Meanwhile, these enormous shipping containers are getting stacked, uh, along the edge of the park and inside at the park itself had largely been raised. There were these huge piles of debris. Trees that had been cut down were piled up, heavy machinery in their tire tracks all over the place. And you could see some remnants of the people who’d spent time there, like I saw a crumpled Palestinian flag on the ground. And it was weirdly quiet, kind of eerily quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>And then around 11 a.m., more protesters started showing up outside the barricade on Telegraph. You know, around 100 people chanting and passion speeches and the 100ft or so behind these barricades, there was just a line of officers in riot gear facing the protesters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Who’d you talk to while you were at the park, Vanessa?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>One of the people I talked to was Enrique Marisol, they’re 23 years old and just graduated from Cal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>I live two blocks down. I mean, I’ve slept in the park a lot. I’ve been homeless for sporadic periods myself, but, um, I currently have an apartment. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>The night before I met Enrique, they were in the park, in the building that functioned as the kitchen with a few other people. When they got a call that law enforcement was on the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>And then I heard a bunch of screaming and yelling from outside. And before I could even, like, climb back up to get out of the kitchen, there was two more people climbing in and slamming the door behind them. And like we locked in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>They said they were surrounded by law enforcement. Officials started using a chainsaw to try to get into this building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>They they were hitting screws and stuff, so it was causing sparks and smoke and flames and like we had a fire extinguisher in there because obviously it’s a kitchen. We need to be prepared. Um, so I picked up the fire extinguisher and I was holding it like pointing it out where they were cutting, because that’s where the flames were coming from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>One of the law enforcement officials and pointed a gun, a rifle. I think they said at them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>They had cut a hole like a little window where they could look through. And when I was holding up the extinguisher, one of the police pointed his rifle like in my face and told me to drop the extinguisher and put my hands up. So we were just like standing there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>It was very scary for them and they did end up getting arrested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Especially if you’re in Berkeley, you’re probably very familiar with People’s Park and the role it’s played in Berkeley’s radical history. But just remind us, why is what’s happening to this plot of land in Berkeley so contentious in this city specifically?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>This space has been contested since its creation. The university bought this plot of land back in 1967. Initially, they intended to build some kind of playing field on it. They didn’t get very far before they ran out of money, and then this lot just sat empty and became sort of a dumping ground. And then a couple years later, in 1969, this group of locals, young people, hippies, artists, they planted trees and flowers and made it into a park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Chief Beale of the Berkeley Police Department. At five minutes of nine, we declared this to be an unlawful assembly. There is no permit for this meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>The university tried to take it back. And there were these major protests that have gone down in history. There was a lot of tear gas. Someone ended up getting killed. Governor Ronald Reagan at the time called in the National Guard. And really, ever since then, the fight over the future of this park has existed in some form. The university has made other attempts to build, and the park, meanwhile, has acted as this site of protest and community organizing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>The fight for the park has often been tied to bigger fights against what I think people see as abuses of state power, like anti-Vietnam protests, freedom in South Africa. And out there today you hear people talking about Gaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay, so it has that history. And that’s sort of roots in Berkeley’s radical history. But the university, as you were just saying, has always wanted to use this land for something else. What does the university plan to build on this land, exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>UC Berkeley is planning to build a housing complex that would include apartments for about 1100 students, plus some permanent supportive housing for very low income and formerly unhoused people. This particular effort goes back to around 2018, and the plan does call for leaving about two thirds of the space as a park, but a much more developed park that includes, like cement walkways and some kind of tribute to the park’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what does the university say about why it wants to build on this land?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Now, they say this is primarily about the fact that there’s a dire housing shortage in California and a student housing shortage. UC Berkeley has the lowest percentage of beds for students of any campus in the UC system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kyle Gibson: \u003c/strong>At this point, we’ve had a very successful morning. We are closing the park, and our goal is to close the park and not pause this operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Kyle Gibson is the communications director for the university. And yeah, he talks about the need for student housing. He says they are building on other available sites, but that they really have to move on every piece of land that they have the potential to build on because the situation is so serious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kyle Gibson: \u003c/strong>The housing we looking at building here, including at People’s Park, is where the students who are already here. And I would emphasize part of the reason that we’re doing that is not for enrollment growth, but we’re looking at taking more than just 1100 students with this project alone out of the private Berkeley rental market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>That’s the main thing. But they also argue that this is about safety. They point to this increase in criminal activity in People’s Park in the last few years or so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kyle Gibson: \u003c/strong>We need to close the site for public safety when construction begins. And the best time to do that is at a moment when there is as few people around as possible. So we can basically control the streets like we are currently doing. These are large vehicles, large pieces of equipment, and doing this a time when our students and a lot of the City of Berkeley population not around is a good thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>There have been unhoused folks on this land for a long time, but during the pandemic, there was a real change, um, an encampment of the kind that we had not seen previously on this park developed. And there were complaints. You know, the way that we see complaints about encampments all over the state, and this has become part of their argument for why the project is necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why UC Berkeley might be closer than it’s ever been to building housing on People’s Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I mean, Vanessa, if you’re a student in the Bay area, I feel like you know very well the need for housing, how difficult it can be to find housing. And I know that the university tried to break ground on this development before, including back in August of 2022. Can you remind us briefly what happened then and how this moment compares?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>There were big protests back then. People tore down the fencing around the park that the university have had put up. They vandalized construction equipment in there. A handful of people were arrested, and ultimately a court order was issued that temporarily halted construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Why does it seem like the university is actually getting closer to actually starting development on this land this time around?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>This project has been mired in legal challenges for years, and it now looks like the university may have gotten a break. Um, there’s this case moving through the state Supreme Court that stems back to a 2021 lawsuit arguing that the university should have considered alternative sites for this project. An appeals court sided with them and said that student noise in this housing complex could violate the state’s environmental law. What’s happened since then is that Assembly member Buffy Wicks introduced a piece of legislation that Governor Newsom signed this past fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>That seems like it could clear the way for this housing to go forward. And a lot of people think that it undermines the appeals court’s ruling. So we still got to wait for a decision. Um, the university can’t start building until we have one, but it looks like they’re in a better position than they have been in years. I think you can see from the pretty major action that they’re taking here that they are really, uh, setting themselves up to be able to move as soon as they get a decision, which they, uh, seem to expect is going to go in their favor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Vanessa, I can’t imagine that the folks who have been defending People’s Park for decades are very happy. Who are the people protesting this project now? And who are the what are the objections that you’re hearing from from those protesters?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>It’s a mix of Berkeley ites who know and love the park from growing up with it. Folks who have come to Berkeley from all corners and found community in this park, and young people, students, former students, and Marisol was one of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>It’s horrible to see what they’ve done to the park in just the last three years with I mean, I don’t even know how many trees they cut down last night because we haven’t been able to go in and do it count. But they cut down 47 last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>They told me something that I heard from a lot of people out there, which is that they they feel like the university has really neglected the park, failed to manage it. They talked about all the trees that have been cut down over the years, a lack of maintenance. And they see this as like a deliberate effort to undermine the park, to make a stronger case, uh, for, for developing the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>Like the vast majority of the problems in the park are caused by either larger social problems that occur everywhere, or specific actions by the university to undermine the health of the community here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I know you also spoke with someone in student government who has concerns about the university’s plan for People’s Park. Can you tell me about Nick Grosh?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Nick Grosh is a third year student at Cal, and he chairs the student government’s housing commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nick Grosh \u003c/strong>I I’m, I like I was saying, in support of new housing, I’m not necessarily in support of the housing that’s going on in People’s Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>He says the university should have moved on every other possible site available to them first. Um, he talked about feeling like there wasn’t enough of an effort to get community input in and buy in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nick Grosh: \u003c/strong>Students aren’t the only group that’s invested in that area. He said, there’s a there’s a history to it. There are people living on it, and I don’t think they were taking their consideration, the opinions of those people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>And he expressed doubts that the housing will actually end up being affordable for students. One of the other things that he and other folks have expressed concerns about is the fact that the nonprofit developer that was partnered with the university to build the permanent supportive housing for low income and unhoused folks has pulled out of the project, and the university has yet to select another developer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Vanessa, this has been an ongoing fight on this land since the 1960s and since the creation of People’s Park. And in many ways, what we’re seeing now seems to be kind of the same fight. But do you think it’s safe to say that the university is closer than it’s ever been to finally building housing on People’s Park?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>It does feel that way, and we’ll see what the court decides. We’ll see what activists throw at this. But the university is making a stronger stand than we’ve seen. It looks like they are closer to taking back control of this land than they have been for many decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What do you think is, uh, at the heart of this conflict?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>I think the park is really meaningful for some people, both symbolically and practically. People talk about finding meaning there in the community that it draws. They see it as a place where outsiders belong. And one of the last remaining vestiges of a radical Berkeley that has largely faded away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>So I went by Monday night to see where things stand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>And there was a guy in front of one of the barricades performing music, and he was talking about what it had meant for him to be able to come to the park as a young person and get free meals and to be able to perform on the stage in the park. So I think for some people, that’s the crux of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Vanessa, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Vanessa Rancaño, a housing reporter for KQED. This 40 minute conversation with Vanessa was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Alan Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape music courtesy of First Calm Music and Blue Dot sessions. If you’re new to the Bay, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Maybe it is a goal of yours in the New Year to be more informed about what’s happening in the Bay area on everything from local politics to schools to climate change. The biggest stories, really, of our region. I’m here to tell you, you have come to the right place, my friend. If you haven’t already, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you never miss a beat. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED Public Media in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since its founding in 1969, People’s Park has been a symbol of Berkeley’s radical history of protest, resistance and mutual aid. But after years of efforts by UC Berkeley to build on the land, the university is getting closer and closer to taking back control. KQED’s Vanessa Rancaño breaks it down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3961822451\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13917145/a-brief-history-battle-peoples-park-berkeley-protests\">A Brief History of the Never-Ending Battle for People’s Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11971858/berkeley-locals-lament-the-closure-of-peoples-park-as-shipping-container-barricades-go-up\">Berkeley Locals Lament the Closure of People’s Park as Shipping Container Barricades Go Up\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. People’s Park looks much different than how locals might remember it. This once public green space and symbol of Berkeley’s history of protest, resistance and mutual aid is now surrounded on all sides by shipping containers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem>[protest audio] \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>But not before protests by defenders of the park who came face to face with police in riot gear in an attempt to stop UC Berkeley from closing off the area in order to build student housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>They’ve mutilated what it was, but, like, give me the park, how it was 4 or 5 years ago. Like that was beautiful. I don’t know why we can’t work toward restoring that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Since its founding in 1969, People’s Park has always been a contested space. UC Berkeley has tried to take back control of the land for years, but this time around, the university is closer than it’s ever been to doing what it wants with the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kyle Gibson: \u003c/strong>We’re looking at taking more than just 1100 students with this project alone out of the private Berkeley rental market. So that not only helps our students, but helps raise up over a thousand units of housing for the broader Berkeley community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Today, the latest battle over People’s Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>This is the university’s latest attempt to prepare the land for development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Vanessa Rancaño is a housing reporter for KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>It was pretty wild to see what the park looked like after law enforcement had cleared it early that Thursday morning. There was a ton of law enforcement like at one point, this failing of officers was like 20 or 30 or in riot gear. They had helmets, face shields, these padded vests, pads strapped to their arms and legs. They were carrying batons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Meanwhile, these enormous shipping containers are getting stacked, uh, along the edge of the park and inside at the park itself had largely been raised. There were these huge piles of debris. Trees that had been cut down were piled up, heavy machinery in their tire tracks all over the place. And you could see some remnants of the people who’d spent time there, like I saw a crumpled Palestinian flag on the ground. And it was weirdly quiet, kind of eerily quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>And then around 11 a.m., more protesters started showing up outside the barricade on Telegraph. You know, around 100 people chanting and passion speeches and the 100ft or so behind these barricades, there was just a line of officers in riot gear facing the protesters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Who’d you talk to while you were at the park, Vanessa?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>One of the people I talked to was Enrique Marisol, they’re 23 years old and just graduated from Cal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>I live two blocks down. I mean, I’ve slept in the park a lot. I’ve been homeless for sporadic periods myself, but, um, I currently have an apartment. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>The night before I met Enrique, they were in the park, in the building that functioned as the kitchen with a few other people. When they got a call that law enforcement was on the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>And then I heard a bunch of screaming and yelling from outside. And before I could even, like, climb back up to get out of the kitchen, there was two more people climbing in and slamming the door behind them. And like we locked in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>They said they were surrounded by law enforcement. Officials started using a chainsaw to try to get into this building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>They they were hitting screws and stuff, so it was causing sparks and smoke and flames and like we had a fire extinguisher in there because obviously it’s a kitchen. We need to be prepared. Um, so I picked up the fire extinguisher and I was holding it like pointing it out where they were cutting, because that’s where the flames were coming from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>One of the law enforcement officials and pointed a gun, a rifle. I think they said at them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>They had cut a hole like a little window where they could look through. And when I was holding up the extinguisher, one of the police pointed his rifle like in my face and told me to drop the extinguisher and put my hands up. So we were just like standing there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>It was very scary for them and they did end up getting arrested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Especially if you’re in Berkeley, you’re probably very familiar with People’s Park and the role it’s played in Berkeley’s radical history. But just remind us, why is what’s happening to this plot of land in Berkeley so contentious in this city specifically?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>This space has been contested since its creation. The university bought this plot of land back in 1967. Initially, they intended to build some kind of playing field on it. They didn’t get very far before they ran out of money, and then this lot just sat empty and became sort of a dumping ground. And then a couple years later, in 1969, this group of locals, young people, hippies, artists, they planted trees and flowers and made it into a park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Chief Beale of the Berkeley Police Department. At five minutes of nine, we declared this to be an unlawful assembly. There is no permit for this meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>The university tried to take it back. And there were these major protests that have gone down in history. There was a lot of tear gas. Someone ended up getting killed. Governor Ronald Reagan at the time called in the National Guard. And really, ever since then, the fight over the future of this park has existed in some form. The university has made other attempts to build, and the park, meanwhile, has acted as this site of protest and community organizing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>The fight for the park has often been tied to bigger fights against what I think people see as abuses of state power, like anti-Vietnam protests, freedom in South Africa. And out there today you hear people talking about Gaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay, so it has that history. And that’s sort of roots in Berkeley’s radical history. But the university, as you were just saying, has always wanted to use this land for something else. What does the university plan to build on this land, exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>UC Berkeley is planning to build a housing complex that would include apartments for about 1100 students, plus some permanent supportive housing for very low income and formerly unhoused people. This particular effort goes back to around 2018, and the plan does call for leaving about two thirds of the space as a park, but a much more developed park that includes, like cement walkways and some kind of tribute to the park’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And what does the university say about why it wants to build on this land?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Now, they say this is primarily about the fact that there’s a dire housing shortage in California and a student housing shortage. UC Berkeley has the lowest percentage of beds for students of any campus in the UC system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kyle Gibson: \u003c/strong>At this point, we’ve had a very successful morning. We are closing the park, and our goal is to close the park and not pause this operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Kyle Gibson is the communications director for the university. And yeah, he talks about the need for student housing. He says they are building on other available sites, but that they really have to move on every piece of land that they have the potential to build on because the situation is so serious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kyle Gibson: \u003c/strong>The housing we looking at building here, including at People’s Park, is where the students who are already here. And I would emphasize part of the reason that we’re doing that is not for enrollment growth, but we’re looking at taking more than just 1100 students with this project alone out of the private Berkeley rental market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>That’s the main thing. But they also argue that this is about safety. They point to this increase in criminal activity in People’s Park in the last few years or so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kyle Gibson: \u003c/strong>We need to close the site for public safety when construction begins. And the best time to do that is at a moment when there is as few people around as possible. So we can basically control the streets like we are currently doing. These are large vehicles, large pieces of equipment, and doing this a time when our students and a lot of the City of Berkeley population not around is a good thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>There have been unhoused folks on this land for a long time, but during the pandemic, there was a real change, um, an encampment of the kind that we had not seen previously on this park developed. And there were complaints. You know, the way that we see complaints about encampments all over the state, and this has become part of their argument for why the project is necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Coming up, why UC Berkeley might be closer than it’s ever been to building housing on People’s Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I mean, Vanessa, if you’re a student in the Bay area, I feel like you know very well the need for housing, how difficult it can be to find housing. And I know that the university tried to break ground on this development before, including back in August of 2022. Can you remind us briefly what happened then and how this moment compares?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>There were big protests back then. People tore down the fencing around the park that the university have had put up. They vandalized construction equipment in there. A handful of people were arrested, and ultimately a court order was issued that temporarily halted construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Why does it seem like the university is actually getting closer to actually starting development on this land this time around?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>This project has been mired in legal challenges for years, and it now looks like the university may have gotten a break. Um, there’s this case moving through the state Supreme Court that stems back to a 2021 lawsuit arguing that the university should have considered alternative sites for this project. An appeals court sided with them and said that student noise in this housing complex could violate the state’s environmental law. What’s happened since then is that Assembly member Buffy Wicks introduced a piece of legislation that Governor Newsom signed this past fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>That seems like it could clear the way for this housing to go forward. And a lot of people think that it undermines the appeals court’s ruling. So we still got to wait for a decision. Um, the university can’t start building until we have one, but it looks like they’re in a better position than they have been in years. I think you can see from the pretty major action that they’re taking here that they are really, uh, setting themselves up to be able to move as soon as they get a decision, which they, uh, seem to expect is going to go in their favor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, Vanessa, I can’t imagine that the folks who have been defending People’s Park for decades are very happy. Who are the people protesting this project now? And who are the what are the objections that you’re hearing from from those protesters?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>It’s a mix of Berkeley ites who know and love the park from growing up with it. Folks who have come to Berkeley from all corners and found community in this park, and young people, students, former students, and Marisol was one of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>It’s horrible to see what they’ve done to the park in just the last three years with I mean, I don’t even know how many trees they cut down last night because we haven’t been able to go in and do it count. But they cut down 47 last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>They told me something that I heard from a lot of people out there, which is that they they feel like the university has really neglected the park, failed to manage it. They talked about all the trees that have been cut down over the years, a lack of maintenance. And they see this as like a deliberate effort to undermine the park, to make a stronger case, uh, for, for developing the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Marisol: \u003c/strong>Like the vast majority of the problems in the park are caused by either larger social problems that occur everywhere, or specific actions by the university to undermine the health of the community here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I know you also spoke with someone in student government who has concerns about the university’s plan for People’s Park. Can you tell me about Nick Grosh?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Nick Grosh is a third year student at Cal, and he chairs the student government’s housing commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nick Grosh \u003c/strong>I I’m, I like I was saying, in support of new housing, I’m not necessarily in support of the housing that’s going on in People’s Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>He says the university should have moved on every other possible site available to them first. Um, he talked about feeling like there wasn’t enough of an effort to get community input in and buy in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nick Grosh: \u003c/strong>Students aren’t the only group that’s invested in that area. He said, there’s a there’s a history to it. There are people living on it, and I don’t think they were taking their consideration, the opinions of those people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>And he expressed doubts that the housing will actually end up being affordable for students. One of the other things that he and other folks have expressed concerns about is the fact that the nonprofit developer that was partnered with the university to build the permanent supportive housing for low income and unhoused folks has pulled out of the project, and the university has yet to select another developer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I mean, Vanessa, this has been an ongoing fight on this land since the 1960s and since the creation of People’s Park. And in many ways, what we’re seeing now seems to be kind of the same fight. But do you think it’s safe to say that the university is closer than it’s ever been to finally building housing on People’s Park?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>It does feel that way, and we’ll see what the court decides. We’ll see what activists throw at this. But the university is making a stronger stand than we’ve seen. It looks like they are closer to taking back control of this land than they have been for many decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>What do you think is, uh, at the heart of this conflict?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>I think the park is really meaningful for some people, both symbolically and practically. People talk about finding meaning there in the community that it draws. They see it as a place where outsiders belong. And one of the last remaining vestiges of a radical Berkeley that has largely faded away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>So I went by Monday night to see where things stand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>And there was a guy in front of one of the barricades performing music, and he was talking about what it had meant for him to be able to come to the park as a young person and get free meals and to be able to perform on the stage in the park. So I think for some people, that’s the crux of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[protest audio]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Vanessa, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vanessa Rancaño: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Vanessa Rancaño, a housing reporter for KQED. This 40 minute conversation with Vanessa was cut down and edited by producer Maria Esquinca. Alan Montecillo is our senior editor. He scored this episode and added all the tape music courtesy of First Calm Music and Blue Dot sessions. If you’re new to the Bay, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Maybe it is a goal of yours in the New Year to be more informed about what’s happening in the Bay area on everything from local politics to schools to climate change. The biggest stories, really, of our region. I’m here to tell you, you have come to the right place, my friend. If you haven’t already, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you never miss a beat. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED Public Media in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>When protesters gathered last week at People’s Park, facing law enforcement officials in riot gear, Lev Marcus’s voice was one of the loudest in the crowd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a Berkeley kid, Marcus grew up with People’s Park as part of his cultural identity. “People’s Park is definitely a special place,” the 28-year-old said.\u003cbr>\n[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Nick Grosh, UC Berkeley student and chair of the student government’s Housing Commission\"] ‘I think that there is a future where there could be housing on People’s Park if it’s done right. But the way the university is going about it is, I think it’s the wrong way to do it.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly a dozen activists protesting a yearslong effort to build new student housing there were arrested last week as law enforcement cleared the site and crews walled it off with a barricade of shipping containers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s only the latest flashpoint for a historic park that has been the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13917145/a-brief-history-battle-peoples-park-berkeley-protests\">site of controversy for over 50 years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The University of California \u003ca href=\"https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/peoplespark/home\">bought the lot\u003c/a> where the park now sits in the late ’60s, knocked down a few buildings, then ran out of money for development. The land became a dump, full of trash and abandoned cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11972289\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11972289 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"People's Park in Berkeley on July 28, 1972.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1303\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-800x521.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-1020x665.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-1536x1001.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-1920x1251.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People’s Park in Berkeley on July 28, 1972. \u003ccite>(Jim Edelen/Bay Area News Group/Bay Area News via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1969, residents turned it into a park. They planted trees, made artwork and held anti-war protests. Marcus’s parents were among them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a place I heard about growing up. It was where my parents’ generation did a lot of their protesting,” he said.[aside postID=arts_13917145]When the University fought to reclaim the land, a confrontation between protestors and law enforcement broke out that came to be known as Bloody Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheriff’s deputies killed one man, another was blinded. Then-Gov. Ronald Reagan declared a state of emergency in Berkeley and sent in 2,000 National Guard troops, who stayed more than two weeks. A curfew was imposed and tear gas filled the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971937\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971937\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/GettyImages-514677964-800x538-1.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of several people running on a street with smoke behind them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"538\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/GettyImages-514677964-800x538-1.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/GettyImages-514677964-800x538-1-160x108.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">1969: Demonstrators running from tear gas deployed by police during a protest over People’s Park. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty Images Contributor)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the decades since tensions over control of the park have continued. The park has recently been home to a community garden and kitchen. Unhoused people have long camped in the park, and it’s been a hub for homeless services. University officials say there’s been an \u003ca href=\"https://peoplesparkhousing.berkeley.edu/safety#:~:text=Criminal%20activity%20at%20the%20park,been%20charged%20with%20attempted%20murder.\">increase in criminal activity\u003c/a>. Still, it’s remained an important gathering place for Berkeleyites like Lev Marcus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a place where I’ve met a lot of really cool, interesting people that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise,” he said. It’s where he started playing chess during the pandemic, a hobby he keeps up. “The park has always been a place for outsiders,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1vWqNPrRyl/\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People’s Park is now \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/database-research.htm\">on the National Register of Historic Places\u003c/a>. But California has a dire housing shortage, and students aren’t immune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.csac.ca.gov/food-and-housing-survey\">recent survey\u003c/a> from the California Student Aid Commission found over half of college students who applied for financial aid don’t have secure housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley’s response to the crisis calls for adding more than 9,000 new beds for students, said Kyle Gibson, director of communications for the university.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of that effort, the university has been trying to build a student housing complex on People’s Park \u003ca href=\"https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/peoplespark/history_aftermath\">since 2018\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re looking at taking more than just 1,100 students with this project alone out of the private Berkeley rental market,” Gibson said. “So that not only helps our students but helps free up over a thousand units of housing for the broader Berkeley community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There will also be permanent supportive housing for about \u003ca href=\"https://peoplesparkhousing.berkeley.edu/\">100 unhoused people\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley third-year Nick Grosh thinks a lot about his classmates’ housing needs as chair of the student government’s \u003ca href=\"https://housingcomm.berkeley.edu/about/\">Housing Commission\u003c/a>. But he has reservations about this project.[aside tag=\"berkeley, housing\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]“Just because I’m in support of student housing…it doesn’t mean that all student housing, no matter the context, is good,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grosh says he would have liked to see the university do more to include community input in the process. And he’s concerned that the new student housing might not wind up being affordable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that there is a future where there could be housing on People’s Park if it’s done right,” he said. “But the way the university is going about it is, I think it’s the wrong way to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university’s Gibson counters that extensive community outreach informed the final shape of the housing project and said all school housing is below market rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They plan to keep two-thirds of the site as a public park. But objectors say it won’t be the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the university prepares the lot for development, it’s blocked from beginning construction by an ongoing lawsuit in the state Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly a dozen activists protesting a yearslong effort to build new student housing there were arrested last week as law enforcement cleared the site and crews walled it off with a barricade of shipping containers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s only the latest flashpoint for a historic park that has been the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13917145/a-brief-history-battle-peoples-park-berkeley-protests\">site of controversy for over 50 years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The University of California \u003ca href=\"https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/peoplespark/home\">bought the lot\u003c/a> where the park now sits in the late ’60s, knocked down a few buildings, then ran out of money for development. The land became a dump, full of trash and abandoned cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11972289\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11972289 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"People's Park in Berkeley on July 28, 1972.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1303\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-800x521.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-1020x665.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-1536x1001.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240110-PEOPLES-PARK-ARCHIVAL-01-KQED-1920x1251.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People’s Park in Berkeley on July 28, 1972. \u003ccite>(Jim Edelen/Bay Area News Group/Bay Area News via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1969, residents turned it into a park. They planted trees, made artwork and held anti-war protests. Marcus’s parents were among them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a place I heard about growing up. It was where my parents’ generation did a lot of their protesting,” he said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When the University fought to reclaim the land, a confrontation between protestors and law enforcement broke out that came to be known as Bloody Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheriff’s deputies killed one man, another was blinded. Then-Gov. Ronald Reagan declared a state of emergency in Berkeley and sent in 2,000 National Guard troops, who stayed more than two weeks. A curfew was imposed and tear gas filled the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971937\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971937\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/GettyImages-514677964-800x538-1.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of several people running on a street with smoke behind them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"538\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/GettyImages-514677964-800x538-1.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/GettyImages-514677964-800x538-1-160x108.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">1969: Demonstrators running from tear gas deployed by police during a protest over People’s Park. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty Images Contributor)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the decades since tensions over control of the park have continued. The park has recently been home to a community garden and kitchen. Unhoused people have long camped in the park, and it’s been a hub for homeless services. University officials say there’s been an \u003ca href=\"https://peoplesparkhousing.berkeley.edu/safety#:~:text=Criminal%20activity%20at%20the%20park,been%20charged%20with%20attempted%20murder.\">increase in criminal activity\u003c/a>. Still, it’s remained an important gathering place for Berkeleyites like Lev Marcus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a place where I’ve met a lot of really cool, interesting people that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise,” he said. It’s where he started playing chess during the pandemic, a hobby he keeps up. “The park has always been a place for outsiders,” he said.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>People’s Park is now \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/database-research.htm\">on the National Register of Historic Places\u003c/a>. But California has a dire housing shortage, and students aren’t immune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.csac.ca.gov/food-and-housing-survey\">recent survey\u003c/a> from the California Student Aid Commission found over half of college students who applied for financial aid don’t have secure housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley’s response to the crisis calls for adding more than 9,000 new beds for students, said Kyle Gibson, director of communications for the university.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of that effort, the university has been trying to build a student housing complex on People’s Park \u003ca href=\"https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/peoplespark/history_aftermath\">since 2018\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re looking at taking more than just 1,100 students with this project alone out of the private Berkeley rental market,” Gibson said. “So that not only helps our students but helps free up over a thousand units of housing for the broader Berkeley community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There will also be permanent supportive housing for about \u003ca href=\"https://peoplesparkhousing.berkeley.edu/\">100 unhoused people\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley third-year Nick Grosh thinks a lot about his classmates’ housing needs as chair of the student government’s \u003ca href=\"https://housingcomm.berkeley.edu/about/\">Housing Commission\u003c/a>. But he has reservations about this project.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "as-california-evictions-boom-whether-tenants-get-lawyers-depends-on-where-they-live",
"title": "Eviction Laws Vary in Bay Area, Leaving Tenants at a Disadvantage",
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"headTitle": "Eviction Laws Vary in Bay Area, Leaving Tenants at a Disadvantage | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>After years of living on the streets and in single-room-occupancy hotels, the cozy studio apartment in San Francisco’s Japantown felt like a sanctuary to Corey Lafayette. He’d moved with no furniture, so friends found him a mattress on Craigslist and contributed a massive globe and a mirror framed in wrought-iron leaves. He bought pots and pans and dreamed of decorating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As he cared for the plants on his sunny patio and walked through the building’s tree-lined courtyard, he could feel stress peeling away. No more stops by police. No more neighbors in his business or strict hotel rules. At the apartment, he was free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, three years later, he had received an eviction notice. A building manager had raised concerns about the behavior of Lafayette’s guests. The notice said Lafayette had a right to legal counsel and gave a phone number. The streets were scary; he couldn’t go back there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He picked up the phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lafayette was lucky: San Francisco is the only city in California that guarantees tenants \u003ca href=\"https://evictiondefense.org/\">access to an attorney\u003c/a> in eviction proceedings. The city is one of 17 nationwide, plus four states, that have launched right-to-counsel programs since New York City pioneered the idea in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Constitution grants all criminal defendants the right to counsel, that doesn’t extend to civil cases — even those with unusually high stakes, such as when a person risks losing their home. Nationwide, fewer than 5% of tenants in eviction cases are represented by an attorney, compared to more than 80% of landlords, the \u003ca href=\"http://civilrighttocounsel.org/uploaded_files/280/Landlord_and_tenant_eviction_rep_stats__NCCRC_.pdf\">National Coalition for a Civil Right to \u003c/a>Counsel estimates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Ora Prochovnick, litigation director, San Francisco’s Eviction Defense Collaborative\"]‘We are correcting a power imbalance that has existed for way too long.’[/pullquote]As \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2023/11/california-evictions-post-pandemic/\">evictions soar across California\u003c/a> now that COVID-era moratoria have expired, tenant advocates are pushing for more cities and counties to follow San Francisco’s example. Los Angeles city and county \u003ca href=\"https://www.dailynews.com/2023/12/12/la-city-council-asks-city-attorney-to-draft-two-ordinances-to-protect-tenants/\">took the first steps\u003c/a> toward establishing a tenant right to counsel last year. Having a lawyer, tenant advocates say, can make the difference between a tenant keeping their home — or having the time and money to find a new one — and being put out on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But access to this legal help varies widely depending on where you live, even among cities that are just a few miles apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Floods, then an eviction notice\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Across the Bay in suburban Oakley, Nancy Wiles also was facing eviction. She’d lived in The Oaks Apartments, a sprawling low-income housing complex, since 2014. At first, she liked the ample grounds studded with oak trees and the fact that her nephew lived nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then the 63-year-old hairdresser said, her building suffered a series of floods, starting with a pipe bursting just outside her ground-floor apartment. Ankle-deep water filled the hallway, with tenants trying to block their doorways with trash bags. Another time, she said, water from a third-floor leak cascaded down the stairs like a river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971926\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971926\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman wearing blue, white and black, stands outside.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nancy Wiles stands in front of her former apartment building in Oakley on Dec. 4, 2023. Wiles, who is originally from Liberia, moved in in 2014 and endured constant leaks and flooding in her building. When she fell behind on her rent, she received an eviction notice and moved out this September. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Apartment managers relocated Wiles to a hotel while they fixed the leaks, but she said the problem never seemed fully repaired. Mold sprouted on her bathroom ceiling, said Wiles, who suffers from asthma and began using her breathing machine three times a day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11967896,news_11968966,news_11955733\" label=\"Related Stories\"]The costs also added up, she said. While she paid her normal rent during weeks-long hotel stays, she had to buy takeout food and, eventually, a slow cooker to make meals. When apartment management failed to make minor repairs, like fixing a sink that wouldn’t drain, Wiles would pay a family member to take care of it. Already working less due to the pandemic and a disability, Wiles started falling behind on rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By September Wiles had had enough. She and her 23-year-old son were packing their bags to move to a new apartment when there was a knock on the door: Wiles had been served with eviction papers. “My heart went boom,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she remembered she was moving out anyway. The paperwork, she figured, could wait. She stuffed it in her purse and kept packing — a decision that would cost her later.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Navigating the system\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Evictions can happen fast and are often confusing for tenants. After receiving a first notice that their landlord has filed an eviction case against them, called an unlawful detainer, tenants have five days to respond in writing or they may automatically lose their case. Once a response is filed, a landlord can request a hearing and the court must schedule it within three weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Contra Costa County where Wiles lives, the vast majority of tenants are unrepresented and face numerous barriers in navigating eviction court, said a\u003ca href=\"https://workingeastbay.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/EBASE-Eviction-Court-Watch-Report.pdf\"> 2022 report by the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without legal counsel, tenants often don’t realize they need to respond to an eviction notice and so they lose their cases by default.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Court staff encourage tenants to resolve their cases through mediation, the report found. But in these informal conferences overseen by volunteer mediators, they face off against landlord attorneys who are far more seasoned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When tenants do make it to court hearings, they often don’t realize that the case will be decided then and there. They don’t bring evidence that could help their cause, such as proof that they paid rent, or that the landlord refused to accept funds from rental assistance programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eviction “is a very opaque, technically complex and legalistic process,” said Alex Werth, a policy consultant who wrote the report. “And it is particularly difficult to navigate — whether you are a tenant or a landlord — without an attorney by your side.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studies show legal representation increases favorable outcomes for tenants. In Philadelphia, which launched a right-to-counsel program for low-income tenants in select zip codes in 2022, tenants facing eviction in those zip codes were less likely than others to receive default judgments in favor of the landlord or be locked out of their homes. And eviction cases were more likely to be withdrawn, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.reinvestment.com/insights/implementing-right-to-counsel-in-philadelphia-an-evaluation-of-the-programs-2022-rollout/\">a report by the Reinvestment Fund\u003c/a>. (Cases also took longer to resolve, an outcome that might concern landlords.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Choosing to fight\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Back in San Francisco, the city’s taxpayer-supported \u003ca href=\"https://evictiondefense.org/\">Eviction Defense Collaborative\u003c/a> matched Corey Lafayette with Jacqueline Patton, a tenant attorney with six years of experience. A week later, they gathered in Lafayette’s apartment along with a social worker for the collaborative to talk strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unemployed and relying on disability checks, Lafayette had fallen behind on rent during the pandemic. But when he tried to cover the debt, he said, the apartment manager wouldn’t accept his money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lafayette, who is Black and gay, said he thought discrimination was at play. He recalled a conversation he’d had with the apartment manager two years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A week after he took over, he told me this is a family-orientated facility and I don’t fit in here and he’s going to get me kicked out however he can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The manager denied making that statement when questioned later by a reporter. “I would never say anything like that,” he said, declining to comment further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lafayette’s eviction notice contained a laundry list of complaints, from keeping the unit in an “unsanitary condition,” to allowing guests to visit at night, to causing a fire hazard by “putting aluminum foil under the burners of your stove.” Patton and the social worker, Brandon Williams, looked around at Lafayette’s neatly arranged sneaker collection and sparkly red dinette chairs. They’d seen hoarder apartments; this wasn’t one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971921\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971921\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman wearing a surgical mask stands next to a seated Black man wearing a surgical mask at a desk.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Corey Lafayette and his attorney, Jacqueline Patton of the Eviction Defense Collaborative, prepare to appear in San Francisco Superior Court for a trial call on Nov. 20, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Video evidence Patton requested from Lafayette’s landlord showed people loitering near the apartment building, Patton said, but no proof any of them were his guests. Lafayette, who walks with difficulty due to an old gunshot wound, said he sometimes relied on a friend to open the gate for him when a delivery arrived, or to help with chores like laundry. He admitted that one of his guests had taken packages belonging to another tenant, an incident mentioned in the complaint, but said he was “devastated” when he found out and told the person to return them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971922\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971922\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman and Black man sit next to each other on a bench indoors. The woman is holding an envelope.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jacqueline Patton, senior staff attorney at the Eviction Defense Collaborative, explains to Corey Lafayette the tentative settlement of his eviction case at the San Francisco Superior Court on Nov. 20, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Williams empathized with Lafayette’s complaint of discrimination. “You have to realize you’re in San Francisco in 2023 being told by a white man that you don’t belong. It’s a shame but it’s the reality of this city,” said Williams, who also is Black.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eviction disproportionately affects Black people. In a large nationwide study, Princeton University’s Eviction Lab found fewer than one in five renters nationwide are Black, but \u003ca href=\"https://evictionlab.org/who-is-evicted-in-america/#methods\">more than half of eviction filings are against Black renters\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patton had considered proposing a compromise to Lafayette’s landlord, the non-profit Chinatown Community Development Center: They could transfer him to another of their buildings. But at the meeting, the three decide that they will push for Lafayette to stay in his home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to fight this,” Lafayette said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-a-lawyer-shortage\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">A lawyer shortage\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>They’d have to fight quickly. While San Francisco provides all tenants with representation, only about 75% get the so-called “gold standard” of legal defense — an attorney to carry the case from start to finish. The rest, like Lafayette, get a lawyer for just one mandatory settlement conference; if the case isn’t resolved then, the tenant has to go it alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971924\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971924\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man wearing a yellow shirt with designs sits on a couch inside an apartment.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Corey Lafayette, 53, in his studio apartment in Japantown after his eviction case reached a tentative settlement on Nov. 20, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s one of the most often-cited problems with right-to-counsel programs: There simply aren’t enough experienced tenant attorneys to go around. That mismatch has become more obvious this year as eviction moratoria have expired across California, leaving \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.bluelena.io/index.php?action=social&chash=84f7e69969dea92a925508f7c1f9579a.403&s=b5222f21b7b32e5caa20d917d959ac5f\">courts clogged with cases\u003c/a> in some areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In counties like Alameda and Los Angeles, which don’t have right-to-counsel ordinances but have networks of tenant attorneys offering free legal help, it can be difficult to hire for a job that, while potentially rewarding, pays less than the private sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ora Prochovnick, litigation director for San Francisco’s Eviction Defense Collaborative, said she needs 50 experienced attorneys to handle the roughly 2,500 eviction cases the city sees each year. She has 45 lawyers now, though some are brand new to the field. The city spends $17 million a year providing free lawyers for tenants and has set up a fellowship program to lure more law school graduates into the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The collaborative triage cases, handing them off to a network of attorneys at eight nonprofit groups and deciding who will get full-scope representation based on factors like whether tenants are elderly or have children, a disability or a language barrier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort, which launched in 2019, is paying off, said the Mayor’s Office of Housing: About 70% of San Francisco tenants who receive full-scope legal representation end up staying in their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are correcting a power imbalance that has existed for way too long,” Prochovnick said. “We are preventing displacement to the streets and outside the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An unwelcome surprise\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Weeks after getting her eviction notice in Oakley, Nancy Wiles still wasn’t sure what to do. She showed it to a friend who is a tenant advocate on the board of the nonprofit Monument Impact. They went to the Pittsburg courthouse to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the courthouse, Wiles got discouraging news: Because she hadn’t responded to the notice in time, the court filed a judgment against her. She owed nearly $7,000 to her former landlord, the court said. The eviction also could go on her credit history, reducing her chances of landing an apartment in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiles, who survives mostly on $1,000 a month in disability benefits, was crestfallen. “I can’t afford anything like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971928\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971928\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman holds up a piece of paper.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nancy Wiles holds her eviction notice on Dec. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While she admitted she’d fallen behind on rent, sometimes making partial payments, she pointed to receipts showing she had paid more than The Oaks was alleging. The Oaks’ property management team and lawyers for the property owners did not respond to messages from CalMatters seeking comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971927\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971927\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10.jpg\" alt=\"Two images side by side of the ceiling in a bathroom and the floor of a building.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wiles’ apartment building flooded at least three times while she lived there. Leaks from the upper floor caused mold to grow in her bathroom on Dec. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wiles thought she should be compensated for the cost and stress of living in a poorly maintained apartment, but without understanding how eviction proceedings worked, she’d never appeared in court to make those arguments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa County last fall began paying nonprofits to run legal clinics at courthouses for tenants like Wiles. But attorneys said court staff barred them from advertising the clinics within the courthouse and many tenants are still falling through the cracks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the savvy tenants that know how to Google and find resources” that come to the clinics, said Mihaela Gough, an attorney with Centro Legal de la Raza. “When we do go to court, there are always a lot of tenants who aren’t represented that we haven’t heard of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-right-to-counsel-campaigns-launch\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Right-to-counsel campaigns launch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Elected officials in some California cities and counties are hoping to set up right-to-counsel programs similar to San Francisco’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, the Los Angeles City Council asked its city attorney to draft an ordinance guaranteeing legal counsel to tenants who face eviction and earn 80% or less of the area’s median income. Funded by a tax on real estate sales of $5 million or more, the program would phase in as money becomes available. LA County supervisors passed a similar measure in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re facing at this moment a city that is completely crippled by its housing costs and as a result, tenants are facing incredible challenges,” said Nithya Raman, the city council member who led the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community groups in Fresno and Bakersfield have unsuccessfully pushed to establish a tenant right to counsel. Both cities, however, have set up eviction protection programs to offer education, mediation, and in Fresno’s case, legal help to tenants when the city attorney said their landlords have acted illegally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The right to counsel is “having a moment” partly because “the pandemic shone a light on tenant housing precarity and the widespread nature of evictions,” Werth said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Landlord groups have opposed some right-to-counsel campaigns. “Providing a taxpayer-funded attorney to a tenant who did not pay their rent does not stop the eviction,” said Joshua Howard, an executive vice president of the California Apartment Association. “Those funds would be better used to provide rental assistance to prevent the eviction process from ever starting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-heading-to-court\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Heading to court\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On a November Monday, Lafayette walked into the San Francisco Superior Court building, his hands trembling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m nervous. I just want this to be over,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a courtroom packed with tenants, landlords and attorneys, Patton and the lawyer for Lafayette’s landlord told Judge Ronald Quidachay they were close to reaching a deal. He sent them into a hallway to negotiate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patton had drafted a settlement agreement in which Lafayette agreed to pay $2,700 in overdue rent, with help from a city program, and ensure his guests do not disturb other tenants. For him to be in violation, the landlord would have to prove that any “guests” were actually there to visit Lafayette. And Lafayette would get two things he’d been requesting for years: access to a parking space and for his name to be added to the apartment’s call box.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of my goals is to not just stabilize the housing but to make it better for someone,” Patton said. If tenants feel they are benefiting from an agreement, she said, they’ll be more likely to keep it, avoiding another eviction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down the hall, Dylan Tong, the landlord’s lawyer, said that as a low-income housing provider, his client was most concerned that Lafayette’s guests respect the rules of the complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There has to be a balance between enforcing the rules of a lease and also keeping people housed, giving them a second chance,” he said. “So my client doesn’t want to evict him but really wants him to know that he has to behave moving forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a tense few minutes, Lafayette learned the landlord had accepted the settlement terms. His shoulders sank with relief. He glanced down the hall at the apartment manager who he’d said made him feel unwelcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want him to see that I have people behind me,” he said. “I’m not here by myself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nancy Wiles’ story also had a happy ending: At a legal clinic at Pittsburg Superior Court she met Gough, the Centro Legal de la Raza attorney. Gough wrote a letter to Wiles’ landlord, who agreed to dismiss the eviction case against her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971925\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971925\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man and woman sit next to each other outside.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Goodwin sits with Nancy Wiles near her former apartment building in Oakley on Dec. 4, 2023. A friend of Wiles’, Goodwin is a tenant advocate who helped her through her eviction process. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s still unclear if the short-lived eviction will show up on Wiles’ credit report, her attorney said. Added William Goodwin, the friend who helped her, “It burns me a little because Nancy was fortunate, but how many others are out there being victimized?”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "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.",
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"title": "Eviction Laws Vary in Bay Area, Leaving Tenants at a Disadvantage | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After years of living on the streets and in single-room-occupancy hotels, the cozy studio apartment in San Francisco’s Japantown felt like a sanctuary to Corey Lafayette. He’d moved with no furniture, so friends found him a mattress on Craigslist and contributed a massive globe and a mirror framed in wrought-iron leaves. He bought pots and pans and dreamed of decorating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As he cared for the plants on his sunny patio and walked through the building’s tree-lined courtyard, he could feel stress peeling away. No more stops by police. No more neighbors in his business or strict hotel rules. At the apartment, he was free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, three years later, he had received an eviction notice. A building manager had raised concerns about the behavior of Lafayette’s guests. The notice said Lafayette had a right to legal counsel and gave a phone number. The streets were scary; he couldn’t go back there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He picked up the phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lafayette was lucky: San Francisco is the only city in California that guarantees tenants \u003ca href=\"https://evictiondefense.org/\">access to an attorney\u003c/a> in eviction proceedings. The city is one of 17 nationwide, plus four states, that have launched right-to-counsel programs since New York City pioneered the idea in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Constitution grants all criminal defendants the right to counsel, that doesn’t extend to civil cases — even those with unusually high stakes, such as when a person risks losing their home. Nationwide, fewer than 5% of tenants in eviction cases are represented by an attorney, compared to more than 80% of landlords, the \u003ca href=\"http://civilrighttocounsel.org/uploaded_files/280/Landlord_and_tenant_eviction_rep_stats__NCCRC_.pdf\">National Coalition for a Civil Right to \u003c/a>Counsel estimates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We are correcting a power imbalance that has existed for way too long.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2023/11/california-evictions-post-pandemic/\">evictions soar across California\u003c/a> now that COVID-era moratoria have expired, tenant advocates are pushing for more cities and counties to follow San Francisco’s example. Los Angeles city and county \u003ca href=\"https://www.dailynews.com/2023/12/12/la-city-council-asks-city-attorney-to-draft-two-ordinances-to-protect-tenants/\">took the first steps\u003c/a> toward establishing a tenant right to counsel last year. Having a lawyer, tenant advocates say, can make the difference between a tenant keeping their home — or having the time and money to find a new one — and being put out on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But access to this legal help varies widely depending on where you live, even among cities that are just a few miles apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Floods, then an eviction notice\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Across the Bay in suburban Oakley, Nancy Wiles also was facing eviction. She’d lived in The Oaks Apartments, a sprawling low-income housing complex, since 2014. At first, she liked the ample grounds studded with oak trees and the fact that her nephew lived nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then the 63-year-old hairdresser said, her building suffered a series of floods, starting with a pipe bursting just outside her ground-floor apartment. Ankle-deep water filled the hallway, with tenants trying to block their doorways with trash bags. Another time, she said, water from a third-floor leak cascaded down the stairs like a river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971926\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971926\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman wearing blue, white and black, stands outside.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-06-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nancy Wiles stands in front of her former apartment building in Oakley on Dec. 4, 2023. Wiles, who is originally from Liberia, moved in in 2014 and endured constant leaks and flooding in her building. When she fell behind on her rent, she received an eviction notice and moved out this September. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Apartment managers relocated Wiles to a hotel while they fixed the leaks, but she said the problem never seemed fully repaired. Mold sprouted on her bathroom ceiling, said Wiles, who suffers from asthma and began using her breathing machine three times a day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The costs also added up, she said. While she paid her normal rent during weeks-long hotel stays, she had to buy takeout food and, eventually, a slow cooker to make meals. When apartment management failed to make minor repairs, like fixing a sink that wouldn’t drain, Wiles would pay a family member to take care of it. Already working less due to the pandemic and a disability, Wiles started falling behind on rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By September Wiles had had enough. She and her 23-year-old son were packing their bags to move to a new apartment when there was a knock on the door: Wiles had been served with eviction papers. “My heart went boom,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she remembered she was moving out anyway. The paperwork, she figured, could wait. She stuffed it in her purse and kept packing — a decision that would cost her later.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Navigating the system\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Evictions can happen fast and are often confusing for tenants. After receiving a first notice that their landlord has filed an eviction case against them, called an unlawful detainer, tenants have five days to respond in writing or they may automatically lose their case. Once a response is filed, a landlord can request a hearing and the court must schedule it within three weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Contra Costa County where Wiles lives, the vast majority of tenants are unrepresented and face numerous barriers in navigating eviction court, said a\u003ca href=\"https://workingeastbay.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/EBASE-Eviction-Court-Watch-Report.pdf\"> 2022 report by the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without legal counsel, tenants often don’t realize they need to respond to an eviction notice and so they lose their cases by default.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Court staff encourage tenants to resolve their cases through mediation, the report found. But in these informal conferences overseen by volunteer mediators, they face off against landlord attorneys who are far more seasoned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When tenants do make it to court hearings, they often don’t realize that the case will be decided then and there. They don’t bring evidence that could help their cause, such as proof that they paid rent, or that the landlord refused to accept funds from rental assistance programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eviction “is a very opaque, technically complex and legalistic process,” said Alex Werth, a policy consultant who wrote the report. “And it is particularly difficult to navigate — whether you are a tenant or a landlord — without an attorney by your side.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studies show legal representation increases favorable outcomes for tenants. In Philadelphia, which launched a right-to-counsel program for low-income tenants in select zip codes in 2022, tenants facing eviction in those zip codes were less likely than others to receive default judgments in favor of the landlord or be locked out of their homes. And eviction cases were more likely to be withdrawn, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.reinvestment.com/insights/implementing-right-to-counsel-in-philadelphia-an-evaluation-of-the-programs-2022-rollout/\">a report by the Reinvestment Fund\u003c/a>. (Cases also took longer to resolve, an outcome that might concern landlords.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Choosing to fight\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Back in San Francisco, the city’s taxpayer-supported \u003ca href=\"https://evictiondefense.org/\">Eviction Defense Collaborative\u003c/a> matched Corey Lafayette with Jacqueline Patton, a tenant attorney with six years of experience. A week later, they gathered in Lafayette’s apartment along with a social worker for the collaborative to talk strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unemployed and relying on disability checks, Lafayette had fallen behind on rent during the pandemic. But when he tried to cover the debt, he said, the apartment manager wouldn’t accept his money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lafayette, who is Black and gay, said he thought discrimination was at play. He recalled a conversation he’d had with the apartment manager two years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A week after he took over, he told me this is a family-orientated facility and I don’t fit in here and he’s going to get me kicked out however he can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The manager denied making that statement when questioned later by a reporter. “I would never say anything like that,” he said, declining to comment further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lafayette’s eviction notice contained a laundry list of complaints, from keeping the unit in an “unsanitary condition,” to allowing guests to visit at night, to causing a fire hazard by “putting aluminum foil under the burners of your stove.” Patton and the social worker, Brandon Williams, looked around at Lafayette’s neatly arranged sneaker collection and sparkly red dinette chairs. They’d seen hoarder apartments; this wasn’t one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971921\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971921\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman wearing a surgical mask stands next to a seated Black man wearing a surgical mask at a desk.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_01-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Corey Lafayette and his attorney, Jacqueline Patton of the Eviction Defense Collaborative, prepare to appear in San Francisco Superior Court for a trial call on Nov. 20, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Video evidence Patton requested from Lafayette’s landlord showed people loitering near the apartment building, Patton said, but no proof any of them were his guests. Lafayette, who walks with difficulty due to an old gunshot wound, said he sometimes relied on a friend to open the gate for him when a delivery arrived, or to help with chores like laundry. He admitted that one of his guests had taken packages belonging to another tenant, an incident mentioned in the complaint, but said he was “devastated” when he found out and told the person to return them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971922\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971922\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman and Black man sit next to each other on a bench indoors. The woman is holding an envelope.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_02-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jacqueline Patton, senior staff attorney at the Eviction Defense Collaborative, explains to Corey Lafayette the tentative settlement of his eviction case at the San Francisco Superior Court on Nov. 20, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Williams empathized with Lafayette’s complaint of discrimination. “You have to realize you’re in San Francisco in 2023 being told by a white man that you don’t belong. It’s a shame but it’s the reality of this city,” said Williams, who also is Black.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eviction disproportionately affects Black people. In a large nationwide study, Princeton University’s Eviction Lab found fewer than one in five renters nationwide are Black, but \u003ca href=\"https://evictionlab.org/who-is-evicted-in-america/#methods\">more than half of eviction filings are against Black renters\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patton had considered proposing a compromise to Lafayette’s landlord, the non-profit Chinatown Community Development Center: They could transfer him to another of their buildings. But at the meeting, the three decide that they will push for Lafayette to stay in his home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to fight this,” Lafayette said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-a-lawyer-shortage\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">A lawyer shortage\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>They’d have to fight quickly. While San Francisco provides all tenants with representation, only about 75% get the so-called “gold standard” of legal defense — an attorney to carry the case from start to finish. The rest, like Lafayette, get a lawyer for just one mandatory settlement conference; if the case isn’t resolved then, the tenant has to go it alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971924\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971924\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man wearing a yellow shirt with designs sits on a couch inside an apartment.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/112023_SF-Eviction-Court_MO_CM_20-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Corey Lafayette, 53, in his studio apartment in Japantown after his eviction case reached a tentative settlement on Nov. 20, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s one of the most often-cited problems with right-to-counsel programs: There simply aren’t enough experienced tenant attorneys to go around. That mismatch has become more obvious this year as eviction moratoria have expired across California, leaving \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.bluelena.io/index.php?action=social&chash=84f7e69969dea92a925508f7c1f9579a.403&s=b5222f21b7b32e5caa20d917d959ac5f\">courts clogged with cases\u003c/a> in some areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In counties like Alameda and Los Angeles, which don’t have right-to-counsel ordinances but have networks of tenant attorneys offering free legal help, it can be difficult to hire for a job that, while potentially rewarding, pays less than the private sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ora Prochovnick, litigation director for San Francisco’s Eviction Defense Collaborative, said she needs 50 experienced attorneys to handle the roughly 2,500 eviction cases the city sees each year. She has 45 lawyers now, though some are brand new to the field. The city spends $17 million a year providing free lawyers for tenants and has set up a fellowship program to lure more law school graduates into the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The collaborative triage cases, handing them off to a network of attorneys at eight nonprofit groups and deciding who will get full-scope representation based on factors like whether tenants are elderly or have children, a disability or a language barrier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort, which launched in 2019, is paying off, said the Mayor’s Office of Housing: About 70% of San Francisco tenants who receive full-scope legal representation end up staying in their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are correcting a power imbalance that has existed for way too long,” Prochovnick said. “We are preventing displacement to the streets and outside the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An unwelcome surprise\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Weeks after getting her eviction notice in Oakley, Nancy Wiles still wasn’t sure what to do. She showed it to a friend who is a tenant advocate on the board of the nonprofit Monument Impact. They went to the Pittsburg courthouse to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the courthouse, Wiles got discouraging news: Because she hadn’t responded to the notice in time, the court filed a judgment against her. She owed nearly $7,000 to her former landlord, the court said. The eviction also could go on her credit history, reducing her chances of landing an apartment in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiles, who survives mostly on $1,000 a month in disability benefits, was crestfallen. “I can’t afford anything like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971928\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971928\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman holds up a piece of paper.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-13-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nancy Wiles holds her eviction notice on Dec. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While she admitted she’d fallen behind on rent, sometimes making partial payments, she pointed to receipts showing she had paid more than The Oaks was alleging. The Oaks’ property management team and lawyers for the property owners did not respond to messages from CalMatters seeking comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971927\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971927\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10.jpg\" alt=\"Two images side by side of the ceiling in a bathroom and the floor of a building.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-10-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wiles’ apartment building flooded at least three times while she lived there. Leaks from the upper floor caused mold to grow in her bathroom on Dec. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wiles thought she should be compensated for the cost and stress of living in a poorly maintained apartment, but without understanding how eviction proceedings worked, she’d never appeared in court to make those arguments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa County last fall began paying nonprofits to run legal clinics at courthouses for tenants like Wiles. But attorneys said court staff barred them from advertising the clinics within the courthouse and many tenants are still falling through the cracks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the savvy tenants that know how to Google and find resources” that come to the clinics, said Mihaela Gough, an attorney with Centro Legal de la Raza. “When we do go to court, there are always a lot of tenants who aren’t represented that we haven’t heard of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-right-to-counsel-campaigns-launch\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Right-to-counsel campaigns launch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Elected officials in some California cities and counties are hoping to set up right-to-counsel programs similar to San Francisco’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, the Los Angeles City Council asked its city attorney to draft an ordinance guaranteeing legal counsel to tenants who face eviction and earn 80% or less of the area’s median income. Funded by a tax on real estate sales of $5 million or more, the program would phase in as money becomes available. LA County supervisors passed a similar measure in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re facing at this moment a city that is completely crippled by its housing costs and as a result, tenants are facing incredible challenges,” said Nithya Raman, the city council member who led the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community groups in Fresno and Bakersfield have unsuccessfully pushed to establish a tenant right to counsel. Both cities, however, have set up eviction protection programs to offer education, mediation, and in Fresno’s case, legal help to tenants when the city attorney said their landlords have acted illegally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The right to counsel is “having a moment” partly because “the pandemic shone a light on tenant housing precarity and the widespread nature of evictions,” Werth said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Landlord groups have opposed some right-to-counsel campaigns. “Providing a taxpayer-funded attorney to a tenant who did not pay their rent does not stop the eviction,” said Joshua Howard, an executive vice president of the California Apartment Association. “Those funds would be better used to provide rental assistance to prevent the eviction process from ever starting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-heading-to-court\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Heading to court\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On a November Monday, Lafayette walked into the San Francisco Superior Court building, his hands trembling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m nervous. I just want this to be over,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a courtroom packed with tenants, landlords and attorneys, Patton and the lawyer for Lafayette’s landlord told Judge Ronald Quidachay they were close to reaching a deal. He sent them into a hallway to negotiate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patton had drafted a settlement agreement in which Lafayette agreed to pay $2,700 in overdue rent, with help from a city program, and ensure his guests do not disturb other tenants. For him to be in violation, the landlord would have to prove that any “guests” were actually there to visit Lafayette. And Lafayette would get two things he’d been requesting for years: access to a parking space and for his name to be added to the apartment’s call box.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of my goals is to not just stabilize the housing but to make it better for someone,” Patton said. If tenants feel they are benefiting from an agreement, she said, they’ll be more likely to keep it, avoiding another eviction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down the hall, Dylan Tong, the landlord’s lawyer, said that as a low-income housing provider, his client was most concerned that Lafayette’s guests respect the rules of the complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There has to be a balance between enforcing the rules of a lease and also keeping people housed, giving them a second chance,” he said. “So my client doesn’t want to evict him but really wants him to know that he has to behave moving forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a tense few minutes, Lafayette learned the landlord had accepted the settlement terms. His shoulders sank with relief. He glanced down the hall at the apartment manager who he’d said made him feel unwelcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want him to see that I have people behind me,” he said. “I’m not here by myself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nancy Wiles’ story also had a happy ending: At a legal clinic at Pittsburg Superior Court she met Gough, the Centro Legal de la Raza attorney. Gough wrote a letter to Wiles’ landlord, who agreed to dismiss the eviction case against her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971925\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971925\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man and woman sit next to each other outside.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/120423-Nancy-Wiles-Eviction-MO-CM-01-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Goodwin sits with Nancy Wiles near her former apartment building in Oakley on Dec. 4, 2023. A friend of Wiles’, Goodwin is a tenant advocate who helped her through her eviction process. \u003ccite>(Manuel Orbegozo/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s still unclear if the short-lived eviction will show up on Wiles’ credit report, her attorney said. Added William Goodwin, the friend who helped her, “It burns me a little because Nancy was fortunate, but how many others are out there being victimized?”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "fairfax-tenants-rally-against-what-they-say-are-unlawful-rent-hikes",
"title": "Fairfax Tenants Accuse Landlord of Ignoring Rent Control Law",
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"headTitle": "Fairfax Tenants Accuse Landlord of Ignoring Rent Control Law | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>A newly formed tenant’s association is accusing their landlord of raising rent at their Fairfax apartments in defiance of the town’s rent control law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The town’s rent stabilization ordinance, passed by the town of Fairfax in November 2022, currently caps rent increases at about 2.5% through next summer, with some exceptions. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Liliana Lavezzo, president, Lanai Tenants Association\"]‘They’re scared of being kicked out, being evicted. To find a place here in Marin that’s affordable is complicated.’[/pullquote]But the Lanai Tenants Association says most tenants living at the 33-unit complex, the Lanai, for at least a year received notice their rent would increase by about 5% at the start of this year. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liliana Lavezzo, president of the Lanai Tenants Association, said some residents refuse to pay more than they say is lawful, and many are scared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re scared of being kicked out, being evicted,” Lavezzo said. “To find a place here in Marin that’s affordable is complicated.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lavezzo lives at the Lanai with her sister while serving as her caregiver. She joined nearly 20 tenants and supporters in a New Year’s Eve rally outside the Lanai Apartments to protest the rent increase. She said rent went up $100 for a one-bedroom to about $2,050 per month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt like it’s our duty to fight,” Lavezzo said. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lanai Tenants Association has the backing of the California Center for Movement Legal Services, which, in a Dec. 24 letter, has called on the landlord to rescind all unlawful rent increases and issue appropriate refunds, writing that “failure to comply with the law will result in my office filing a legal action against you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The executive director of the California Center for Movement Legal Services, Leah Simon-Weisberg, said, as of Jan. 4, she has received no response from the landlord, who was given a five-day deadline to confirm in writing they would be “rescinding all unlawful rent increases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971818\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971818\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A group of seven people stand in front of a two story building holding signs and looking at the camera.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From left) Resident Anlor Davin, Marin DSA member Curt Ries, Fairfax Town Council member Stephanie Hellman, residents Liliana Lavezzo, Gregory Yates, and Kathryn Wong, and Fairfax Town Council member Chance Cutrano, a subset of the newly formed tenants association, stand in front of Lanai Apartments in Fairfax on Jan. 5, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Simon-Weisberg said the landlord’s behavior is troubling but not an isolated case. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It appears that several landlords in town are just completely ignoring the new ordinance,” Simon-Weisberg said in an interview. “In the United States, people have to follow the law, and that includes landlords.” [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Leah Simon-Weisberg, executive director, California Center for Movement Legal Services\"]‘In the United States, people have to follow the law, and that includes landlords.’[/pullquote]If a landlord is not making a reasonable return on their investment, Simon-Weisberg said, they can follow the appropriate process to determine whether they have the right to raise rent. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lanai landlord, Cathy Canine-Black, donated over $950 to the Keep Fairfax Fair Act, a November ballot initiative to repeal the town’s rent control and just-cause-for-eviction ordinances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Canine-Black declined to comment. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A copy of a letter from the Lanai Apartments resident manager announcing the rent increase contends operating and maintenance costs for the property, such as water and heat, continue to rise, and property insurance has increased by 300% because of wildfire risks. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 71-year-old Gregory Yates, the Lanai is like a slice of paradise. He said the space is well-maintained, the grounds filled with flowers and plants of all kinds. The location is beautiful, includes a pool, and is right by the hills where he and his partner, who is living on disability as an autistic person, love to walk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But receiving the notice of rent increase filled him with dread. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve actually lived on the street for a short period of time years ago. I know what that’s like, and that’s what looms into view,” Yates said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971819\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971819\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person with short hair and a beard stands in front of a two story building.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Resident Gregory Yates stands in front of Lanai Apartments in Fairfax on Jan. 5, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That transformed into relief when he learned about the rent control ordinance. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was shocked that there was hope on the horizon. Frankly, it was like the cavalry coming charging in,” Yates said. “It’s not like we have endless reserves and endless resources to go to if our rent goes beyond our ability to pay it.” [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Gregory Yates, tenant, Lanai Apartments in Fairfax\"]‘It’s not like we have endless reserves and endless resources to go to if our rent goes beyond our ability to pay it.’[/pullquote]Come November, Fairfax residents will weigh whether to overturn the rent stabilization ordinance and its “just cause” eviction ordinance, which aims to protect tenants from arbitrary evictions. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fairfax Councilmember Stephanie Hellman said the tenant protections came in response to community members who were being displaced and priced out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rent stabilization ordinance notes that approximately 36% of Fairfax rental households are extremely low-income, and 68% of Fairfax householders who identify as Hispanic or Latino are renters. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That initiative to overturn those efforts, called the Keep Fairfax Fair Act, aims to “bring the decision of additional rent controls and just cause back to the citizens of Fairfax.” [aside label='More Stories on Housing' tag='housing']Michael Sexton, who wrote the majority of the preamble for the initiative, is the director of MarinResidents.org, an organization that argues that local rent control measures are unnecessary and create barriers to rental affordability. The group also has a PAC associated with it. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sexton said the local rent control measures hurt both landlords and renters. He argued that local rent control does not help housing affordability for anyone “except those that want to stay in their apartments for the next 20 years.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the ordinances divided the small town of Fairfax, and the community deserves a say. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not Oakland, it’s not San Francisco, it’s not Berkeley. And so these extra rent control regulations worried a lot of mom-and-pop landlords who depend on rental income,” Sexton said. “Marin has been a very expensive place to live, there’s no doubt about that. But the one way that you have an economic effect to make it less expensive is to create more housing.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lanai Tenants Association is now determining its next steps. Gregory Yates, the longtime tenant, said he’s still grateful to live at the Lanai. But he also strongly advocates rent control and feels compelled to speak out against unlawful rent increases. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s too many vulnerable people out here, and they are very important to me in my heart,” Yates said. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The Lanai Tenant's Association in Fairfax, a small city in Marin County, is accusing its landlord of violating the town's rent control law by imposing increases above 2.5%, prompting some to resist payment and causing anxiety among renters.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A newly formed tenant’s association is accusing their landlord of raising rent at their Fairfax apartments in defiance of the town’s rent control law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The town’s rent stabilization ordinance, passed by the town of Fairfax in November 2022, currently caps rent increases at about 2.5% through next summer, with some exceptions. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘They’re scared of being kicked out, being evicted. To find a place here in Marin that’s affordable is complicated.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But the Lanai Tenants Association says most tenants living at the 33-unit complex, the Lanai, for at least a year received notice their rent would increase by about 5% at the start of this year. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liliana Lavezzo, president of the Lanai Tenants Association, said some residents refuse to pay more than they say is lawful, and many are scared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re scared of being kicked out, being evicted,” Lavezzo said. “To find a place here in Marin that’s affordable is complicated.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lavezzo lives at the Lanai with her sister while serving as her caregiver. She joined nearly 20 tenants and supporters in a New Year’s Eve rally outside the Lanai Apartments to protest the rent increase. She said rent went up $100 for a one-bedroom to about $2,050 per month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt like it’s our duty to fight,” Lavezzo said. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lanai Tenants Association has the backing of the California Center for Movement Legal Services, which, in a Dec. 24 letter, has called on the landlord to rescind all unlawful rent increases and issue appropriate refunds, writing that “failure to comply with the law will result in my office filing a legal action against you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The executive director of the California Center for Movement Legal Services, Leah Simon-Weisberg, said, as of Jan. 4, she has received no response from the landlord, who was given a five-day deadline to confirm in writing they would be “rescinding all unlawful rent increases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971818\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971818\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A group of seven people stand in front of a two story building holding signs and looking at the camera.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-01-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From left) Resident Anlor Davin, Marin DSA member Curt Ries, Fairfax Town Council member Stephanie Hellman, residents Liliana Lavezzo, Gregory Yates, and Kathryn Wong, and Fairfax Town Council member Chance Cutrano, a subset of the newly formed tenants association, stand in front of Lanai Apartments in Fairfax on Jan. 5, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Simon-Weisberg said the landlord’s behavior is troubling but not an isolated case. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It appears that several landlords in town are just completely ignoring the new ordinance,” Simon-Weisberg said in an interview. “In the United States, people have to follow the law, and that includes landlords.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>If a landlord is not making a reasonable return on their investment, Simon-Weisberg said, they can follow the appropriate process to determine whether they have the right to raise rent. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lanai landlord, Cathy Canine-Black, donated over $950 to the Keep Fairfax Fair Act, a November ballot initiative to repeal the town’s rent control and just-cause-for-eviction ordinances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Canine-Black declined to comment. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A copy of a letter from the Lanai Apartments resident manager announcing the rent increase contends operating and maintenance costs for the property, such as water and heat, continue to rise, and property insurance has increased by 300% because of wildfire risks. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 71-year-old Gregory Yates, the Lanai is like a slice of paradise. He said the space is well-maintained, the grounds filled with flowers and plants of all kinds. The location is beautiful, includes a pool, and is right by the hills where he and his partner, who is living on disability as an autistic person, love to walk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But receiving the notice of rent increase filled him with dread. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve actually lived on the street for a short period of time years ago. I know what that’s like, and that’s what looms into view,” Yates said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971819\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971819\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person with short hair and a beard stands in front of a two story building.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240105-LANAIAPARTMENTS-11-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Resident Gregory Yates stands in front of Lanai Apartments in Fairfax on Jan. 5, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That transformed into relief when he learned about the rent control ordinance. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was shocked that there was hope on the horizon. Frankly, it was like the cavalry coming charging in,” Yates said. “It’s not like we have endless reserves and endless resources to go to if our rent goes beyond our ability to pay it.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Michael Sexton, who wrote the majority of the preamble for the initiative, is the director of MarinResidents.org, an organization that argues that local rent control measures are unnecessary and create barriers to rental affordability. The group also has a PAC associated with it. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sexton said the local rent control measures hurt both landlords and renters. He argued that local rent control does not help housing affordability for anyone “except those that want to stay in their apartments for the next 20 years.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the ordinances divided the small town of Fairfax, and the community deserves a say. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not Oakland, it’s not San Francisco, it’s not Berkeley. And so these extra rent control regulations worried a lot of mom-and-pop landlords who depend on rental income,” Sexton said. “Marin has been a very expensive place to live, there’s no doubt about that. But the one way that you have an economic effect to make it less expensive is to create more housing.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lanai Tenants Association is now determining its next steps. Gregory Yates, the longtime tenant, said he’s still grateful to live at the Lanai. But he also strongly advocates rent control and feels compelled to speak out against unlawful rent increases. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s too many vulnerable people out here, and they are very important to me in my heart,” Yates said. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Berkeley Update: 3 More Arrested During People's Park Protest",
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"headTitle": "Berkeley Update: 3 More Arrested During People’s Park Protest | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Updated 7:55 p.m. Thursday\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Three people were arrested late Thursday afternoon following a skirmish with police – the latest of nearly a dozen arrests made throughout the day as activists squared off with police at and around People’s Park in Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hundreds of officers arrived in the middle of the night to clear the site of its occupants in preparation for building student housing at the park. Officers at the time arrested seven people on charges of trespassing, with two cited on additional charges of failure to disperse, said Dan Mogulof, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley, which owns the property. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Throughout the day, construction crews began installing 160 double-stacked shipping containers around the park’s perimeters, as demonstrators gathered at the intersection of Telegraph and Haste avenues outside the park. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971737\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11971737 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Recently installed shipping containers line Bowditch Street on the eastern side of People’s Park in Berkeley on Jan. 4, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While “very peaceful” throughout the day, Berkeley police Officer Jessica Perry said one other person was arrested around 1:10 p.m. on charges of theft and resisting arrest after they moved a barricade, bringing the total number of arrests for the day to 11, according to UC Berkeley and Berkeley police. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Up until the skirmish in the late afternoon, the demonstrators had been playing music and eating donated pizza and cookies. Some were making or holding signs reading, “The people are the park,” and “Our people, our park” as several dozen officers in riot gear faced them from behind a barricade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berkeley police said protesters were attempting to remove barricades at the perimeter of the park, and an “altercation occurred” with officers at 4:40 p.m. Two women and one man were arrested on charges including resisting arrest and battery, according to police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What else can I do besides bring food for people?” said Alejandro Garcia, 31, pizza boxes in tow. “So they can spend time here and at least try to put some pressure, at least congregate, at least show we aren’t happy about this.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hundreds of officers were still on scene as of late Thursday afternoon. Mogulof said the officers would remain there until construction of the barricade is complete, after which security guards would patrol the area. He couldn’t give an exact estimate for when that would happen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Work is proceeding faster than expected,” he said. “We have some reasonable optimism it will be sooner than our original projection [of three-to-four days].”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/vanessarancano/status/1742970222506828121\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The standoff is the latest in a half-century-long battle over the park’s fate. The university intends to build 1,100 units of student housing on the park, with at least 100 units of housing for people exiting homelessness. Roughly 60% of the 2.8-acre site will remain open to the public,\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://peoplesparkhousing.berkeley.edu/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">according to UC Berkeley\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Janette Reid, a Berkeley resident and former Cal student, came to UC Berkeley in 1967. She was there in 1969, when the park became a landmark for the antiwar and Free Speech movements and when thousands of protestors faced off with police in the deadly confrontation known as “Bloody Thursday.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“All this was so unnecessary,” Reid said. “If you told me back then that more than a half century later, we would still be squabbling over this plot of ground, I would have said, ‘That’s insane.'”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Coco Rosos, 21, who grew up in Berkeley with the park as a historical landmark for political activism and as a refuge for unhoused people who camp there, the park is a vital piece of the city’s identity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It’s important for people in Berkeley to understand that there is a location where people can come to where there are no prerequisites,” Rosos said. “You don’t need anything else other than being human.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971731\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971731\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andrea Pritchett leads a crowd of demonstrators in chanting ‘Whose park? Our park,’ outside of People’s Park in Berkeley on Jan. 4, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In an email to students, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said the housing at this site is part of its broader Student Housing Initiative launched in 2017. The initiative aims to add 9,000 student beds, doubling the number available in university-owned and operated housing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“That, in turn, means the university must build on every feasible university-owned site in close proximity to the campus,” she wrote. “The housing planned for the People’s Park site is an essential and inseparable part of our efforts to ensure there is equity of experience for every student.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Enrique Marisol, a UC Berkeley graduate\"]‘[The officers are] cutting into the kitchen from three different directions, yelling all three directions, yelling different things at us, telling us to back up in different spaces, and we’re like, ‘We can’t back up anymore.”[/pullquote]Enrique Marisol, 23, was inside a makeshift kitchen at the park Wednesday evening when officers arrived. They described a chaotic scene as officers used chainsaws to enter the kitchen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I heard a bunch of screaming and yelling from outside, and before I could even climb back up to get out of the kitchen, there were two more people climbing in and slamming the door behind them,” they said. “[The officers are] cutting into the kitchen from three different directions, yelling all three directions, yelling different things at us, telling us to back up in different spaces, and we’re like, ‘We can’t back up anymore.'”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marisol said they were one of the seven arrested on trespassing charges. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">UC Berkeley spokesperson Kyle Gibson said the university’s goal is to ensure the park’s closure is “as peaceful as possible.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We’ve had a very successful morning,” Gibson said, adding that the park would reopen after construction is complete. “Over two-thirds of this site will be a brand new public park that will be open to the community and will not be fenced.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Work to construct the planned student housing at the park stalled in February 2023 after\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11941907/appeals-court-sends-uc-berkeley-back-to-the-drawing-board-on-peoples-park-development\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">an appeals court ruled\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> UC Berkeley could not move forward with construction until it evaluated other possible sites for the housing and addressed concerns that noise pollution from students would impact neighbors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill by Berkeley Democratic Asm. Buffy Wicks that effectively makes that ruling moot. AB 1307 amends California’s sweeping Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by no longer requiring housing developers to first study potential noise levels generated by future tenants. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971733\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11971733 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction crews work in People’s Park in Berkeley on Jan. 4, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lev Marcus, a 28-year-old who said he grew up in Berkeley, understands the need for more housing in the area but also sees a need for more open space as the city adds new residents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I totally sympathize with wanting to build more student housing,” he said. “I just think that with the more people we have, the more parks we need. We shouldn’t be taking away parks, we should be adding more.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marc Allen Louis Don, 42, spent time living in the park, beginning in 2014 during a bout of homelessness and at various points since then. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was very helpful,” he said. “I got acquainted and familiar with a lot of the people who were communally permanent here, and they had no other place to go.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Christ said that between the summer of 2022 and October 2023, 89 people living at the park had accepted offers of transitional housing. In November 2023, a census of the site found 25 people living at the park. The university then partnered with the city on a $1 million lease of the Quality Inn motel, which includes social and other supportive services provided by the Dorothy Day House. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Twenty-one of the 25 unhoused people on the site accepted the offer and are now on the path to permanent housing,” she said. “[Wednesday] night, alternative transitional housing, and storage for belongings were offered to every unhoused person when the park was closed, an offer that remains available for all who need and want it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ\"]‘We decided to take this necessary step during winter break to minimize the possibility of disruption for the public and our students when we are eventually cleared to resume construction.’[/pullquote]\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Although construction cannot begin until the legal case is resolved, Christ said she believes the courts have “repeatedly affirmed the university’s ability to enforce the site’s legal status as a closed construction zone.” Construction crews planned Thursday to continue working to set up shipping containers around the park, she said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We decided to take this necessary step during winter break to minimize the possibility of disruption for the public and our students when we are eventually cleared to resume construction,” she wrote.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED’s Holly McDede, Adhiti Bandlamudi and Brian Krans contributed to this report. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[ad fullwidth]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Seven people were arrested early Thursday morning after dozens of police officers surrounded People's Park in Berkeley and faced off with activists occupying the site. ",
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"title": "Berkeley Update: 3 More Arrested During People's Park Protest | KQED",
"description": "Seven people were arrested early Thursday morning after dozens of police officers surrounded People's Park in Berkeley and faced off with activists occupying the site. ",
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"headline": "Berkeley Update: 3 More Arrested During People's Park Protest",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Updated 7:55 p.m. Thursday\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Three people were arrested late Thursday afternoon following a skirmish with police – the latest of nearly a dozen arrests made throughout the day as activists squared off with police at and around People’s Park in Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hundreds of officers arrived in the middle of the night to clear the site of its occupants in preparation for building student housing at the park. Officers at the time arrested seven people on charges of trespassing, with two cited on additional charges of failure to disperse, said Dan Mogulof, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley, which owns the property. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Throughout the day, construction crews began installing 160 double-stacked shipping containers around the park’s perimeters, as demonstrators gathered at the intersection of Telegraph and Haste avenues outside the park. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971737\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11971737 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Recently installed shipping containers line Bowditch Street on the eastern side of People’s Park in Berkeley on Jan. 4, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While “very peaceful” throughout the day, Berkeley police Officer Jessica Perry said one other person was arrested around 1:10 p.m. on charges of theft and resisting arrest after they moved a barricade, bringing the total number of arrests for the day to 11, according to UC Berkeley and Berkeley police. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Up until the skirmish in the late afternoon, the demonstrators had been playing music and eating donated pizza and cookies. Some were making or holding signs reading, “The people are the park,” and “Our people, our park” as several dozen officers in riot gear faced them from behind a barricade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berkeley police said protesters were attempting to remove barricades at the perimeter of the park, and an “altercation occurred” with officers at 4:40 p.m. Two women and one man were arrested on charges including resisting arrest and battery, according to police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What else can I do besides bring food for people?” said Alejandro Garcia, 31, pizza boxes in tow. “So they can spend time here and at least try to put some pressure, at least congregate, at least show we aren’t happy about this.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hundreds of officers were still on scene as of late Thursday afternoon. Mogulof said the officers would remain there until construction of the barricade is complete, after which security guards would patrol the area. He couldn’t give an exact estimate for when that would happen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Work is proceeding faster than expected,” he said. “We have some reasonable optimism it will be sooner than our original projection [of three-to-four days].”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The standoff is the latest in a half-century-long battle over the park’s fate. The university intends to build 1,100 units of student housing on the park, with at least 100 units of housing for people exiting homelessness. Roughly 60% of the 2.8-acre site will remain open to the public,\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://peoplesparkhousing.berkeley.edu/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">according to UC Berkeley\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Janette Reid, a Berkeley resident and former Cal student, came to UC Berkeley in 1967. She was there in 1969, when the park became a landmark for the antiwar and Free Speech movements and when thousands of protestors faced off with police in the deadly confrontation known as “Bloody Thursday.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“All this was so unnecessary,” Reid said. “If you told me back then that more than a half century later, we would still be squabbling over this plot of ground, I would have said, ‘That’s insane.'”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Coco Rosos, 21, who grew up in Berkeley with the park as a historical landmark for political activism and as a refuge for unhoused people who camp there, the park is a vital piece of the city’s identity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It’s important for people in Berkeley to understand that there is a location where people can come to where there are no prerequisites,” Rosos said. “You don’t need anything else other than being human.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971731\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11971731\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-12-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andrea Pritchett leads a crowd of demonstrators in chanting ‘Whose park? Our park,’ outside of People’s Park in Berkeley on Jan. 4, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In an email to students, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said the housing at this site is part of its broader Student Housing Initiative launched in 2017. The initiative aims to add 9,000 student beds, doubling the number available in university-owned and operated housing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“That, in turn, means the university must build on every feasible university-owned site in close proximity to the campus,” she wrote. “The housing planned for the People’s Park site is an essential and inseparable part of our efforts to ensure there is equity of experience for every student.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘[The officers are] cutting into the kitchen from three different directions, yelling all three directions, yelling different things at us, telling us to back up in different spaces, and we’re like, ‘We can’t back up anymore.”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Enrique Marisol, 23, was inside a makeshift kitchen at the park Wednesday evening when officers arrived. They described a chaotic scene as officers used chainsaws to enter the kitchen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I heard a bunch of screaming and yelling from outside, and before I could even climb back up to get out of the kitchen, there were two more people climbing in and slamming the door behind them,” they said. “[The officers are] cutting into the kitchen from three different directions, yelling all three directions, yelling different things at us, telling us to back up in different spaces, and we’re like, ‘We can’t back up anymore.'”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marisol said they were one of the seven arrested on trespassing charges. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">UC Berkeley spokesperson Kyle Gibson said the university’s goal is to ensure the park’s closure is “as peaceful as possible.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We’ve had a very successful morning,” Gibson said, adding that the park would reopen after construction is complete. “Over two-thirds of this site will be a brand new public park that will be open to the community and will not be fenced.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Work to construct the planned student housing at the park stalled in February 2023 after\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11941907/appeals-court-sends-uc-berkeley-back-to-the-drawing-board-on-peoples-park-development\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">an appeals court ruled\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> UC Berkeley could not move forward with construction until it evaluated other possible sites for the housing and addressed concerns that noise pollution from students would impact neighbors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill by Berkeley Democratic Asm. Buffy Wicks that effectively makes that ruling moot. AB 1307 amends California’s sweeping Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by no longer requiring housing developers to first study potential noise levels generated by future tenants. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971733\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11971733 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction crews work in People’s Park in Berkeley on Jan. 4, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lev Marcus, a 28-year-old who said he grew up in Berkeley, understands the need for more housing in the area but also sees a need for more open space as the city adds new residents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I totally sympathize with wanting to build more student housing,” he said. “I just think that with the more people we have, the more parks we need. We shouldn’t be taking away parks, we should be adding more.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marc Allen Louis Don, 42, spent time living in the park, beginning in 2014 during a bout of homelessness and at various points since then. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was very helpful,” he said. “I got acquainted and familiar with a lot of the people who were communally permanent here, and they had no other place to go.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Christ said that between the summer of 2022 and October 2023, 89 people living at the park had accepted offers of transitional housing. In November 2023, a census of the site found 25 people living at the park. The university then partnered with the city on a $1 million lease of the Quality Inn motel, which includes social and other supportive services provided by the Dorothy Day House. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Twenty-one of the 25 unhoused people on the site accepted the offer and are now on the path to permanent housing,” she said. “[Wednesday] night, alternative transitional housing, and storage for belongings were offered to every unhoused person when the park was closed, an offer that remains available for all who need and want it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Although construction cannot begin until the legal case is resolved, Christ said she believes the courts have “repeatedly affirmed the university’s ability to enforce the site’s legal status as a closed construction zone.” Construction crews planned Thursday to continue working to set up shipping containers around the park, she said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We decided to take this necessary step during winter break to minimize the possibility of disruption for the public and our students when we are eventually cleared to resume construction,” she wrote.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED’s Holly McDede, Adhiti Bandlamudi and Brian Krans contributed to this report. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Is Oakland's Community Response Team a Successful Alternative to Police?",
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"content": "\u003cp>Jazz Armas and Michael Thompson discussed whether they would know the man yelling at people as they drove to Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland in late October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wonder if it’s Joshua,” Armas said as she pulled the van into the plaza just before noon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas and Thompson saw Joshua lying on a bench in front of City Hall. After speaking with him, it became clear to them he wasn’t the person causing a disturbance. Armas handed Joshua a couple of bottles of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, a hollering came from across the plaza. “That’s our guy,” Armas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas and Thompson walked over to the man and asked if he was interested in resources to find housing. He wasn’t in the mood for assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He wanted to wrestle,” Thompson said, back in the van. “And I do not wanna wrestle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas and Thompson are part of Oakland’s fledgling civilian response team, the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland, or MACRO. They had responded to an email referral at Frank Ogawa Plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more than a decade, residents, activists, community groups and coalitions in Oakland have been asking for an alternative to law enforcement for situations where advocates say an armed response is neither necessary nor ideal. The killing of Joshua Pawlik, whom Oakland police officers fatally shot in March 2018, heightened demands. Pawlik, an unhoused person who was armed and apparently unconscious in a small space between two homes, was awakened by officers. As he stirred, police shot him 22 times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MACRO was launched in April 2022 to divert some non-emergency 911 calls away from police. MACRO is part of the Oakland Fire Department, and teams usually have one responder trained in de-escalation and one EMT. MACRO can respond to non-violent and non-criminal situations, such as an unarmed person reportedly yelling but not threatening violence or someone sleeping in the doorway of a business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971375\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11971375 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01.jpg\" alt=\"A group of men speak outside of a vehicle. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">At MACRO’s headquarters, Elliott Jones, center, speaks with responders Tony Tran, left, and Raul Cedeno III as they end their shift on Sept. 19, 2023. \u003ccite>(Nik Altenberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>MACRO completed its 18-month pilot period in October and is expected to more than double its staff early this year, according to Elliott Jones, the program’s manager. Oakland’s 2023-25 budget includes funding for 42 positions for MACRO responders. KQED spent several weeks reporting on MACRO, including riding along with Armas and Thompson as they responded to calls in West Oakland, North Oakland and downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were only 11 responders on staff in early December. The low number means that some days, there is only one MACRO team covering the entire city. For six days in October, MACRO was “out of service for internal work,” Jones wrote in an email to a KQED reporter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MACRO teams work seven days a week, starting at 6:30 a.m. and typically finishing at 1:45 p.m. Depending on staffing, MACRO will provide service until 10 p.m. up to three days a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a \u003ca href=\"https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/USC_MACRO-Report-Edited_062120_2020-10-12-193923.pdf\">report commissioned by the Oakland City Council\u003c/a> in 2019 on the feasibility of implementing a mobile crisis intervention pilot modeled after a program in Eugene, Oregon, MACRO was envisioned as a 24-hour service. Jones said he has no timeline for when that may be possible. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jazz Armas, community intervention specialist, Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO)\"]‘On our swing shifts when we work late ‘til like 9 or 10, it tends to be mostly dispatch calls. It can get a little messy.’[/pullquote]Critics say the program isn’t taking shape as expected and that it isn’t taking enough 911 calls. According to Armas, the number of calls transferred from 911 dispatch tend to “ramp up” after 6 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On our swing shifts, when we work late ‘til like 9 or 10, it tends to be mostly dispatch calls,” she said. “It can get a little messy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas expressed some doubt about an overnight shift, saying that responders would be ineffective at outreach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not going to walk through Snow Park to see if anybody needs help at 9 o’clock, right, but we can do it right now,” she said, referring to the grassy area on Lakeside Drive near Lake Merritt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MACRO responders don’t respond to domestic violence-related calls, crimes in progress or enter homes. Responders are also not supposed to handle calls where an individual is reportedly threatening violence or is armed. But once on scene, it is largely up to the responders’ discretion when a situation crosses the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965588\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965588\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A homeless encampment is seen through the windshield of a car.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) EMT Jazziree Armas drives down Wood Street to canvas the area for people in need in Oakland on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. When canvassing, MACRO team members look for unhoused individuals they’ve met previously to continue building relationships in the hopes that they will accept any offered help. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If someone has a knife, “we aren’t necessarily automatically threatened — unless they’re ready to use it,” said Armas, who grew up in East Oakland. “We have had knives pulled on us. One of my partners had a boxcutter on his neck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s when it’s time to call the police, Armas said. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jazz Armas, community intervention specialist, MACRO\"]‘If the situation does, you know, go outside of our scope, it’s very important to know when something’s not your job.’[/pullquote]“If the situation does, you know, go outside of our scope, it’s very important to know when something’s not your job,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Responders sometimes call the police or a county mental health team for backup or to take over. Thompson described the man at Frank Ogawa Plaza as agitated and “not in a shared reality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was “one of those in-between mental health concern calls where it doesn’t meet the high enough priority for us to call police,” Armas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For responders to be able to further address the situation, Armas said, people “have to be cooperative, they have to want and accept help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Dispatching Calls to MACRO\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the Oakland police 911 call center, dispatchers have been trained to forward a specific list of call types to MACRO, like disorderly juveniles or public indecency. When a call may be appropriate for MACRO but “does not quite fit the established criteria, the dispatcher will call MACRO to see if they are able to handle the call,” said Paul Chambers, a spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dispatchers started transferring calls to MACRO in August 2022. Jones said he may have underestimated how much it would take to coordinate getting calls routed to MACRO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965590\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965590\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Two people en black shirts engage with a third unseen person sitting on a city sidewalk.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Community Intervention Specialist Michael Thompson (left) and EMT Jazziree Armas (right) of the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) speak with an unhoused person in Oakland on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“If I could do one thing over again, I would have started with dispatch,” he said. “I would have really made it a point early on in the program to get dispatch totally bought in and onboard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incorporating MACRO into the 911 dispatch center happened at a challenging time. Response times to 911 calls in Oakland have been the subject of multiple grand jury reports, and California could revoke the city’s right to field 911 calls if response times don’t improve by July. In September, Oakland leaders dedicated $2.5 million to hire more dispatchers and improve the center’s efficiency. On Dec. 5, KTVU \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-called-out-for-overlooking-hundreds-of-police-dispatcher-apps\">reported\u003c/a> that hundreds of dispatcher applications had been ignored since 2022, leading to long hiring gaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before 911 calls were routed to MACRO, the majority of responders’ work was outreach work, primarily by driving around looking for people who needed assistance or situations that could escalate to calling the police. Responders were also receiving email requests from residents. Data show that since starting to receive 911 referrals, outreach remains a central part of responders’ work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MACRO responses by call origin\" aria-label=\"Interactive area chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-NJdtu\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/NJdtu/4/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"400\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas said the outreach work is something she’s proud of, and it’s something Oakland needs. One day, while doing a wellness check, responders found an individual with an infected leg wound from being shot three days before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They weren’t looking for help, and nobody was looking for them,” Armas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another time, Armas went to check on a person lying face down on a mattress near International Boulevard and Fifth Avenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We go to try to wake him, and there was no response,” Armas said of the man who was dead. “We find a lot of stuff that nobody was even looking for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics say the outreach work is not what MACRO was designed to be doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outreach to an unhoused person or receiving a request via email is “usually a situation that a police officer would never have been sent to begin with,” said Millie Cleveland, a member of MACRO’s advisory board who noted that residents requested a phone number for MACRO, not an email address. “The goal of MACRO is to take calls from the 911 system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965587\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965587\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person types into a laptop from the passenger seat of a car.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Community Intervention Specialist Michael Thompson of The Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) fills out a report after responding to a call at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jones said getting the phone line set up isn’t a simple task, in part because it will require training fire department dispatchers on how to evaluate and assign incoming calls. All 911 calls go to the police dispatch center first. Calls appropriate for MACRO are routed to a fire dispatcher, who assigns it to a MACRO team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones said he expects to have the number up and running early this year, which would take some pressure off the police dispatch center. A lot of people have stopped calling 911 for help with the types of calls MACRO would be able to take, according to Armas. She said she believes Oakland police often don’t have the capacity to respond to non-violent crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re not going to call because they know no one’s coming,” she said. “We also have to establish that now there is someone to call.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the 2019 feasibility report, the city council voted in 2020 to move forward with the program. After a failed shot at finding a contractor to run the program, in 2021 the city council moved to place the program in the fire department and expedite its launch.\u003cbr>\n[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Elliott Jones, program manager, MACRO\"]‘Everything with MACRO happened so fast. I think that there was this desire from the community for everything to be here almost immediately.’[/pullquote]Jones, an Oakland native, felt the time crunch when he was hired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything with MACRO happened so fast. I think that there was this desire from the community for everything to be here almost immediately,” he said. “My second day on the job, I was asked to come to public safety committee, and one of the first questions was, ‘Well, when is the program launching?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones said Edward Reiskin, Oakland’s former city administrator, gave him a tight timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember being in a meeting and offering a couple of dates and him being like, ‘Nope, nope, we need this sooner,’” Jones said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost immediately after launching, residents and city leaders were asking about expansion, according to Jones. MACRO launched as an 18-month pilot program in two high-needs areas, West Oakland and deep East Oakland. After three months, MACRO expanded to cover the whole city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our team had the capability and the capacity to serve the city, the entire city,” Jones said. “So we quickly expanded to that, and council was supportive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From July to October 2023, MACRO teams recorded the most responses in downtown Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MACRO responses by location and call origin\" aria-label=\"Table\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-qpImM\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qpImM/2/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"315\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If our businesses are calling, then we need to make sure that they’re being served because if we lose that tax revenue, that tax base, then the entire city would suffer,” said Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife, whose district includes downtown, West Oakland and Chinatown. “So that’s what I’m advocating for in terms of prioritization. But, you know, we have to figure out how to do that and how to do that equitably.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The needs vary in different parts of the city, Armas said. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife\"]‘If our businesses are calling, then we need to make sure that they’re being served because if we lose that tax revenue, that tax base, then the entire city would suffer.’[/pullquote]“Further east, we don’t get calls of, you know, people kinda just existing,” she said. “We get more mental health crises, trespassing, indecent exposures, public intoxication, disorderly juveniles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thompson said sometimes people may be using MACRO responders to essentially shoo homeless people away. “It can border on the line of you want us to come and make them go away,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another email referral Armas and Thompson responded to in October was at the Golden Gate Branch of the Oakland Public Library on San Pablo Avenue. The request was a wellness check for a homeless woman who had bathed in the bathroom and then moved to the sidewalk in front of the library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they arrived, the woman brushed her wet hair with a comb. A few tote bags and suitcases were stacked beside her. She declined their help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She is not up to engaging,” Armas said. “But she’s OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But she’s OK,” Thompson repeated. “And it’s not illegal to be homeless.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Jazz Armas and Michael Thompson discussed whether they would know the man yelling at people as they drove to Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland in late October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wonder if it’s Joshua,” Armas said as she pulled the van into the plaza just before noon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas and Thompson saw Joshua lying on a bench in front of City Hall. After speaking with him, it became clear to them he wasn’t the person causing a disturbance. Armas handed Joshua a couple of bottles of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, a hollering came from across the plaza. “That’s our guy,” Armas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas and Thompson walked over to the man and asked if he was interested in resources to find housing. He wasn’t in the mood for assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He wanted to wrestle,” Thompson said, back in the van. “And I do not wanna wrestle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas and Thompson are part of Oakland’s fledgling civilian response team, the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland, or MACRO. They had responded to an email referral at Frank Ogawa Plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more than a decade, residents, activists, community groups and coalitions in Oakland have been asking for an alternative to law enforcement for situations where advocates say an armed response is neither necessary nor ideal. The killing of Joshua Pawlik, whom Oakland police officers fatally shot in March 2018, heightened demands. Pawlik, an unhoused person who was armed and apparently unconscious in a small space between two homes, was awakened by officers. As he stirred, police shot him 22 times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MACRO was launched in April 2022 to divert some non-emergency 911 calls away from police. MACRO is part of the Oakland Fire Department, and teams usually have one responder trained in de-escalation and one EMT. MACRO can respond to non-violent and non-criminal situations, such as an unarmed person reportedly yelling but not threatening violence or someone sleeping in the doorway of a business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11971375\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11971375 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01.jpg\" alt=\"A group of men speak outside of a vehicle. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/MACRO01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">At MACRO’s headquarters, Elliott Jones, center, speaks with responders Tony Tran, left, and Raul Cedeno III as they end their shift on Sept. 19, 2023. \u003ccite>(Nik Altenberg/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>MACRO completed its 18-month pilot period in October and is expected to more than double its staff early this year, according to Elliott Jones, the program’s manager. Oakland’s 2023-25 budget includes funding for 42 positions for MACRO responders. KQED spent several weeks reporting on MACRO, including riding along with Armas and Thompson as they responded to calls in West Oakland, North Oakland and downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were only 11 responders on staff in early December. The low number means that some days, there is only one MACRO team covering the entire city. For six days in October, MACRO was “out of service for internal work,” Jones wrote in an email to a KQED reporter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MACRO teams work seven days a week, starting at 6:30 a.m. and typically finishing at 1:45 p.m. Depending on staffing, MACRO will provide service until 10 p.m. up to three days a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a \u003ca href=\"https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/USC_MACRO-Report-Edited_062120_2020-10-12-193923.pdf\">report commissioned by the Oakland City Council\u003c/a> in 2019 on the feasibility of implementing a mobile crisis intervention pilot modeled after a program in Eugene, Oregon, MACRO was envisioned as a 24-hour service. Jones said he has no timeline for when that may be possible. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘On our swing shifts when we work late ‘til like 9 or 10, it tends to be mostly dispatch calls. It can get a little messy.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Critics say the program isn’t taking shape as expected and that it isn’t taking enough 911 calls. According to Armas, the number of calls transferred from 911 dispatch tend to “ramp up” after 6 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On our swing shifts, when we work late ‘til like 9 or 10, it tends to be mostly dispatch calls,” she said. “It can get a little messy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas expressed some doubt about an overnight shift, saying that responders would be ineffective at outreach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not going to walk through Snow Park to see if anybody needs help at 9 o’clock, right, but we can do it right now,” she said, referring to the grassy area on Lakeside Drive near Lake Merritt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MACRO responders don’t respond to domestic violence-related calls, crimes in progress or enter homes. Responders are also not supposed to handle calls where an individual is reportedly threatening violence or is armed. But once on scene, it is largely up to the responders’ discretion when a situation crosses the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965588\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965588\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A homeless encampment is seen through the windshield of a car.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-008-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) EMT Jazziree Armas drives down Wood Street to canvas the area for people in need in Oakland on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. When canvassing, MACRO team members look for unhoused individuals they’ve met previously to continue building relationships in the hopes that they will accept any offered help. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If someone has a knife, “we aren’t necessarily automatically threatened — unless they’re ready to use it,” said Armas, who grew up in East Oakland. “We have had knives pulled on us. One of my partners had a boxcutter on his neck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s when it’s time to call the police, Armas said. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘If the situation does, you know, go outside of our scope, it’s very important to know when something’s not your job.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“If the situation does, you know, go outside of our scope, it’s very important to know when something’s not your job,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Responders sometimes call the police or a county mental health team for backup or to take over. Thompson described the man at Frank Ogawa Plaza as agitated and “not in a shared reality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was “one of those in-between mental health concern calls where it doesn’t meet the high enough priority for us to call police,” Armas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For responders to be able to further address the situation, Armas said, people “have to be cooperative, they have to want and accept help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Dispatching Calls to MACRO\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the Oakland police 911 call center, dispatchers have been trained to forward a specific list of call types to MACRO, like disorderly juveniles or public indecency. When a call may be appropriate for MACRO but “does not quite fit the established criteria, the dispatcher will call MACRO to see if they are able to handle the call,” said Paul Chambers, a spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dispatchers started transferring calls to MACRO in August 2022. Jones said he may have underestimated how much it would take to coordinate getting calls routed to MACRO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965590\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965590\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Two people en black shirts engage with a third unseen person sitting on a city sidewalk.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-015-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Community Intervention Specialist Michael Thompson (left) and EMT Jazziree Armas (right) of the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) speak with an unhoused person in Oakland on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“If I could do one thing over again, I would have started with dispatch,” he said. “I would have really made it a point early on in the program to get dispatch totally bought in and onboard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incorporating MACRO into the 911 dispatch center happened at a challenging time. Response times to 911 calls in Oakland have been the subject of multiple grand jury reports, and California could revoke the city’s right to field 911 calls if response times don’t improve by July. In September, Oakland leaders dedicated $2.5 million to hire more dispatchers and improve the center’s efficiency. On Dec. 5, KTVU \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-called-out-for-overlooking-hundreds-of-police-dispatcher-apps\">reported\u003c/a> that hundreds of dispatcher applications had been ignored since 2022, leading to long hiring gaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before 911 calls were routed to MACRO, the majority of responders’ work was outreach work, primarily by driving around looking for people who needed assistance or situations that could escalate to calling the police. Responders were also receiving email requests from residents. Data show that since starting to receive 911 referrals, outreach remains a central part of responders’ work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MACRO responses by call origin\" aria-label=\"Interactive area chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-NJdtu\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/NJdtu/4/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"400\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armas said the outreach work is something she’s proud of, and it’s something Oakland needs. One day, while doing a wellness check, responders found an individual with an infected leg wound from being shot three days before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They weren’t looking for help, and nobody was looking for them,” Armas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another time, Armas went to check on a person lying face down on a mattress near International Boulevard and Fifth Avenue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We go to try to wake him, and there was no response,” Armas said of the man who was dead. “We find a lot of stuff that nobody was even looking for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics say the outreach work is not what MACRO was designed to be doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outreach to an unhoused person or receiving a request via email is “usually a situation that a police officer would never have been sent to begin with,” said Millie Cleveland, a member of MACRO’s advisory board who noted that residents requested a phone number for MACRO, not an email address. “The goal of MACRO is to take calls from the 911 system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965587\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965587\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person types into a laptop from the passenger seat of a car.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/20231024-MACRO-005-JY-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Community Intervention Specialist Michael Thompson of The Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) fills out a report after responding to a call at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jones said getting the phone line set up isn’t a simple task, in part because it will require training fire department dispatchers on how to evaluate and assign incoming calls. All 911 calls go to the police dispatch center first. Calls appropriate for MACRO are routed to a fire dispatcher, who assigns it to a MACRO team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones said he expects to have the number up and running early this year, which would take some pressure off the police dispatch center. A lot of people have stopped calling 911 for help with the types of calls MACRO would be able to take, according to Armas. She said she believes Oakland police often don’t have the capacity to respond to non-violent crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re not going to call because they know no one’s coming,” she said. “We also have to establish that now there is someone to call.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the 2019 feasibility report, the city council voted in 2020 to move forward with the program. After a failed shot at finding a contractor to run the program, in 2021 the city council moved to place the program in the fire department and expedite its launch.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Everything with MACRO happened so fast. I think that there was this desire from the community for everything to be here almost immediately.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Jones, an Oakland native, felt the time crunch when he was hired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything with MACRO happened so fast. I think that there was this desire from the community for everything to be here almost immediately,” he said. “My second day on the job, I was asked to come to public safety committee, and one of the first questions was, ‘Well, when is the program launching?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones said Edward Reiskin, Oakland’s former city administrator, gave him a tight timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember being in a meeting and offering a couple of dates and him being like, ‘Nope, nope, we need this sooner,’” Jones said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost immediately after launching, residents and city leaders were asking about expansion, according to Jones. MACRO launched as an 18-month pilot program in two high-needs areas, West Oakland and deep East Oakland. After three months, MACRO expanded to cover the whole city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our team had the capability and the capacity to serve the city, the entire city,” Jones said. “So we quickly expanded to that, and council was supportive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From July to October 2023, MACRO teams recorded the most responses in downtown Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MACRO responses by location and call origin\" aria-label=\"Table\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-qpImM\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qpImM/2/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"315\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If our businesses are calling, then we need to make sure that they’re being served because if we lose that tax revenue, that tax base, then the entire city would suffer,” said Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife, whose district includes downtown, West Oakland and Chinatown. “So that’s what I’m advocating for in terms of prioritization. But, you know, we have to figure out how to do that and how to do that equitably.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The needs vary in different parts of the city, Armas said. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Further east, we don’t get calls of, you know, people kinda just existing,” she said. “We get more mental health crises, trespassing, indecent exposures, public intoxication, disorderly juveniles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thompson said sometimes people may be using MACRO responders to essentially shoo homeless people away. “It can border on the line of you want us to come and make them go away,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another email referral Armas and Thompson responded to in October was at the Golden Gate Branch of the Oakland Public Library on San Pablo Avenue. The request was a wellness check for a homeless woman who had bathed in the bathroom and then moved to the sidewalk in front of the library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they arrived, the woman brushed her wet hair with a comb. A few tote bags and suitcases were stacked beside her. She declined their help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She is not up to engaging,” Armas said. “But she’s OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But she’s OK,” Thompson repeated. “And it’s not illegal to be homeless.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#anchor\">This report contains a correction.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2017, California lawmakers broke through a longstanding logjam of anti-housing sentiment, unleashing 15 landmark bills that sought to boost new construction across the state. Six years later, the 2023 legislative session saw 56 housing bills signed into law, evidence the tide has yet to turn on efforts to increase home affordability in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike the controversial 2017 session — and the years of big housing battles that followed — 2023 was largely free of contentious fights over blockbuster bills, replaced with the steady shearing of restrictions on new housing and shoring up of protections designed to keep renters in their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump to: \u003ca href=\"#housinghighlights\">Housing bill highlights from the 2023 Legislative session\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Matthew Lewis, spokesman for California YIMBY, which advocates for building more housing, said the lack of controversy has a simple explanation: There were more legislators from all the parts of the state carrying housing bills.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Amie Fishman, executive director, Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California\"]‘We do not have to accept the status quo of the intensifying housing and homelessness crisis that our communities are experiencing across the state.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The legislature is essentially now pro-housing,” he said. “Pretty unequivocally and objectively, you can say that the legislature wants to solve the housing crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coming year appears poised to continue the trend of incremental legislative change, in part because of how many bills have already been approved. More than \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/New-Pathways-to-Encourage-Housing-Production-Evaluating-Californias-Recent-Housing-Legislation-April-2023-Final-1.pdf\">100 housing production\u003c/a> laws have gone into effect since 2017, and new construction has indeed increased, with nearly 114,000 homes and apartment units permitted, on average, since 2018, up roughly 17% compared to the five-year average between 2013–2017, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://cbia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Housing-Production-2005-to-2022.pdf\">Construction Industry Research Board (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laws to increase granny flats and backyard cottages have been particularly successful, with accessory dwelling units now accounting for more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcd.ca.gov/planning-and-community-development/housing-open-data-tools/housing-element-implementation-and-apr-dashboard\">10% of all housing units built since 2018\u003c/a> and 18% of all completed units in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11965492,news_11969623,news_11970242\" label=\"Related Stories\"]But despite this success, it hasn’t been enough to move the needle on affordability, which remains at historic lows. According to the California Association of Realtors, just \u003ca href=\"https://www.car.org/en/marketdata/data/haitraditional\">15% of Californians\u003c/a> could afford the median-priced single-family home in 2023, down from \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11/16/auto-draft-2/\">27% in 2018\u003c/a>. And more than half of all tenants \u003ca href=\"https://chpc.net/housingneeds/\">spent over a third of their income on rent\u003c/a>, indicating housing insecurity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, homelessness increased — up nearly 40% since 2018, compared to an 18% rise nationally, according to the federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-AHAR-Part-1.pdf\">Department of Housing and Urban Development (PDF)\u003c/a>. And while California \u003ca href=\"https://chpc.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/HNR_CA_CHPC-Master2023-FINAL.pdf\">more than tripled the number of homes built (PDF)\u003c/a> for low-income renters between 2019 and 2022, it is still building only around 20% of its goals, according to the California Housing Partnership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the state stares down a projected \u003ca href=\"https://www.counties.org/csac-bulletin-article/lao-releases-gloomy-2024-25-state-revenue-forecast#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%202024%2D25%20Budget,%2D23%20and%202023%2D24%20.\">$68 billion budget deficit\u003c/a>, securing additional funding will be especially critical in 2024, said Amie Fishman, executive director of the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. Her organization is currently working to put a $10 billion regional housing bond for the Bay Area on the ballot, which might coincide with another proposed $10 billion statewide housing bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already on the March 2024 ballot is \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/10/12/governor-newsom-puts-historic-mental-health-transformation-on-march-2024-ballot/\">Prop 1\u003c/a>, a $6.38 billion bond championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to build new housing and treatment centers for people undergoing behavioral and mental health treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The forward motion [last] year was a reinforcement that we can make forward progress, that there are solutions, that we can make a difference,” she said. “We do not have to accept the status quo of the intensifying housing and homelessness crisis that our communities are experiencing across the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed funding comes amid a tough environment for builders, renters and home buyers alike as high interest rates and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/california-loses-four-home-insurance-companies-18457381.php\">struggling insurance market\u003c/a> continue to drive up housing costs.\u003cbr>\nHome prices are expected to continue to grow at a roughly 6% pace in 2024, said Sanjay Wagle, head of government affairs for the California Association of Realtors. He said the supply of homes for sale will likely improve, but not enough to offset the corresponding increase in demand that is expected to be further boosted by decreasing mortgage rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joshua Howard, with the California Apartment Association, said uncertainty in the job market could lead to uncertainty in the rental market. But, with mortgage rates still higher than they had been in the past, some would-be homebuyers will choose to continue renting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So, it’ll be an interesting 2024,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the housing bills going into effect in 2024:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"housinghighlights\">\u003c/a>Housing Production\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB4\">\u003cstrong>SB 4 (Wiener):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11922784/california-churches-want-to-build-affordable-housing-on-their-land-so-why-is-it-so-hard\">third year was the charm\u003c/a> for the so-called “Yes in God’s Backyard” law. It allows 100% affordable housing developments to be built on land owned by religious institutions and nonprofit colleges or universities. It also exempts those projects from the California Environmental Quality Act and requires construction workers to be paid the prevailing wage. The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley estimates \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/blog/faith-based-and-college-land-housing/\">171,000 acres of developable land\u003c/a> would be eligible to take advantage of the new law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB423\">\u003cstrong>SB 423 (Wiener)\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>:\u003c/strong> In 2017, lawmakers passed SB 35 as one of more than a dozen landmark housing bills. The law, which was set to sunset in 2026, requires cities to approve certain housing projects that meet minimum affordable housing requirements if the city has not met its state-mandated housing targets. Another \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Terner-Center-SB-35-Paper-August-2023-Final.pdf\">Terner Center report (PDF)\u003c/a> credited the bill with adding some 18,000 housing units between 2018 and 2021. SB 423 extends the provisions of SB 35 through 2036.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB684\">\u003cstrong>SB 684 (Caballero)\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>:\u003c/strong> The law streamlines the approval process for small, infill apartment buildings with up to 10 units on vacant lots in neighborhoods where apartments are already allowed. It also includes protections against demolishing existing rent-controlled or affordable housing. The bill initially included single-family neighborhoods, which tend to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11840548/the-racist-history-of-single-family-home-zoning#:~:text=Single%2Dfamily%20zoning%20makes%20it,type%20of%20building%20as%20well.\">wealthier and whiter\u003c/a> than neighborhoods with existing apartment buildings, but that provision was later removed. Adam Briones, CEO of California Community Builders, said the move “reinforces an unfortunate message that many people of color still feel is true: Our neighborhoods matter less to those in power than wealthy, white neighborhoods. This echo of California’s discriminatory past will unfortunately make it harder to build support for housing production in communities of color.” Matthew Lewis from California YIMBY said his organization would be lobbying for a new bill in 2024 to allow small apartment buildings in single-family neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Tenants’ Rights\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB12\">\u003cstrong>AB 12 (Haney):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> Landlords in California have been allowed to charge two months’ rent as a security deposit for unfurnished apartments or homes and up to three months’ rent for furnished ones. AB 12 limits security deposits to one month’s rent, regardless of whether the residential property is furnished or unfurnished. It goes into effect on July 1, 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB567\">\u003cstrong>SB 567 (Durazo):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> In 2019, California lawmakers passed the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB1482\">Tenant Protection Act\u003c/a>, which was hailed at the time as one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-08/california-rent-cap-tenant-protections-signed\">strongest laws of its kind in the nation\u003c/a>. It capped rent increases at 10% in most rental properties that were built at least 15 years ago and imposed new eviction protections. Many tenant activists, however, felt it didn’t go far enough. SB 567 sought to strengthen the eviction protections in the 2019 law by limiting so-called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11945257/california-landlords-can-evict-renters-for-repairs-a-new-bill-could-limit-that\">renovictions\u003c/a>,” where landlords evict tenants to complete major repairs on the property. It also heightens the penalties for landlords who claim they are taking the property off the rental market only to re-rent the units, among other provisions. It goes into effect on April 1, 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>AB 1418 (McKinnor): \u003c/b>The law aims for “crime-free housing” policies, which often require landlords to evict or otherwise penalize tenants if they have been arrested or had a criminal conviction or refuse to rent to them in the first place. The policies have been shown to impact people of color disproportionately. The new law does not stop landlords from performing background checks, only city policies that require them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Environmental Restrictions Removed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1449\">\u003cstrong>AB 1449 (Alvarez):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> This law exempts 100% affordable housing projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, which can delay projects for years. Christopher Martin, policy director for Housing California, described it as one of the most impactful bills of the year. “It’s going to open up a lot more affordable housing,” he said. The law is scheduled to sunset in Jan. 2033.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1307\">\u003cstrong>AB 1307 (Wicks):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> The law makes clear that noise from students in university housing does not fall under the purview of the California Environmental Quality Act. It resulted from a California appeals court ruling in February that ruled it could. The case arose after a neighborhood group brought suit over UC Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/article/court-halts-uc-berkeley-housing-people-s-park-17805643.php\">plan to construct housing\u003c/a> for 1,100 students and more than 100 homeless residents at People’s Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://cayimby.org/legislation/ab-1633/\">\u003cstrong>AB 1633 (Ting):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> In 2021, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors failed to approve a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/State-investigating-S-F-s-decision-to-reject-16573167.php\">500-unit housing project atop a parking lot\u003c/a>, claiming the project needed “further environmental study,” though it did not specify a clear direction for how to bring the project into compliance. AB 1633 clarifies that withholding clearance of a housing development that otherwise meets the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act is a violation of state housing law.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>ADUs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB976\">\u003cstrong>AB 976 (Ting):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> When accessory dwelling units, also known as casitas, granny flats or in-law units, were first legalized, many local governments required they only be built on properties where the owner also lived, a rule that stymied construction. A 2019 bill, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB881\">AB 881\u003c/a>, made it illegal to require owners to live on-site. That was set to sunset in 2025, but AB 976 makes it permanent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1033\">\u003cstrong>AB 1033 (Ting)\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>: Under this new law, local governments can allow property owners to sell an accessory dwelling unit separately from the primary residence, essentially turning that casita into a condominium.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Other\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240ACA1\">\u003cstrong>ACA 1 (Aguiar-Curry)\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>: If voters approve this\u003ca href=\"https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/qualified-ballot-measures\"> constitutional amendment\u003c/a> in November, it would lower the threshold to approve bonds and special taxes for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects from a two-thirds supermajority to 55%. If it passes, any bonds on the same ballot would be approved under the new threshold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"anchor\">\u003c/a>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">The original version of this report contained inaccurate data. Assembly Bill 1532 (Haney) did not pass the Legislature. The story has been edited to correct the inaccuracy.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#anchor\">This report contains a correction.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2017, California lawmakers broke through a longstanding logjam of anti-housing sentiment, unleashing 15 landmark bills that sought to boost new construction across the state. Six years later, the 2023 legislative session saw 56 housing bills signed into law, evidence the tide has yet to turn on efforts to increase home affordability in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike the controversial 2017 session — and the years of big housing battles that followed — 2023 was largely free of contentious fights over blockbuster bills, replaced with the steady shearing of restrictions on new housing and shoring up of protections designed to keep renters in their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump to: \u003ca href=\"#housinghighlights\">Housing bill highlights from the 2023 Legislative session\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Matthew Lewis, spokesman for California YIMBY, which advocates for building more housing, said the lack of controversy has a simple explanation: There were more legislators from all the parts of the state carrying housing bills.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The legislature is essentially now pro-housing,” he said. “Pretty unequivocally and objectively, you can say that the legislature wants to solve the housing crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coming year appears poised to continue the trend of incremental legislative change, in part because of how many bills have already been approved. More than \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/New-Pathways-to-Encourage-Housing-Production-Evaluating-Californias-Recent-Housing-Legislation-April-2023-Final-1.pdf\">100 housing production\u003c/a> laws have gone into effect since 2017, and new construction has indeed increased, with nearly 114,000 homes and apartment units permitted, on average, since 2018, up roughly 17% compared to the five-year average between 2013–2017, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://cbia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Housing-Production-2005-to-2022.pdf\">Construction Industry Research Board (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laws to increase granny flats and backyard cottages have been particularly successful, with accessory dwelling units now accounting for more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcd.ca.gov/planning-and-community-development/housing-open-data-tools/housing-element-implementation-and-apr-dashboard\">10% of all housing units built since 2018\u003c/a> and 18% of all completed units in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But despite this success, it hasn’t been enough to move the needle on affordability, which remains at historic lows. According to the California Association of Realtors, just \u003ca href=\"https://www.car.org/en/marketdata/data/haitraditional\">15% of Californians\u003c/a> could afford the median-priced single-family home in 2023, down from \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11/16/auto-draft-2/\">27% in 2018\u003c/a>. And more than half of all tenants \u003ca href=\"https://chpc.net/housingneeds/\">spent over a third of their income on rent\u003c/a>, indicating housing insecurity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, homelessness increased — up nearly 40% since 2018, compared to an 18% rise nationally, according to the federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-AHAR-Part-1.pdf\">Department of Housing and Urban Development (PDF)\u003c/a>. And while California \u003ca href=\"https://chpc.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/HNR_CA_CHPC-Master2023-FINAL.pdf\">more than tripled the number of homes built (PDF)\u003c/a> for low-income renters between 2019 and 2022, it is still building only around 20% of its goals, according to the California Housing Partnership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the state stares down a projected \u003ca href=\"https://www.counties.org/csac-bulletin-article/lao-releases-gloomy-2024-25-state-revenue-forecast#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%202024%2D25%20Budget,%2D23%20and%202023%2D24%20.\">$68 billion budget deficit\u003c/a>, securing additional funding will be especially critical in 2024, said Amie Fishman, executive director of the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. Her organization is currently working to put a $10 billion regional housing bond for the Bay Area on the ballot, which might coincide with another proposed $10 billion statewide housing bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already on the March 2024 ballot is \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/10/12/governor-newsom-puts-historic-mental-health-transformation-on-march-2024-ballot/\">Prop 1\u003c/a>, a $6.38 billion bond championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to build new housing and treatment centers for people undergoing behavioral and mental health treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The forward motion [last] year was a reinforcement that we can make forward progress, that there are solutions, that we can make a difference,” she said. “We do not have to accept the status quo of the intensifying housing and homelessness crisis that our communities are experiencing across the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed funding comes amid a tough environment for builders, renters and home buyers alike as high interest rates and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/california-loses-four-home-insurance-companies-18457381.php\">struggling insurance market\u003c/a> continue to drive up housing costs.\u003cbr>\nHome prices are expected to continue to grow at a roughly 6% pace in 2024, said Sanjay Wagle, head of government affairs for the California Association of Realtors. He said the supply of homes for sale will likely improve, but not enough to offset the corresponding increase in demand that is expected to be further boosted by decreasing mortgage rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joshua Howard, with the California Apartment Association, said uncertainty in the job market could lead to uncertainty in the rental market. But, with mortgage rates still higher than they had been in the past, some would-be homebuyers will choose to continue renting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So, it’ll be an interesting 2024,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the housing bills going into effect in 2024:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"housinghighlights\">\u003c/a>Housing Production\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB4\">\u003cstrong>SB 4 (Wiener):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11922784/california-churches-want-to-build-affordable-housing-on-their-land-so-why-is-it-so-hard\">third year was the charm\u003c/a> for the so-called “Yes in God’s Backyard” law. It allows 100% affordable housing developments to be built on land owned by religious institutions and nonprofit colleges or universities. It also exempts those projects from the California Environmental Quality Act and requires construction workers to be paid the prevailing wage. The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley estimates \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/blog/faith-based-and-college-land-housing/\">171,000 acres of developable land\u003c/a> would be eligible to take advantage of the new law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB423\">\u003cstrong>SB 423 (Wiener)\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>:\u003c/strong> In 2017, lawmakers passed SB 35 as one of more than a dozen landmark housing bills. The law, which was set to sunset in 2026, requires cities to approve certain housing projects that meet minimum affordable housing requirements if the city has not met its state-mandated housing targets. Another \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Terner-Center-SB-35-Paper-August-2023-Final.pdf\">Terner Center report (PDF)\u003c/a> credited the bill with adding some 18,000 housing units between 2018 and 2021. SB 423 extends the provisions of SB 35 through 2036.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB684\">\u003cstrong>SB 684 (Caballero)\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>:\u003c/strong> The law streamlines the approval process for small, infill apartment buildings with up to 10 units on vacant lots in neighborhoods where apartments are already allowed. It also includes protections against demolishing existing rent-controlled or affordable housing. The bill initially included single-family neighborhoods, which tend to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11840548/the-racist-history-of-single-family-home-zoning#:~:text=Single%2Dfamily%20zoning%20makes%20it,type%20of%20building%20as%20well.\">wealthier and whiter\u003c/a> than neighborhoods with existing apartment buildings, but that provision was later removed. Adam Briones, CEO of California Community Builders, said the move “reinforces an unfortunate message that many people of color still feel is true: Our neighborhoods matter less to those in power than wealthy, white neighborhoods. This echo of California’s discriminatory past will unfortunately make it harder to build support for housing production in communities of color.” Matthew Lewis from California YIMBY said his organization would be lobbying for a new bill in 2024 to allow small apartment buildings in single-family neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Tenants’ Rights\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB12\">\u003cstrong>AB 12 (Haney):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> Landlords in California have been allowed to charge two months’ rent as a security deposit for unfurnished apartments or homes and up to three months’ rent for furnished ones. AB 12 limits security deposits to one month’s rent, regardless of whether the residential property is furnished or unfurnished. It goes into effect on July 1, 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB567\">\u003cstrong>SB 567 (Durazo):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> In 2019, California lawmakers passed the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB1482\">Tenant Protection Act\u003c/a>, which was hailed at the time as one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-08/california-rent-cap-tenant-protections-signed\">strongest laws of its kind in the nation\u003c/a>. It capped rent increases at 10% in most rental properties that were built at least 15 years ago and imposed new eviction protections. Many tenant activists, however, felt it didn’t go far enough. SB 567 sought to strengthen the eviction protections in the 2019 law by limiting so-called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11945257/california-landlords-can-evict-renters-for-repairs-a-new-bill-could-limit-that\">renovictions\u003c/a>,” where landlords evict tenants to complete major repairs on the property. It also heightens the penalties for landlords who claim they are taking the property off the rental market only to re-rent the units, among other provisions. It goes into effect on April 1, 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>AB 1418 (McKinnor): \u003c/b>The law aims for “crime-free housing” policies, which often require landlords to evict or otherwise penalize tenants if they have been arrested or had a criminal conviction or refuse to rent to them in the first place. The policies have been shown to impact people of color disproportionately. The new law does not stop landlords from performing background checks, only city policies that require them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Environmental Restrictions Removed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1449\">\u003cstrong>AB 1449 (Alvarez):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> This law exempts 100% affordable housing projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, which can delay projects for years. Christopher Martin, policy director for Housing California, described it as one of the most impactful bills of the year. “It’s going to open up a lot more affordable housing,” he said. The law is scheduled to sunset in Jan. 2033.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1307\">\u003cstrong>AB 1307 (Wicks):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> The law makes clear that noise from students in university housing does not fall under the purview of the California Environmental Quality Act. It resulted from a California appeals court ruling in February that ruled it could. The case arose after a neighborhood group brought suit over UC Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/article/court-halts-uc-berkeley-housing-people-s-park-17805643.php\">plan to construct housing\u003c/a> for 1,100 students and more than 100 homeless residents at People’s Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://cayimby.org/legislation/ab-1633/\">\u003cstrong>AB 1633 (Ting):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> In 2021, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors failed to approve a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/State-investigating-S-F-s-decision-to-reject-16573167.php\">500-unit housing project atop a parking lot\u003c/a>, claiming the project needed “further environmental study,” though it did not specify a clear direction for how to bring the project into compliance. AB 1633 clarifies that withholding clearance of a housing development that otherwise meets the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act is a violation of state housing law.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>ADUs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB976\">\u003cstrong>AB 976 (Ting):\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> When accessory dwelling units, also known as casitas, granny flats or in-law units, were first legalized, many local governments required they only be built on properties where the owner also lived, a rule that stymied construction. A 2019 bill, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB881\">AB 881\u003c/a>, made it illegal to require owners to live on-site. That was set to sunset in 2025, but AB 976 makes it permanent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1033\">\u003cstrong>AB 1033 (Ting)\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>: Under this new law, local governments can allow property owners to sell an accessory dwelling unit separately from the primary residence, essentially turning that casita into a condominium.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Other\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240ACA1\">\u003cstrong>ACA 1 (Aguiar-Curry)\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>: If voters approve this\u003ca href=\"https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/qualified-ballot-measures\"> constitutional amendment\u003c/a> in November, it would lower the threshold to approve bonds and special taxes for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects from a two-thirds supermajority to 55%. If it passes, any bonds on the same ballot would be approved under the new threshold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"anchor\">\u003c/a>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">The original version of this report contained inaccurate data. Assembly Bill 1532 (Haney) did not pass the Legislature. The story has been edited to correct the inaccuracy.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "california-forever-lawsuit-looms-as-solano-county-farmers-fight-back",
"title": "California Forever Lawsuit Looms as Solano County Farmers Fight Back",
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"headTitle": "California Forever Lawsuit Looms as Solano County Farmers Fight Back | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Ian and Margaret Anderson’s lives revolve around their over 100-year-old farm, E.A. Anderson and Son Ranch., in the Montezuma Hills of Solano County. They raise thousands of sheep and grow grains like wheat, safflower and canola. Recently, they started growing malting barley, which can be used to make beer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Grains are the most productive crops here,” said Ian Anderson. “We’ve had really good crops over the last few years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Andersons own about 1,500 acres, but have always farmed on thousands of acres more that they rent from relatives, neighbors and utility agencies. Each year, a third of the land is reserved for sheep grazing, another third for crops and the final third lays fallow to let the soil rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969277\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969277\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"An older white man seen from behind with sheep and a farmhouse in the background.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ian Anderson walks through the farmland the Anderson family has owned for generations in Birds Landing, Solano County, on Dec. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But a few years ago, their world started to turn upside down. In 2017, Flannery Associates, a company backed by Silicon Valley billionaires, started buying thousands of acres of farmland around them \u003ca href=\"https://californiaforever.com/\">to build a new city from scratch\u003c/a>. The Andersons weren’t interested in selling their land when the company first approached them in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just about the money,” said Ian. “It’s about who we are and what we do. We have value in growing our crops and raising our livestock. That is more meaningful than cashing in on money and then trying to start a new life somewhere else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the Andersons and other landowners are embroiled in a bitter lawsuit with the company. Even if the case gets dismissed, the Andersons are unsure whether they can continue operating their farm as the hills change around them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A new California dream\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California Forever, the parent company of Flannery Associates, wants to “bring back the California Dream” — a dream that includes offices close to homes, with restaurants and small businesses lining the streets in between. The details of how that city will be built are still hazy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jan Sramek, the company’s CEO, envisions a sustainable city with plenty of bike paths and public transportation to rival Berlin or Paris. They aim to solve some of the state’s biggest problems: housing affordability, long commutes and clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969283\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969283\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"An older white woman and a younger white woman to her left during a town hall, the older woman is speaking into a microphone.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Margaret Anderson and her daughter Maryn Johnson speak during a town hall meeting in Rio Vista on Dec. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“People have been trying to solve these issues for 30 years,” said Sramek. “Every time someone says ‘I don’t like your project for these reasons’ we say, okay, what’s your proposal for fixing these issues? Because it’s really easy to be a critic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sramek and his team have been coming face to face with some of their critics, as they have spent the past month campaigning across Solano County to get more residents on board with the planned community. Before it can be built, voters will have to approve the project when it appears on their November ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Ian Anderson, E.A. Anderson and Son Ranch\"]‘It’s not just about the money. It’s about who we are and what we do. We have value in growing our crops and raising our livestock. That is more meaningful than cashing in on money and then trying to start a new life somewhere else.’[/pullquote]But the company has faced trouble earning trust among residents who have shown up to question Sramek at a series of town hall meetings. Some are unsure how it will make its proposed plans a reality, which show, among other things, a high-speed rail line running through this remote farmland. Others are still skeptical of Flannery’s motives after it started purchasing more than 60,000 acres in secrecy in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the Andersons say they were uninterested in selling their land to the company, the lawsuit Flannery Associates filed in May alleged they and about 35 farmers and landowners colluded with each other to price-fix their land and not sell to the company unless it met a specific price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Ian and Margaret Anderson have held onto the land they own, many of the neighbors whose land they rented have sold to Flannery. Last season, the Andersons continued to farm on 1,200 acres of that land, renting it from Flannery on a monthly basis. In February, they received an eviction notice with a 30-day notice to vacate the land. They had been growing wheat and barley there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was really excited to have this over 2-ton crop of barley and wheat,” said Ian. “It’s kinda how you value your life when you’re a farmer, when you grow great crops, it makes you feel good, when the ground is suitable for growing really great crops. We fought and fought and fought to avoid losing the entire crop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969282\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969282\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A white middle aged man gestures as he speaks to a woman.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jan Sramek, CEO of California Forever, answers a question from Maryn Johnson, daughter of Ian and Margaret Anderson, during a town hall meeting in Rio Vista on Dec. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Eventually, they were allowed to harvest the crops, but had to pay 30% of the revenue to the company. Now, the Andersons have gone from grazing and planting on about 10,000 acres to just about 3,500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re hoping the case gets dismissed, but they say the lawsuit, now seven months old, has been a financial drain. While they still have savings for retirement, they’ve reduced their farmhand staff from 10 employees to five and have started selling some of their sheep to keep their farm financially afloat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re no longer looking to invest in new equipment,” said Ian Anderson. “We’re basically trying to figure out a downsized operation — if we can still keep doing it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A farm that has adapted\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ian Anderson’s great-grandfather moved from Denmark to the Montezuma Hills sometime after 1865. He secured farmland for himself and, ultimately, for each of his sons as they reached adulthood. One of those sons, Ian’s grandfather, started a farming operation that morphed into E.A. Anderson & Son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11959924,forum_2010101894493,news_11959390\"]The Andersons don’t rely on irrigation, instead practicing dryland or rain-fed farming, which requires large swaths of land to soak up the rain. As climate change has brought whiplash between heavy rainfall and intense drought, they have had to adapt their methods. Instead of plowing their fallow land, they now disk the fields, which just turns the soil over and conserves more moisture from one season to the next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now that most of the land is gone, the Andersons are unsure whether they can adapt enough to carry on. They had hoped their son Neil would eventually take over the family farm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Since he was a toddler, he wanted nothing more than to be out on the farm,” Margaret said. “When Ian came back from college and was working with his dad, he took the farm to the next level beyond what his dad did. And Neil is doing the same kind of thing. But all of a sudden, it’s very questionable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The need for more housing\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ian and Margaret Anderson understand the need for more housing and jobs in Solano County. They can respect where Jan Sramek’s desire for a truly dense city comes from. But to build all that in the middle of the Montezuma Hills, far away from highways, public transportation and most of the jobs people already have doesn’t make sense to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969279\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969279\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A farmhouse with trees behind it and windvanes on a hill in the background. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A barn stands on the EA Anderson Ranch, farmland the Anderson family has owned for generations, in Birds Landing, Solano County, on Dec. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“When we see our cities in Solano County that really could use a boost to increase the quality of housing and volume of housing, versus going out into a brand new area and starting every bit of infrastructure from scratch, it can’t be anything other than what could be called sprawl.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are worried California Forever will turn the hills into another San José, a sprawling suburban city that used to be farmland too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://farmland.org/american-farmland-trusts-statement-about-solano-county-ca-model-city/\">American Farmland Trust\u003c/a>, the U.S. loses 2000 acres of farmland per day. California Forever justifies building their new city in the Montezuma Hills because the farmland is not considered “prime.” But the Andersons disagree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For generations, we have grown crops that don’t further drain from California’s limited water supply,” said Margaret. “We can’t continue [developing] at this pace and expect our country to remain food secure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The company behind the utopian California Forever project is weighing heavy on a Solano County farm family and its way of life.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Ian and Margaret Anderson’s lives revolve around their over 100-year-old farm, E.A. Anderson and Son Ranch., in the Montezuma Hills of Solano County. They raise thousands of sheep and grow grains like wheat, safflower and canola. Recently, they started growing malting barley, which can be used to make beer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Grains are the most productive crops here,” said Ian Anderson. “We’ve had really good crops over the last few years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Andersons own about 1,500 acres, but have always farmed on thousands of acres more that they rent from relatives, neighbors and utility agencies. Each year, a third of the land is reserved for sheep grazing, another third for crops and the final third lays fallow to let the soil rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969277\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969277\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"An older white man seen from behind with sheep and a farmhouse in the background.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-05-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ian Anderson walks through the farmland the Anderson family has owned for generations in Birds Landing, Solano County, on Dec. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But a few years ago, their world started to turn upside down. In 2017, Flannery Associates, a company backed by Silicon Valley billionaires, started buying thousands of acres of farmland around them \u003ca href=\"https://californiaforever.com/\">to build a new city from scratch\u003c/a>. The Andersons weren’t interested in selling their land when the company first approached them in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just about the money,” said Ian. “It’s about who we are and what we do. We have value in growing our crops and raising our livestock. That is more meaningful than cashing in on money and then trying to start a new life somewhere else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the Andersons and other landowners are embroiled in a bitter lawsuit with the company. Even if the case gets dismissed, the Andersons are unsure whether they can continue operating their farm as the hills change around them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A new California dream\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California Forever, the parent company of Flannery Associates, wants to “bring back the California Dream” — a dream that includes offices close to homes, with restaurants and small businesses lining the streets in between. The details of how that city will be built are still hazy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jan Sramek, the company’s CEO, envisions a sustainable city with plenty of bike paths and public transportation to rival Berlin or Paris. They aim to solve some of the state’s biggest problems: housing affordability, long commutes and clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969283\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969283\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"An older white woman and a younger white woman to her left during a town hall, the older woman is speaking into a microphone.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-92-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Margaret Anderson and her daughter Maryn Johnson speak during a town hall meeting in Rio Vista on Dec. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“People have been trying to solve these issues for 30 years,” said Sramek. “Every time someone says ‘I don’t like your project for these reasons’ we say, okay, what’s your proposal for fixing these issues? Because it’s really easy to be a critic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sramek and his team have been coming face to face with some of their critics, as they have spent the past month campaigning across Solano County to get more residents on board with the planned community. Before it can be built, voters will have to approve the project when it appears on their November ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘It’s not just about the money. It’s about who we are and what we do. We have value in growing our crops and raising our livestock. That is more meaningful than cashing in on money and then trying to start a new life somewhere else.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But the company has faced trouble earning trust among residents who have shown up to question Sramek at a series of town hall meetings. Some are unsure how it will make its proposed plans a reality, which show, among other things, a high-speed rail line running through this remote farmland. Others are still skeptical of Flannery’s motives after it started purchasing more than 60,000 acres in secrecy in 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the Andersons say they were uninterested in selling their land to the company, the lawsuit Flannery Associates filed in May alleged they and about 35 farmers and landowners colluded with each other to price-fix their land and not sell to the company unless it met a specific price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Ian and Margaret Anderson have held onto the land they own, many of the neighbors whose land they rented have sold to Flannery. Last season, the Andersons continued to farm on 1,200 acres of that land, renting it from Flannery on a monthly basis. In February, they received an eviction notice with a 30-day notice to vacate the land. They had been growing wheat and barley there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was really excited to have this over 2-ton crop of barley and wheat,” said Ian. “It’s kinda how you value your life when you’re a farmer, when you grow great crops, it makes you feel good, when the ground is suitable for growing really great crops. We fought and fought and fought to avoid losing the entire crop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969282\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969282\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A white middle aged man gestures as he speaks to a woman.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-88-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jan Sramek, CEO of California Forever, answers a question from Maryn Johnson, daughter of Ian and Margaret Anderson, during a town hall meeting in Rio Vista on Dec. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Eventually, they were allowed to harvest the crops, but had to pay 30% of the revenue to the company. Now, the Andersons have gone from grazing and planting on about 10,000 acres to just about 3,500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re hoping the case gets dismissed, but they say the lawsuit, now seven months old, has been a financial drain. While they still have savings for retirement, they’ve reduced their farmhand staff from 10 employees to five and have started selling some of their sheep to keep their farm financially afloat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re no longer looking to invest in new equipment,” said Ian Anderson. “We’re basically trying to figure out a downsized operation — if we can still keep doing it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A farm that has adapted\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ian Anderson’s great-grandfather moved from Denmark to the Montezuma Hills sometime after 1865. He secured farmland for himself and, ultimately, for each of his sons as they reached adulthood. One of those sons, Ian’s grandfather, started a farming operation that morphed into E.A. Anderson & Son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Andersons don’t rely on irrigation, instead practicing dryland or rain-fed farming, which requires large swaths of land to soak up the rain. As climate change has brought whiplash between heavy rainfall and intense drought, they have had to adapt their methods. Instead of plowing their fallow land, they now disk the fields, which just turns the soil over and conserves more moisture from one season to the next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now that most of the land is gone, the Andersons are unsure whether they can adapt enough to carry on. They had hoped their son Neil would eventually take over the family farm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Since he was a toddler, he wanted nothing more than to be out on the farm,” Margaret said. “When Ian came back from college and was working with his dad, he took the farm to the next level beyond what his dad did. And Neil is doing the same kind of thing. But all of a sudden, it’s very questionable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The need for more housing\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ian and Margaret Anderson understand the need for more housing and jobs in Solano County. They can respect where Jan Sramek’s desire for a truly dense city comes from. But to build all that in the middle of the Montezuma Hills, far away from highways, public transportation and most of the jobs people already have doesn’t make sense to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969279\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969279\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A farmhouse with trees behind it and windvanes on a hill in the background. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231205-SolanoCountyFarmers-28-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A barn stands on the EA Anderson Ranch, farmland the Anderson family has owned for generations, in Birds Landing, Solano County, on Dec. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“When we see our cities in Solano County that really could use a boost to increase the quality of housing and volume of housing, versus going out into a brand new area and starting every bit of infrastructure from scratch, it can’t be anything other than what could be called sprawl.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are worried California Forever will turn the hills into another San José, a sprawling suburban city that used to be farmland too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://farmland.org/american-farmland-trusts-statement-about-solano-county-ca-model-city/\">American Farmland Trust\u003c/a>, the U.S. loses 2000 acres of farmland per day. California Forever justifies building their new city in the Montezuma Hills because the farmland is not considered “prime.” But the Andersons disagree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For generations, we have grown crops that don’t further drain from California’s limited water supply,” said Margaret. “We can’t continue [developing] at this pace and expect our country to remain food secure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Berkeley’s plan to remove two unhoused people living in tents on Eighth Street can move forward, after the city agreed to place them in shelter that is accessible to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LeWanda Parnell, 69, and Mike Douglas, 62, filed suit against the city earlier this month, after the city posted notices that it planned to remove the people living at Eighth and Harrison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Judge Edward Chen ruled Thursday that Parnell could not be removed from her spot until grab bars were installed in the bathroom in the motel room where the city offered her shelter. In the complaint filed Dec. 11, Parnell stated she has a physical disability and experiences frequent falls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chen also gave Douglas until Dec. 25 to move, after ruling that the city’s offer of a motel room was adequately accessible. Chen instructed the city attorney to ensure that a list of rules was provided to Douglas within 24 hours. Previously, Douglas had been kicked out of a city-run shelter for breaking rules he said he was unaware of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thursday’s decision came after a hearing earlier in the week, where Chen ordered both sides to attempt to resolve the issue out of court and then reconvene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the heart of both plaintiffs’ arguments was the nature of accessibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11941975,news_11958939,news_11960819]“This program is not accessible if somebody’s mental health disorder results in them, you know, not being able to abide by the rules and then get kicked out immediately,” said EmilyRose Johns, an attorney who appeared on behalf of Parnell and Douglas at the hearing. “An unaccessible room is not an available shelter room, unless and until it is accessible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the judge’s ruling, both Parnell and Douglas weren’t sure if they would accept the rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re basically telling us we’re doing the best we can, and if we fall into the cracks it’s OK,” Douglas said. At issue for Douglas was also a deep distrust of the city. He said he was hesitant to take the room because he was worried about being kicked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Parnell, not being able to cook her own food and not being able to have her grandkids or other visitors were possible deal-breakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“God willing — I never plan — I’m gonna take one day at a time,” Parnell said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Parnell and Douglas are also part of \u003ca href=\"https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/parnell-et-al-v-city-of-berkeley.pdf\">a related class action lawsuit (PDF)\u003c/a> that was filed against Berkeley in September, blocking the city’s planned removal of 42 people in a larger encampment at Eighth and Harrison streets and along surrounding streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That case broadly addresses the city’s practices of how it conducts sweeps of homeless encampments, with a focus on the needs of unhoused people with mental and physical disabilities. The suit seeks to challenge how and when residents are given notice of a planned camp closure, the dumping or destruction of peoples’ belongings, the accessibility of available shelter and the presence of mental health liaisons during these actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That case and an update on the status of the room offered to Parnell will be addressed at a hearing set for Jan. 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Berkeley’s plan to remove two unhoused people living in tents on Eighth Street can move forward, after the city agreed to place them in shelter that is accessible to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LeWanda Parnell, 69, and Mike Douglas, 62, filed suit against the city earlier this month, after the city posted notices that it planned to remove the people living at Eighth and Harrison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Judge Edward Chen ruled Thursday that Parnell could not be removed from her spot until grab bars were installed in the bathroom in the motel room where the city offered her shelter. In the complaint filed Dec. 11, Parnell stated she has a physical disability and experiences frequent falls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chen also gave Douglas until Dec. 25 to move, after ruling that the city’s offer of a motel room was adequately accessible. Chen instructed the city attorney to ensure that a list of rules was provided to Douglas within 24 hours. Previously, Douglas had been kicked out of a city-run shelter for breaking rules he said he was unaware of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thursday’s decision came after a hearing earlier in the week, where Chen ordered both sides to attempt to resolve the issue out of court and then reconvene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the heart of both plaintiffs’ arguments was the nature of accessibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This program is not accessible if somebody’s mental health disorder results in them, you know, not being able to abide by the rules and then get kicked out immediately,” said EmilyRose Johns, an attorney who appeared on behalf of Parnell and Douglas at the hearing. “An unaccessible room is not an available shelter room, unless and until it is accessible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the judge’s ruling, both Parnell and Douglas weren’t sure if they would accept the rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re basically telling us we’re doing the best we can, and if we fall into the cracks it’s OK,” Douglas said. At issue for Douglas was also a deep distrust of the city. He said he was hesitant to take the room because he was worried about being kicked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Parnell, not being able to cook her own food and not being able to have her grandkids or other visitors were possible deal-breakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“God willing — I never plan — I’m gonna take one day at a time,” Parnell said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Parnell and Douglas are also part of \u003ca href=\"https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/parnell-et-al-v-city-of-berkeley.pdf\">a related class action lawsuit (PDF)\u003c/a> that was filed against Berkeley in September, blocking the city’s planned removal of 42 people in a larger encampment at Eighth and Harrison streets and along surrounding streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That case broadly addresses the city’s practices of how it conducts sweeps of homeless encampments, with a focus on the needs of unhoused people with mental and physical disabilities. The suit seeks to challenge how and when residents are given notice of a planned camp closure, the dumping or destruction of peoples’ belongings, the accessibility of available shelter and the presence of mental health liaisons during these actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That case and an update on the status of the room offered to Parnell will be addressed at a hearing set for Jan. 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Oakland native De’andre Devereaux is no stranger to Treasure Island, a former military base along the Bay Bridge, halfway between Oakland and San Francisco. Up until about a year ago, he was unhoused, and the 55-year-old would spend afternoons on the quiet island panhandling for food and cash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Devereaux now lives on the island, but his life couldn’t look more different. After choosing to enter treatment for a substance-use disorder last winter, he’s now living at a 70-bed sober, supportive living community that opened on Treasure Island in April. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"De’andre Devereaux, resident of a HealthRight 360 program on Treasure Island\"]‘I’ve been in and out of rehabs since I was like 24 because I wasn’t ready to get my life together. I finally got tired, and I haven’t looked back … this changed my life.’[/pullquote]“I’ve been in and out of rehabs since I was like 24 because I wasn’t ready to get my life together,” Devereaux told KQED at a holiday party for residents in the program in December. “I finally got tired and I haven’t looked back, and I’m happy for that because this changed my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents can enter the step-down program after completing a separate rehabilitation program and live there between nine months and two years. They are also connected with recovery coaches who assist with job readiness and navigating public benefits and medications. Everyone in the program simultaneously participates in outpatient recovery services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program helped Devereaux line up a job as an in-home service provider for older people and those with disabilities — a job he said he loves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It feels good doing that, giving back,” he said as holiday music played and neighbors mingled at the facility on Gateview Avenue. The Department of Public Health and HealthRight 360 operates the community, a statewide health care nonprofit that provides substance-use treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most residents who spoke to KQED, having a safe place to call home and a supportive environment to help navigate the ups and downs of recovery has made the biggest difference in their journey with sobriety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The real thing is getting people off the streets and into a place where the fog can lift, you know? Because when you’re in a sober mind, and you finally do kick that drug, that’s a major thing,” said William Pecknold Jr., another resident. “I don’t know if everybody wants help, you know, but for those who do, this is where you can get it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11970626\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11970626\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a hood stands beside a fence in a residential area.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Pecknold Jr. stands in the backyard of HealthRight 360’s Recovery Residence program. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As an ironworker, Pecknold has helped build the literal framework for prominent Bay Area structures like 131 Fremont Street in San Francisco. However, he struggled with alcohol addiction and later turned to methamphetamine when he was unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He got sober during a stay in prison, then quickly entered drug treatment programs after his release last December. The experience sent him down a new path, but, he said, everyone’s journey looks different. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"William Pecknold Jr., resident of a HealthRight 360 program on Treasure Island\"]‘I don’t think it’s anyone else’s decision but the individual. I just know one thing for a fact. This place saved my life. It really did.’[/pullquote]“I don’t think it’s anyone else’s decision but the individual,” Pecknold said. “I just know one thing for a fact. This place saved my life. It really did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The residential step-down program is part of the city’s ongoing effort to increase the number of behavioral health care beds by 400, or 20% — a goal determined by the City’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/MHR/SFDPH_Behavioral_Health_Bed_Optimization_Report_FINAL.pdf\">Behavioral Health Bed Optimization Report\u003c/a> released in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site is part of a broader behavioral health program that collectively currently offers 128 beds across the island. The step-down facility is scheduled to be rebuilt by 2028 as part of a multistory building with health services and housing overseen by the Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the program is not running at full capacity yet due to a lack of trained staff. As of Thursday, 87 people were using the broader program’s 128 beds. At the Gateview site, in particular, it has just over half of the staff it needs and only 39 residents for its 70 beds so far, according to officials at HealthRight 360. [aside label='More Stories on Housing' tag='housing']San Francisco is set to open three more projects across the city next year as part of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/SFDPH%20Bed%20Expansion%20Dashboard%206.22.22%20Final.pdf.pdf\">bed expansion\u003c/a>. That includes a 30-bed care facility for people with mental health and substance-use issues, a 10-person mental health program for transitional-age youth, and a 16-bed urgent care facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the city’s goal to add more beds is an ever-moving target. While more beds have been added, \u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2022/08/despite-rosy-press-board-and-cares-continue-to-go-quietly/\">other behavioral health facilities and beds across the city’s network have shuttered\u003c/a> as the overdose epidemic and housing crisis collide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents in the step-down program are encouraged and supported to move out after a period of time. However, some housing and healthcare advocates argue that temporary programs can destabilize residents who have to move frequently from place to place. Many point to permanent supportive housing as the ultimate north star for making a dent in the housing and addiction crisis. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Vitka Eisen, CEO, HealthRight 360\"]‘Our hope is that they can build their support in the earliest part of their recovery journey and their journey post-treatment.’[/pullquote]Eisen has been through residential treatment and said she views the issue as a “both-and,” arguing that there is a need for housing where people exiting drug detoxification or inpatient programs can build community, find work and secure longer-term housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we can develop permanent housing and affordable housing for people, that is the most important thing to do. But these services are unique. When people are just leaving intensive residential treatment, they’re less likely to be isolated here,” said Vitka Eisen, CEO of HealthRight 360. “Our hope is that they can build their support in the earliest part of their recovery journey and their journey post-treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Information on publicly available substance-use treatment in San Francisco and how to get care for yourself or a loved one can be found at \u003ca href=\"https://findtreatment-sf.org/\">findtreatment-sf.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Oakland native De’andre Devereaux is no stranger to Treasure Island, a former military base along the Bay Bridge, halfway between Oakland and San Francisco. Up until about a year ago, he was unhoused, and the 55-year-old would spend afternoons on the quiet island panhandling for food and cash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Devereaux now lives on the island, but his life couldn’t look more different. After choosing to enter treatment for a substance-use disorder last winter, he’s now living at a 70-bed sober, supportive living community that opened on Treasure Island in April. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I’ve been in and out of rehabs since I was like 24 because I wasn’t ready to get my life together,” Devereaux told KQED at a holiday party for residents in the program in December. “I finally got tired and I haven’t looked back, and I’m happy for that because this changed my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents can enter the step-down program after completing a separate rehabilitation program and live there between nine months and two years. They are also connected with recovery coaches who assist with job readiness and navigating public benefits and medications. Everyone in the program simultaneously participates in outpatient recovery services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program helped Devereaux line up a job as an in-home service provider for older people and those with disabilities — a job he said he loves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It feels good doing that, giving back,” he said as holiday music played and neighbors mingled at the facility on Gateview Avenue. The Department of Public Health and HealthRight 360 operates the community, a statewide health care nonprofit that provides substance-use treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most residents who spoke to KQED, having a safe place to call home and a supportive environment to help navigate the ups and downs of recovery has made the biggest difference in their journey with sobriety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The real thing is getting people off the streets and into a place where the fog can lift, you know? Because when you’re in a sober mind, and you finally do kick that drug, that’s a major thing,” said William Pecknold Jr., another resident. “I don’t know if everybody wants help, you know, but for those who do, this is where you can get it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11970626\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11970626\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a hood stands beside a fence in a residential area.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/231220-TIRECOVERY-11-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Pecknold Jr. stands in the backyard of HealthRight 360’s Recovery Residence program. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As an ironworker, Pecknold has helped build the literal framework for prominent Bay Area structures like 131 Fremont Street in San Francisco. However, he struggled with alcohol addiction and later turned to methamphetamine when he was unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He got sober during a stay in prison, then quickly entered drug treatment programs after his release last December. The experience sent him down a new path, but, he said, everyone’s journey looks different. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s anyone else’s decision but the individual,” Pecknold said. “I just know one thing for a fact. This place saved my life. It really did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The residential step-down program is part of the city’s ongoing effort to increase the number of behavioral health care beds by 400, or 20% — a goal determined by the City’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/MHR/SFDPH_Behavioral_Health_Bed_Optimization_Report_FINAL.pdf\">Behavioral Health Bed Optimization Report\u003c/a> released in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site is part of a broader behavioral health program that collectively currently offers 128 beds across the island. The step-down facility is scheduled to be rebuilt by 2028 as part of a multistory building with health services and housing overseen by the Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the program is not running at full capacity yet due to a lack of trained staff. As of Thursday, 87 people were using the broader program’s 128 beds. At the Gateview site, in particular, it has just over half of the staff it needs and only 39 residents for its 70 beds so far, according to officials at HealthRight 360. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Michael Yamamura shares an apartment in Fresno with his brother and their ailing mother. This summer, as they ran the air conditioning to keep the scorching heat at bay, their monthly utility bills topped $500, which made it hard to keep up on rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sometimes, I don’t pay it until they give me the three-day [eviction] notice,” said the 20-year-old, whose family was homeless a few years ago when he was in junior high. “I’ve been pretty behind and pretty terrified of ending up out on the street again.” [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Michael Yamamura, Fresno resident\"]‘Sometimes, I don’t pay it until they give me the three-day [eviction] notice. I’ve been pretty behind and pretty terrified of ending up out on the street again.’[/pullquote]Utility costs will swallow an even bigger portion of the family’s budget when PG&E’s latest rate hikes go into effect next month, raising average gas and electricity bills by an estimated $28-$42 per month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The increases come after the state’s three major suppliers, PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, have \u003ca href=\"https://www.publicadvocates.cpuc.ca.gov/press-room/reports-and-analyses/q3-2023-electric-rates-report\">nearly doubled\u003c/a> electricity rates over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire-related expenses, inflation, solar subsidies and the growing energy demands that come with extreme weather are driving the higher costs. As they go up, they’re colliding with California’s housing crisis, pushing families already at the margins to the brink of homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A quarter of California households reported being unable to pay their utility bills in October, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/hhp/#/?measures=ENERGYBILL&s_state=00006&periodSelector=63\">Census survey\u003c/a>, resulting in what Columbia University public health professor Diana Hernández and others call energy insecurity, or the “heat or eat dilemma.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s almost like a game of Russian roulette,” she said, describing the monthly juggle low-income families face. “Today’s unpaid energy bill is tomorrow’s eviction notice. And that cycle is a very real one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954906\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954906\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a baseball cap pulls a shopping cart up a sidewalk.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man pushes a cart near downtown Fresno on a 108-degree day. Officials estimate about 1,700 people are currently living on Fresno’s streets. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Yamamura finished high school last year and takes whatever work he can get — typically a few hours a week at a fast food restaurant and odd jobs on Craigslist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The money he and his 23-year-old brother can patch together isn’t enough to cover all the family’s expenses, even with Section 8 paying the bulk of their rent. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Michael Yamamura, Fresno resident\"]‘The AC there doesn’t work the best, and it’s not the most insulated apartment, so it’s harder for us to actually keep the temperature inside.’[/pullquote]More and more, it’s utilities that are straining their budget. The family’s June PG&E bill was $100 more than the previous year. But rising utility rates aren’t the only reason their bill is so high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The AC there doesn’t work the best, and it’s not the most insulated apartment, so it’s harder for us to actually keep the temperature inside,” Yamamura said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Energy-insecure families like his are more likely to report their homes are drafty or poorly insulated, making them less energy efficient. That’s a key reason they \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56640&src=%E2%80%B9%20Consumption%20%20%20%20%20%20Residential%20Energy%20Consumption%20Survey%20(RECS)-b3\">spend about 25 cents more per square foot on electricity and gas\u003c/a> than households that can afford energy-saving appliances and upgrades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the winter, Yamamura’s family can keep their bills down. “Worst comes to worst, we’re cold. It’s not that bad,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his family can’t forgo the AC in the summer. Keeping the house cool is essential because of his mom’s chronic health problems and her many medications, Yamamura said. It was a health crisis that left her unable to work and plunged the family into homelessness a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have so many people who [are] making this impossible choice,” said Dr. Margot Kushel, a UCSF professor who runs the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. “Do I keep my air conditioning on, run up my energy bills so I can’t pay my rent, and then be evicted and have neither? Or do I sit here in this stifling heat and risk death?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not being able to heat or cool your home can worsen existing physical and mental health problems or cause new ones, she said. “Energy insecurity is a threat to health, and it’s a threat, therefore, to housing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kushel led an expansive\u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness\"> survey\u003c/a> of unhoused Californians this year that found a complex interplay of factors precipitated homelessness, including medical expenses and lost work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think recognizing energy insecurity as a contributor to this crisis, this is the next frontier that we need to really worry about,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11970355\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11970355\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Powerlines are seen through thick trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1300\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut-800x542.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut-1020x691.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut-1536x1040.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A PG&E tower is framed by burned trees along the Pacific Crest Trail in Belden, California, Sept. 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A statement from PG&E said higher rates reflect investments in system upgrades needed to make systems safer and more resilient to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“PG&E recognizes our responsibility to serve our customers safely and reliably, and we are aggressively focused on how to deliver work safely at a lower cost. We are working to keep customer costs at or below assumed inflation for the long-term, between an average of 2 and 4% a year.” [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"A statement from PG&E\"]‘PG&E recognizes our responsibility to serve our customers safely and reliably, and we are aggressively focused on how to deliver work safely at a lower cost.’[/pullquote]The upcoming \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/all-news/cpuc-prioritizes-safety-reliability-and-affordability-in-pge-rate-case-2023\">rate increase\u003c/a>, approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, will pay for PG&E to bury over 1,200 miles of power lines for wildfire prevention. \u003ca href=\"https://grist.org/wildfires/utilities-lawsuits-wildfire-pg-e-pacificorp/\">Like other utilities across the West\u003c/a>, the company has been sued for starting fires with its equipment, including the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive in state history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has paid out billions in settlements (which shareholders ponied up, according to PG&E) and spent billions more on upgrades, costs that get passed along to customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic, the state \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/newsroom/covid-19/utility-consumer-protections-during-california-covid-19-outbreak#:~:text=Disconnections%3A%20All%20electric%20and%20natural,our%20decision%20for%20more%20information.\">mandated a moratorium\u003c/a> on utility shutoffs, but that has expired. \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M520/K913/520913952.PDF\">PG&E’s latest report\u003c/a> to the CPUC shows more than 162,600 customers had their service disconnected between January and October of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people who lose access to utilities end up moving in with others, restarting their utilities under someone else’s name, or leaving the state, said Mark Toney, executive director of the consumer advocacy group The Utility Reform Network. “But some of those people absolutely do end up homeless,” he said. [aside label='More Stories on Housing' tag='housing']By this fall, Yamamura’s family was $1,300 in debt to PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians currently owe the state’s biggest utility companies upwards of $2 billion, \u003ca href=\"https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:57::::::\">according to records\u003c/a> submitted to the CPUC in November. Much of this accrued during the pandemic. About half of indebted customers owe more than $2,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This staggering debt has piled up despite the more than $1.6 billion federal and state government provided\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-19/california-utilities-wiping-out-past-due-bills-as-new-charges-rise\"> Californians to pay past-due residential utility bills\u003c/a> as part of pandemic relief efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of the investor-owned utilities run a state-mandated debt forgiveness program. As long as customers stay current on their monthly bills, their debt is gradually forgiven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yamamura and his mother said they were enrolled but flunked out because they couldn’t keep up with payments. They regularly get disconnection notices, he said, and have had their service cut in the past despite getting a 30% monthly discount for low-income customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the debt relief program, a patchwork of federal, state and nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/electrical-energy/income-qualified-assistance-programs\">programs are available to help customers\u003c/a> manage bills and debt. They range from subsidies to payment plans to help installing insulation and energy-efficient appliances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these programs are well-used, but others are \u003ca href=\"https://liob.cpuc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2023/06/PGE-PY2022-Low-Income-Annual-Report.pdf\">underutilized\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even for many customers who take advantage of them, like Yamamura and his family, they’re simply not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 85,000 PG&E customers were \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/SearchRes.aspx?DocFormat=ALL&DocID=520913952\">kicked out of the debt forgiveness program\u003c/a> during six months earlier this year for failing to stay current on their payments or maintain other eligibility requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, 362,000 PG&E customers were enrolled as of October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With rates due to rise again, some are calling for reforms that would ease the burden on low-income consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The subsidy programs that we have in place are becoming more and more obsolete every day as the cost of utilities, as well as just the overall cost of living, continues to rise,” said Benito Delgado-Olson, chair of the CPUC’s Low Income Oversight Board. “These rate hikes are going to be very difficult for a lot of hardworking people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, Yamamura picked up another part-time job with a nonprofit, Power California, canvassing for rent control in Fresno. The cause felt personal, and he loved talking to people like Melody Erdmann, a 57-year-old who opened her apartment door to him one Saturday. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Michael Yamamura, Fresno resident\"]‘I consistently worry about ending up homeless again. I’d like to pay rent on time and have bills paid and not be hours away from getting an eviction notice …’[/pullquote]Clipboard in hand, Yamamura launched into his pitch, but Erdmann cut him off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was homeless, so yeah, I know,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, yeah, me too,” Yamamura said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I barely make my rent,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Standing in her doorway, Erdmann told Yamamura her subsidized rent and PG&E bill consume half of her Social Security income. And it was an unpaid utility bill that almost prevented her from getting housed when she was homeless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They turned us away because of a PG&E bill,” she said. “I had a bill in collections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She eventually got help taking care of the debt and was able to move into the apartment where she lives now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But stability feels tenuous for her and Yamamura.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consistently worry about ending up homeless again,” he said. “I’d like to pay rent on time and have bills paid and not be hours away from getting an eviction notice, but that’s where I’ve been the past few years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "PG&E is set to raise gas and electricity rates by $28–$42 per month due to wildfire costs, inflation and energy demand. This only worsens the housing crisis for vulnerable California families.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Michael Yamamura shares an apartment in Fresno with his brother and their ailing mother. This summer, as they ran the air conditioning to keep the scorching heat at bay, their monthly utility bills topped $500, which made it hard to keep up on rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sometimes, I don’t pay it until they give me the three-day [eviction] notice,” said the 20-year-old, whose family was homeless a few years ago when he was in junior high. “I’ve been pretty behind and pretty terrified of ending up out on the street again.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Utility costs will swallow an even bigger portion of the family’s budget when PG&E’s latest rate hikes go into effect next month, raising average gas and electricity bills by an estimated $28-$42 per month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The increases come after the state’s three major suppliers, PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, have \u003ca href=\"https://www.publicadvocates.cpuc.ca.gov/press-room/reports-and-analyses/q3-2023-electric-rates-report\">nearly doubled\u003c/a> electricity rates over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire-related expenses, inflation, solar subsidies and the growing energy demands that come with extreme weather are driving the higher costs. As they go up, they’re colliding with California’s housing crisis, pushing families already at the margins to the brink of homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A quarter of California households reported being unable to pay their utility bills in October, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/hhp/#/?measures=ENERGYBILL&s_state=00006&periodSelector=63\">Census survey\u003c/a>, resulting in what Columbia University public health professor Diana Hernández and others call energy insecurity, or the “heat or eat dilemma.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s almost like a game of Russian roulette,” she said, describing the monthly juggle low-income families face. “Today’s unpaid energy bill is tomorrow’s eviction notice. And that cycle is a very real one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954906\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954906\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a baseball cap pulls a shopping cart up a sidewalk.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man pushes a cart near downtown Fresno on a 108-degree day. Officials estimate about 1,700 people are currently living on Fresno’s streets. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Yamamura finished high school last year and takes whatever work he can get — typically a few hours a week at a fast food restaurant and odd jobs on Craigslist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The money he and his 23-year-old brother can patch together isn’t enough to cover all the family’s expenses, even with Section 8 paying the bulk of their rent. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>More and more, it’s utilities that are straining their budget. The family’s June PG&E bill was $100 more than the previous year. But rising utility rates aren’t the only reason their bill is so high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The AC there doesn’t work the best, and it’s not the most insulated apartment, so it’s harder for us to actually keep the temperature inside,” Yamamura said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Energy-insecure families like his are more likely to report their homes are drafty or poorly insulated, making them less energy efficient. That’s a key reason they \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56640&src=%E2%80%B9%20Consumption%20%20%20%20%20%20Residential%20Energy%20Consumption%20Survey%20(RECS)-b3\">spend about 25 cents more per square foot on electricity and gas\u003c/a> than households that can afford energy-saving appliances and upgrades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the winter, Yamamura’s family can keep their bills down. “Worst comes to worst, we’re cold. It’s not that bad,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his family can’t forgo the AC in the summer. Keeping the house cool is essential because of his mom’s chronic health problems and her many medications, Yamamura said. It was a health crisis that left her unable to work and plunged the family into homelessness a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have so many people who [are] making this impossible choice,” said Dr. Margot Kushel, a UCSF professor who runs the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. “Do I keep my air conditioning on, run up my energy bills so I can’t pay my rent, and then be evicted and have neither? Or do I sit here in this stifling heat and risk death?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not being able to heat or cool your home can worsen existing physical and mental health problems or cause new ones, she said. “Energy insecurity is a threat to health, and it’s a threat, therefore, to housing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kushel led an expansive\u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness\"> survey\u003c/a> of unhoused Californians this year that found a complex interplay of factors precipitated homelessness, including medical expenses and lost work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think recognizing energy insecurity as a contributor to this crisis, this is the next frontier that we need to really worry about,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11970355\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11970355\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Powerlines are seen through thick trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1300\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut-800x542.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut-1020x691.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/FG_Belden_PCT_2023_09_14_FG25873-qut-1536x1040.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A PG&E tower is framed by burned trees along the Pacific Crest Trail in Belden, California, Sept. 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A statement from PG&E said higher rates reflect investments in system upgrades needed to make systems safer and more resilient to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“PG&E recognizes our responsibility to serve our customers safely and reliably, and we are aggressively focused on how to deliver work safely at a lower cost. We are working to keep customer costs at or below assumed inflation for the long-term, between an average of 2 and 4% a year.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The upcoming \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/all-news/cpuc-prioritizes-safety-reliability-and-affordability-in-pge-rate-case-2023\">rate increase\u003c/a>, approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, will pay for PG&E to bury over 1,200 miles of power lines for wildfire prevention. \u003ca href=\"https://grist.org/wildfires/utilities-lawsuits-wildfire-pg-e-pacificorp/\">Like other utilities across the West\u003c/a>, the company has been sued for starting fires with its equipment, including the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive in state history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has paid out billions in settlements (which shareholders ponied up, according to PG&E) and spent billions more on upgrades, costs that get passed along to customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic, the state \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/newsroom/covid-19/utility-consumer-protections-during-california-covid-19-outbreak#:~:text=Disconnections%3A%20All%20electric%20and%20natural,our%20decision%20for%20more%20information.\">mandated a moratorium\u003c/a> on utility shutoffs, but that has expired. \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M520/K913/520913952.PDF\">PG&E’s latest report\u003c/a> to the CPUC shows more than 162,600 customers had their service disconnected between January and October of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people who lose access to utilities end up moving in with others, restarting their utilities under someone else’s name, or leaving the state, said Mark Toney, executive director of the consumer advocacy group The Utility Reform Network. “But some of those people absolutely do end up homeless,” he said. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>By this fall, Yamamura’s family was $1,300 in debt to PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians currently owe the state’s biggest utility companies upwards of $2 billion, \u003ca href=\"https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:57::::::\">according to records\u003c/a> submitted to the CPUC in November. Much of this accrued during the pandemic. About half of indebted customers owe more than $2,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This staggering debt has piled up despite the more than $1.6 billion federal and state government provided\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-19/california-utilities-wiping-out-past-due-bills-as-new-charges-rise\"> Californians to pay past-due residential utility bills\u003c/a> as part of pandemic relief efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of the investor-owned utilities run a state-mandated debt forgiveness program. As long as customers stay current on their monthly bills, their debt is gradually forgiven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yamamura and his mother said they were enrolled but flunked out because they couldn’t keep up with payments. They regularly get disconnection notices, he said, and have had their service cut in the past despite getting a 30% monthly discount for low-income customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the debt relief program, a patchwork of federal, state and nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/electrical-energy/income-qualified-assistance-programs\">programs are available to help customers\u003c/a> manage bills and debt. They range from subsidies to payment plans to help installing insulation and energy-efficient appliances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these programs are well-used, but others are \u003ca href=\"https://liob.cpuc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2023/06/PGE-PY2022-Low-Income-Annual-Report.pdf\">underutilized\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even for many customers who take advantage of them, like Yamamura and his family, they’re simply not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 85,000 PG&E customers were \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/SearchRes.aspx?DocFormat=ALL&DocID=520913952\">kicked out of the debt forgiveness program\u003c/a> during six months earlier this year for failing to stay current on their payments or maintain other eligibility requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, 362,000 PG&E customers were enrolled as of October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With rates due to rise again, some are calling for reforms that would ease the burden on low-income consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The subsidy programs that we have in place are becoming more and more obsolete every day as the cost of utilities, as well as just the overall cost of living, continues to rise,” said Benito Delgado-Olson, chair of the CPUC’s Low Income Oversight Board. “These rate hikes are going to be very difficult for a lot of hardworking people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, Yamamura picked up another part-time job with a nonprofit, Power California, canvassing for rent control in Fresno. The cause felt personal, and he loved talking to people like Melody Erdmann, a 57-year-old who opened her apartment door to him one Saturday. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Clipboard in hand, Yamamura launched into his pitch, but Erdmann cut him off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was homeless, so yeah, I know,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, yeah, me too,” Yamamura said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I barely make my rent,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Standing in her doorway, Erdmann told Yamamura her subsidized rent and PG&E bill consume half of her Social Security income. And it was an unpaid utility bill that almost prevented her from getting housed when she was homeless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They turned us away because of a PG&E bill,” she said. “I had a bill in collections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She eventually got help taking care of the debt and was able to move into the apartment where she lives now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But stability feels tenuous for her and Yamamura.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consistently worry about ending up homeless again,” he said. “I’d like to pay rent on time and have bills paid and not be hours away from getting an eviction notice, but that’s where I’ve been the past few years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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},
"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
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"onourwatch": {
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"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"on-the-media": {
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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