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"slug": "east-bay-racetrack-golden-gate-fields-could-soon-be-a-new-public-waterfront-park",
"title": "East Bay Racetrack Golden Gate Fields Could Soon Be a New Public Waterfront Park",
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"content": "\u003cp>The 160-acre waterfront property that was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11955826/golden-gate-fields-racetrack-set-to-close-this-fall\">once home to Golden Gate Fields\u003c/a> horse racing track could soon become a new public park, linking more than eight miles of open space along the East Bay shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trust for Public Land, a national conservation group, announced Tuesday that it had reached an agreement to purchase the site and transfer it to the East Bay Regional Park District, with intentions to restore the natural landscape of the bayshore and create recreation space for residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put nature and public access to the forefront,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, Trust for Public Land’s state director. “We at the Trust for Public Land are super excited to turn the page over on a new chapter of what this property can mean for generations to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez said the nonprofit has until the end of the year to raise $175 million to purchase the site, which has been known as a prominent horse racing track at the border of Albany and Berkeley for more than 80 years. Even decades before Golden Gate Fields shuttered in 2024, residents, local elected officials and developers have considered what could become of the rare expanse of undeveloped waterfront land in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Restoring the shoreline and creating park space that links McLaughlin Eastshore State Park to the south and Albany Bulb and Point Isabel Regional Shoreline to the north has always been popular among residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Golden Gate Fields is located in the middle of McLaughlin Eastshore State Park. Its protection will fill a missing gap in public lands and is the culmination of decades of work and advocacy,” said Robert Cheasty, the executive director of the Citizens for East Shore Parks. “From the very creation of this 8.5-mile shoreline park … [a] major parcel has been missing — the centerpiece that has been occupied by the racetrack. Now, this crucial piece can be added.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078408\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078408\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Golden Gate Fields, a former horse racing track along the Berkeley shoreline, on April 1, 2026. The track closed in 2024, and the Trust for Public Land is working to turn the site into a public park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1990, Albany voters passed Measure C, which restricts the waterfront land in the city to open space, parks and recreation and other water-related uses. It also permits building restaurants, bars and commercial recreation or entertainment spaces. To pursue housing or a large commercial or retail development would require another vote. Berkeley zoning codes also restrict the prospective uses for the property, about 40 acres of which are in its city limits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am excited to partner with the East Bay Regional Park District to engage our community in reimagining the former racetrack as a vibrant public space, expanding opportunities to gather in community and experience the beauty of our shoreline,” Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii said. “From kayaking and kite flying to sunset dining, Berkeley’s waterfront parks are a treasured destination enjoyed by residents and visitors alike.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 2000s, Albany also conducted a wide outreach project that found significant support for a park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s “Voices to Vision” report, which surveyed about 10% of Albany residents, found that the vast majority wanted to expand its waterfront open space, while some were concerned about the loss of tax revenue that the racetrack generated.[aside postID=news_12078253 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/240104-PEOPLES-PARK-MD-05-1020x680.jpg']According to the city, the property generates about $1.1 million in special revenues for the city and $700,000 for the Albany Unified School District annually. When it was operating, the racetrack fueled another $150,000 to $300,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report concluded that the majority of the land should be maintained as open space, and a park should be created. It recommended that a smaller portion could be used for commercial and nonprofit development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, developers have proposed other uses for the site, similar to the massive projects at other former Bay Area racetracks, like San Bruno’s Tanforan, which is now a major mall, and Bay Meadows in San Mateo, a mixed-use development that includes more than 1,000 housing units, as well as significant retail and office space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso proposed a mixed-use \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2005-10-14/article/22509?headline=Albany-Council-Will-Oversee-Mall-Development-By-F.-Timothy-Martin-Special-to-the-Planet\">development\u003c/a> featuring an outdoor mall and apartments at Golden Gate Fields, and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory eyed it for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2011/11/15/seventy-years-of-racing-history-may-make-way-for-new-lab-2/\">new campus \u003c/a>in 2011. More recently, after the track announced it would close, UC Berkeley graduate students considered alternative uses of the site that included housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley professor Zachary Lamb said his students took on the project to examine ways to address the “dire need to build housing in the inner Bay,” especially in places close to transit infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really wanted to be responsive to the housing crisis and demonstrate through these hypothetical design exercises that this site is big enough and it’s well-positioned enough that you could accomplish a lot of open space, ecological restoration, climate resilience … lots of goals that could really benefit the wider community — while also building a lot of housing,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078407\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078407\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-03-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Golden Gate Fields, a former horse racing track along the Berkeley shoreline, on April 1, 2026. The track closed in 2024, and the Trust for Public Land is working to turn the site into a public park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez said the Bay Meadows project, which features about a dozen acres of open space, makes sense for its location, but that for the Bay Area’s third major racetrack redevelopment, “we have the opportunity to put nature and public access in front of the line.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next year, Trust for Public Land will be focused on raising the funds needed to act on their purchase option, which stands until the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The East Bay Regional Park District has already offered to put $20 million toward the purchase. That funding will come from an Alameda and Contra Costa County bond measure from 2008, which provided half a billion dollars in bonds to expand regional parks and protect open space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez said the nonprofit will also pursue state funds as well as private donations, noting that Proposition 4, California’s 2024 climate bond initiative, set aside significant funding to acquire properties like the Golden Gate Fields site.[aside postID=news_12077281 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/042924_State-Capitol-Session-MG_CM_25.jpeg']“We’re approaching various state agencies who have a high interest in the property, who have high interest in restoration of the Bay, who have a high interest in expanding biodiversity and protecting biodiversity,” he said. “We think we have some real opportunities to knock on the public doors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local state representatives Sen. Jesse Arreguín and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks have already voiced support for the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the purchase goes through, the land would then be transferred to the East Bay Regional Parks District, which manages an extensive system of parks and open spaces across Alameda and Contra Costa counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not yet clear what the park could look like, or how much it could cost. The agency would conduct a community engagement process, which Rodriguez estimated could take around five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said he’s heard interest from residents in expanding opportunities for “active recreation,” like ball fields similar to those at the Tom Bates Regional Sports Complex, south of the property, and restoration of the natural shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With 161 acres, you really have the opportunity to dream big,” Rodriguez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Echols, the East Bay Regional Parks District director who represents the area, told \u003cem>Berkeleyside\u003c/em> that the district still needs to determine what environmental remediation the land needs, and how it would pay for the development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/shossaini\">\u003cem>Sara Hossaini\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez said the nonprofit has until the end of the year to raise $175 million to purchase the site, which has been known as a prominent horse racing track at the border of Albany and Berkeley for more than 80 years. Even decades before Golden Gate Fields shuttered in 2024, residents, local elected officials and developers have considered what could become of the rare expanse of undeveloped waterfront land in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Restoring the shoreline and creating park space that links McLaughlin Eastshore State Park to the south and Albany Bulb and Point Isabel Regional Shoreline to the north has always been popular among residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Golden Gate Fields is located in the middle of McLaughlin Eastshore State Park. Its protection will fill a missing gap in public lands and is the culmination of decades of work and advocacy,” said Robert Cheasty, the executive director of the Citizens for East Shore Parks. “From the very creation of this 8.5-mile shoreline park … [a] major parcel has been missing — the centerpiece that has been occupied by the racetrack. Now, this crucial piece can be added.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078408\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078408\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Golden Gate Fields, a former horse racing track along the Berkeley shoreline, on April 1, 2026. The track closed in 2024, and the Trust for Public Land is working to turn the site into a public park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1990, Albany voters passed Measure C, which restricts the waterfront land in the city to open space, parks and recreation and other water-related uses. It also permits building restaurants, bars and commercial recreation or entertainment spaces. To pursue housing or a large commercial or retail development would require another vote. Berkeley zoning codes also restrict the prospective uses for the property, about 40 acres of which are in its city limits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am excited to partner with the East Bay Regional Park District to engage our community in reimagining the former racetrack as a vibrant public space, expanding opportunities to gather in community and experience the beauty of our shoreline,” Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii said. “From kayaking and kite flying to sunset dining, Berkeley’s waterfront parks are a treasured destination enjoyed by residents and visitors alike.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 2000s, Albany also conducted a wide outreach project that found significant support for a park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s “Voices to Vision” report, which surveyed about 10% of Albany residents, found that the vast majority wanted to expand its waterfront open space, while some were concerned about the loss of tax revenue that the racetrack generated.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>According to the city, the property generates about $1.1 million in special revenues for the city and $700,000 for the Albany Unified School District annually. When it was operating, the racetrack fueled another $150,000 to $300,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report concluded that the majority of the land should be maintained as open space, and a park should be created. It recommended that a smaller portion could be used for commercial and nonprofit development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, developers have proposed other uses for the site, similar to the massive projects at other former Bay Area racetracks, like San Bruno’s Tanforan, which is now a major mall, and Bay Meadows in San Mateo, a mixed-use development that includes more than 1,000 housing units, as well as significant retail and office space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso proposed a mixed-use \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2005-10-14/article/22509?headline=Albany-Council-Will-Oversee-Mall-Development-By-F.-Timothy-Martin-Special-to-the-Planet\">development\u003c/a> featuring an outdoor mall and apartments at Golden Gate Fields, and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory eyed it for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2011/11/15/seventy-years-of-racing-history-may-make-way-for-new-lab-2/\">new campus \u003c/a>in 2011. More recently, after the track announced it would close, UC Berkeley graduate students considered alternative uses of the site that included housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley professor Zachary Lamb said his students took on the project to examine ways to address the “dire need to build housing in the inner Bay,” especially in places close to transit infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really wanted to be responsive to the housing crisis and demonstrate through these hypothetical design exercises that this site is big enough and it’s well-positioned enough that you could accomplish a lot of open space, ecological restoration, climate resilience … lots of goals that could really benefit the wider community — while also building a lot of housing,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078407\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078407\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260401-GOLDENGATEFIELDSPARK-03-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Golden Gate Fields, a former horse racing track along the Berkeley shoreline, on April 1, 2026. The track closed in 2024, and the Trust for Public Land is working to turn the site into a public park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez said the Bay Meadows project, which features about a dozen acres of open space, makes sense for its location, but that for the Bay Area’s third major racetrack redevelopment, “we have the opportunity to put nature and public access in front of the line.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next year, Trust for Public Land will be focused on raising the funds needed to act on their purchase option, which stands until the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The East Bay Regional Park District has already offered to put $20 million toward the purchase. That funding will come from an Alameda and Contra Costa County bond measure from 2008, which provided half a billion dollars in bonds to expand regional parks and protect open space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez said the nonprofit will also pursue state funds as well as private donations, noting that Proposition 4, California’s 2024 climate bond initiative, set aside significant funding to acquire properties like the Golden Gate Fields site.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We’re approaching various state agencies who have a high interest in the property, who have high interest in restoration of the Bay, who have a high interest in expanding biodiversity and protecting biodiversity,” he said. “We think we have some real opportunities to knock on the public doors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local state representatives Sen. Jesse Arreguín and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks have already voiced support for the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the purchase goes through, the land would then be transferred to the East Bay Regional Parks District, which manages an extensive system of parks and open spaces across Alameda and Contra Costa counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not yet clear what the park could look like, or how much it could cost. The agency would conduct a community engagement process, which Rodriguez estimated could take around five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said he’s heard interest from residents in expanding opportunities for “active recreation,” like ball fields similar to those at the Tom Bates Regional Sports Complex, south of the property, and restoration of the natural shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With 161 acres, you really have the opportunity to dream big,” Rodriguez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Echols, the East Bay Regional Parks District director who represents the area, told \u003cem>Berkeleyside\u003c/em> that the district still needs to determine what environmental remediation the land needs, and how it would pay for the development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/shossaini\">\u003cem>Sara Hossaini\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe\n src='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header?embedded=true'\n title='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header'\n width='760' height='500'\n frameborder='0'\n marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/uc-berkeley\">UC Berkeley \u003c/a>will offer incoming freshmen two years of guaranteed housing next fall, marking a major expansion for the campus that’s long struggled to keep up with accommodations for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university said it will also guarantee a year of campus housing for transfer students, thanks to two new housing projects set to open to students in 2027 and 2028, adding 2,700 beds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Two years of guaranteed housing for every incoming first-year student is transformative for our student experience,” Chancellor Rich Lyons said in a press release last week. “It gives students the foundation they need — a place to live, a community to be part of and the stability that supports their well-being, allowing them to fully engage in their education and in the life of this university.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley has historically had the lowest rate of students in housing of the University of California campuses, hosting just 22% of its undergraduate population a decade ago, compared to an average of 38% systemwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The school only began to guarantee housing for freshmen during the 2023-2024 academic year, after a yearslong effort to expand campus housing supply, spearheaded by former Chancellor Carol Christ. One of the projects she helped get off the ground was Heumann House, the university’s 1,100-bed apartment-style housing project set to open next fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The development has been controversial on campus and has been decades in the making. It sits on the former site of People’s Park, where students and neighbors \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11971915/peoples-park-fight-pits-housing-against-history\">fought the university’s efforts \u003c/a>to build housing since it acquired the land in the late 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078284\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12078284 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/UCBerkeleyPeoplesParkHousingGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/UCBerkeleyPeoplesParkHousingGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/UCBerkeleyPeoplesParkHousingGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/UCBerkeleyPeoplesParkHousingGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Storage containers surround the perimeter of People’s Park in Berkeley, California, on June 6, 2024. The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of UC Berkeley’s plans to develop the park into student housing. \u003ccite>(Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The university had planned to develop student housing before running out of money. In 1969, residents planted trees and turned it into a park. When the university tried to reclaim the land, it sparked major protests and clashes between local police and park supporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, the plot remained mostly undeveloped, serving as a gathering place for students and activists, and a long-standing homeless encampment before \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11989237/uc-berkeley-can-start-building-on-peoples-park-california-supreme-court-rules\">a state Supreme Court ruling\u003c/a> cleared the way for the university to build. The campus \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11998188/uc-berkeley-quietly-starts-construction-at-peoples-park-capping-decades-of-conflict\">quietly broke ground\u003c/a> on its new housing in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heumann House, named for disability rights leader Judith Heumann, adds to the campus’s supply of apartment-style housing filled by many transfer students. In 2024, Berkeley opened Anchor House, which features around 800 beds in similar units. Together, the projects bring the campus’s housing capacity to 33% of its student population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bancroft-Fulton Student Housing project, the other new development expected in 2028, will add another 1,600 dorm-style beds.[aside postID=news_12066766 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251211-PEOPLES-PARK-RENDERINGS-01-KQED.jpg']Junior Ysabela Philip said she’s encouraged to see the campus offering more housing options, but is wary of the rapid expansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want there to be quality over quantity,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Philip said most students find it less expensive to live off campus, unless they receive financial aid that they are able to put toward housing expenses. She said she’s worried that the push to be able to house more of the student population could lead the school to put off renovations on older buildings, like her freshman dorm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The conditions we were living in the dorms were terrible,” she said. “My heater was broken. I couldn’t have hot water in my shower. There was mold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of a two-year housing guarantee, [I] would have preferred to see existing housing being brought up to safer standards and higher standards,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berkeley officials say they “are committed to ensuring all of our campus housing options are safe, healthy and supportive spaces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university has also proposed a tower up to 26 stories on the corner of Channing Way and Bowditch Street that would house up to 2,000 more students, and feature a new dining facility and “social and academic spaces.” It’s expected to go before the UC Board of Regents for approval next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By providing stability from the moment students arrive, we can help them focus on what matters most: their academic journey and building connections at Berkeley,” Jo Mackness, associate vice chancellor for Residential and Student Service programs, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/uc-berkeley\">UC Berkeley \u003c/a>will offer incoming freshmen two years of guaranteed housing next fall, marking a major expansion for the campus that’s long struggled to keep up with accommodations for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university said it will also guarantee a year of campus housing for transfer students, thanks to two new housing projects set to open to students in 2027 and 2028, adding 2,700 beds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Two years of guaranteed housing for every incoming first-year student is transformative for our student experience,” Chancellor Rich Lyons said in a press release last week. “It gives students the foundation they need — a place to live, a community to be part of and the stability that supports their well-being, allowing them to fully engage in their education and in the life of this university.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley has historically had the lowest rate of students in housing of the University of California campuses, hosting just 22% of its undergraduate population a decade ago, compared to an average of 38% systemwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The school only began to guarantee housing for freshmen during the 2023-2024 academic year, after a yearslong effort to expand campus housing supply, spearheaded by former Chancellor Carol Christ. One of the projects she helped get off the ground was Heumann House, the university’s 1,100-bed apartment-style housing project set to open next fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The development has been controversial on campus and has been decades in the making. It sits on the former site of People’s Park, where students and neighbors \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11971915/peoples-park-fight-pits-housing-against-history\">fought the university’s efforts \u003c/a>to build housing since it acquired the land in the late 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078284\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12078284 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/UCBerkeleyPeoplesParkHousingGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/UCBerkeleyPeoplesParkHousingGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/UCBerkeleyPeoplesParkHousingGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/UCBerkeleyPeoplesParkHousingGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Storage containers surround the perimeter of People’s Park in Berkeley, California, on June 6, 2024. The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of UC Berkeley’s plans to develop the park into student housing. \u003ccite>(Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The university had planned to develop student housing before running out of money. In 1969, residents planted trees and turned it into a park. When the university tried to reclaim the land, it sparked major protests and clashes between local police and park supporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, the plot remained mostly undeveloped, serving as a gathering place for students and activists, and a long-standing homeless encampment before \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11989237/uc-berkeley-can-start-building-on-peoples-park-california-supreme-court-rules\">a state Supreme Court ruling\u003c/a> cleared the way for the university to build. The campus \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11998188/uc-berkeley-quietly-starts-construction-at-peoples-park-capping-decades-of-conflict\">quietly broke ground\u003c/a> on its new housing in 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heumann House, named for disability rights leader Judith Heumann, adds to the campus’s supply of apartment-style housing filled by many transfer students. In 2024, Berkeley opened Anchor House, which features around 800 beds in similar units. Together, the projects bring the campus’s housing capacity to 33% of its student population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bancroft-Fulton Student Housing project, the other new development expected in 2028, will add another 1,600 dorm-style beds.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Junior Ysabela Philip said she’s encouraged to see the campus offering more housing options, but is wary of the rapid expansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want there to be quality over quantity,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Philip said most students find it less expensive to live off campus, unless they receive financial aid that they are able to put toward housing expenses. She said she’s worried that the push to be able to house more of the student population could lead the school to put off renovations on older buildings, like her freshman dorm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The conditions we were living in the dorms were terrible,” she said. “My heater was broken. I couldn’t have hot water in my shower. There was mold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of a two-year housing guarantee, [I] would have preferred to see existing housing being brought up to safer standards and higher standards,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berkeley officials say they “are committed to ensuring all of our campus housing options are safe, healthy and supportive spaces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university has also proposed a tower up to 26 stories on the corner of Channing Way and Bowditch Street that would house up to 2,000 more students, and feature a new dining facility and “social and academic spaces.” It’s expected to go before the UC Board of Regents for approval next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By providing stability from the moment students arrive, we can help them focus on what matters most: their academic journey and building connections at Berkeley,” Jo Mackness, associate vice chancellor for Residential and Student Service programs, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "san-francisco-rv-permit-program-leaves-some-residents-homeless-despite-promises",
"title": "San Francisco RV Permit Program Leaves Some Residents Homeless Despite Promises",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/sf-rv-permit-homelessness-impacts/\">\u003cem>published\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> by El Tecolote.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/rvs\">San Francisco’s RV permit\u003c/a> promised stability. For Miguel Mercado, it delivered the opposite. Last week, after the RV was turned over to the city, Mercado started sleeping on the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For almost three years, the 58-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant had lived inside a friend’s RV without paying rent. In exchange, he helped with repairs, kept it clean and pushed it down the block at midnight each Sunday to avoid street-sweeping tickets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fragile arrangement has now unraveled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, San Francisco \u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/rv-permit-large-vehicles-san-francisco/\">imposed\u003c/a> a two-hour parking limit citywide for oversized vehicles in an effort to reduce the number of RVs used as shelters. Residents who could prove they had been living in the city in May 2025 were granted temporary exemptions through the Large Vehicle Refuge Permit Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077851\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12077851 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_5.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_5-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_5-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado hangs the keys to his home on a key holder inside his RV in the Mission District on Feb. 12, 2026. He has lived here for two years, but now faces eviction after his housemate enrolled their RV in the city’s vehicle buyback program, meaning it will be sold and destroyed. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/strategy-to-address-vehicular-homelessness-and-restore-public-spaces\">City officials said\u003c/a> the program would stabilize vehicle residents while restoring public space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Daniel Lurie claims it is producing results. He recently \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/post/san-franciscos-quarterly-homelessness-data-shows-record-lows-3rd-time-daniel-lurie-took-office/18675815/\">announced\u003c/a> that the number of RVs in San Francisco has dropped about 20% since December, falling from 462 vehicles to 374 in February, while 67 vehicle households have moved from RVs into housing or shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But early results show a stark imbalance: since enforcement began in November 2025, the city has \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/large--vehicle--program--outcomes\">towed 159 RVs\u003c/a> under the ordinance and another 194 for other reasons — more than five times the number of households placed into housing through the permit program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077852\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077852\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_15.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_15.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_15-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_15-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado poses for a portrait in front of the RV he called home for nearly three years, moments before city staff arrived to tow and destroy it on March 9, 2026. He moved into the RV after finding no other refuge as an immigrant with an asylum case. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Months into enforcement, residents say that while the program offers relief to some, it is pushing others into deeper instability through denials, displacement and mounting fines.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Collateral displacement\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Without the RV, Mercado said, he has nowhere left to sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The RV’s owner, who lives in the vehicle with him, qualified for housing through the LVRP permit and opted into the city’s large vehicle buyback program. Mercado said outreach workers communicated only with the registered owner during the permit rollout, and they never contacted him or offered him housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result: his friend got a studio apartment with his wife. Mercado got the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077853\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077853\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_13.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_13.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado packs his belongings before city staff arrives to tow his RV on March 9, 2026. Not knowing where he will sleep next, he gets rid of most of his things, even giving his bed to a neighbor who sleeps in a van. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know what I can do. That’s the concern of the immigrant,” Mercado said. “I’ll figure it out. I do wish him the best.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The permit system is largely tied to vehicle registration, meaning assistance often goes to the person who appears on the title, not necessarily the person sleeping inside the RV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Applicants were required to provide documents such as vehicle registration in their name, insurance, towing records and vehicle purchase, requirements that can exclude secondary occupants like Mercado.[aside postID=news_12043940 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/07312024-RVRESIDENTSWINSTON-ET-PU-22-KQED.jpg']A city official, speaking on background, said permits are intended for the people living in the RV but acknowledged that assistance depends on outreach teams knowing those occupants exist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they’re not known to city outreach teams… that is going to have an effect on them,” the official said. Mercado’s case illustrates this program gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The official added that the purpose of the buyback program is to buy RVs that people are living in, “not to buy back RVs from owners who are not living in them.” But without a system to track who actually sleeps inside, that distinction can be lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Emergency Management did not provide data on how many people may be living in vehicles they do not own, nor did they clarify what options exist for secondary occupants once a registered owner exits the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Mercado, the consequence is immediate: he has no roof over his head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without the RV, he said, memories of his early days in the U.S. resurface: standing in the rain with only his passport after his belongings were confiscated at the border and sleeping on the streets after exiting the immigration detention center, while battling pneumonia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077854\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077854\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_12.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_12.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_12-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_12-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado helps his housemate, Armando, clear out the RV they shared for years on March 9, 2026. Armando qualified for housing through the city’s LVRP program. Mercado did not. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now, as the program has ended for him, he fears reliving it all over again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They make it difficult, even when one wants to better oneself and not be a burden,” Mercado said. “The immigrant doesn’t want to be a burden. But they become a burden. Why?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, he sleeps in a broken-down car borrowed from a friend in El Sobrante — in another city and county, another life he didn’t choose.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A promise of housing, a return to temporary shelter\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Katia S., who recently gave birth to her first child, believed the permit program would provide her family with a lasting housing opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After repeatedly being \u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/sf-rv-permit-denied/\">denied\u003c/a> a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit despite submitting documentation, she and her husband were later placed in a hotel for 90 days in December, after\u003cem> El Tecolote\u003c/em>’s reporting on allegations that a Homeless Outreach Team worker sold \u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/rv-permit-cash-scam/\">permits for cash\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077856\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077856\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/2025-2026-RVMIGUELMERCADO-ET-PU-01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/2025-2026-RVMIGUELMERCADO-ET-PU-01.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/2025-2026-RVMIGUELMERCADO-ET-PU-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/2025-2026-RVMIGUELMERCADO-ET-PU-01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado, 58, holds his Nicaraguan passport, one of the few things that he carried throughout his migration journey, in San Francisco, Calif., on Dec. 8, 2025. Mercado, who has lived in a friend’s RV, will once again be out on the street with very few resources available to him. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Katia said an outreach worker named Alejandra made her a clear promise: stay at the hotel, and then you will qualify for an apartment. “When two or three months pass, we’re going to place you in a permanent place,” she recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katia said she was also told that giving up the RV would help her qualify for permanent housing through the LVRP program and its buyback option. Instead, the same day they moved into the hotel — Dec. 19 — the vehicle was towed. The family has since been unable to locate it and retrieve all their personal belongings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three days later, on Dec. 23, Katia gave birth to her son via emergency C-section. “The baby was tangled in the cord,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077858\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1973px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077858\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/112025-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-14-BW-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1973\" height=\"1316\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/112025-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-14-BW-scaled-1.jpeg 1973w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/112025-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-14-BW-scaled-1-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/112025-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-14-BW-scaled-1-1536x1025.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1973px) 100vw, 1973px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathia Z., 30, who was eight months pregnant, holds Yerservi M.’s hand on her belly outside their RV in San Francisco’s Bayview–Hunters Point neighborhood on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Feb. 19, Katia, her husband and their newborn were moved into another shelter run by Compass, where they could remain for another 90 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Katia recently asked her social worker about transitioning to permanent housing, the answer was bleak. She was told that permanent placements are now largely reserved for people with disabilities, serious illnesses, or addictions. For her family, a permanent home was “very unlikely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The contrast with other RV families is stark. Katia said she knows of another family who, through the program, had their RV paid off and were placed in a home for two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why not us?” she asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer, she was told, lies in the scam she never asked to be part of. When Katia pressed for more help from the city, her outreach worker told her they no longer qualified for certain programs because they had obtained an “illegal sticker.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077879\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1987px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077879\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/121725-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-12-BW-1-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1987\" height=\"1322\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/121725-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-12-BW-1-scaled-1.jpeg 1987w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/121725-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-12-BW-1-scaled-1-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/121725-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-12-BW-1-scaled-1-1536x1022.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1987px) 100vw, 1987px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Melissa Millsaps, an investigator with the City Attorney’s Office, and Eric Karsseboom, an inspector with the District Attorney’s Office, speak with Yerservi M. about a Homeless Outreach Team worker accused of illegally selling him a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit in San Francisco on Dec. 17, 2025. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And the scams continue. The Coalition on Homelessness said it recently received another call from an RV resident, reporting that a permit was offered to him for cash. While the Homeless Outreach Team worker was fired, it appears concerns about fraud persist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing acknowledged the allegation against the HOT outreach worker and said it is “committed to maintaining the utmost integrity” of the permitting process. However, the department did not respond to questions about the most recent scam report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Katia’s family, reporting the fraud changed nothing. They remain in limbo, caught in the fallout of the alleged scam, still waiting for the stability that they were promised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I asked to at least return the RV, or help me find something stable,” Katia said to her outreach worker. “I’m thinking, ‘do we have to leave San Francisco?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her family’s case highlights one of the key tensions in the rollout: while the permit program is designed to transition residents out of vehicular homelessness, some families say they have instead cycled through temporary placements without securing long-term stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077883\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12077883 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_1.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado walks out of the United States Appraisers Building at 630 Sansome Street, after his annual immigration check-in on Jan. 27, 2026. Fearful that he was going to be detained, Mercado becomes emotional and wipes away his tears after walking out of his appointment. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>City officials stress that the permit program is not the only gateway to assistance. “The permit is not a prerequisite to receive services,” said Jackie Thornhill, communications manager for the Department of Emergency Management. Anyone experiencing homelessness is “still eligible to engage with city outreach workers,” receive problem-solving assistance, and potentially shelter or housing placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as \u003cem>El Tecolote’s\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/sf-housing-homeless-families/\">reporting\u003c/a> has documented, eligibility is far from a guarantee. According to city data, from July 2024 to May 2025, 1,826 families were assessed for rental support. Only 30 — less than 1.6% — were placed into housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Katia’s family, that math means the promise of stability remains just out of reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Mounting fines and towing push residents to the brink\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For residents who remain outside the permit system, the two-hour rule has translated into mounting fines and repeated towing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bob Kauffman, 70, vividly remembers a parking control officer telling him, “We’re going to come get you tomorrow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077862\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077862\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1317\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-03.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-03-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-03-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob Kauffman, 70, keeps his belongings in his van where he sleeps, in San Francisco, Calif., on Jan. 21, 2026. Kauffman has been towed three times since the city’s Large Vehicle Refuge Permit Program, and has been navigating new parking restrictions that aim to eliminate RVs in the city. Since his RV is inoperable, he’s had to pay $700 to tow it out of the city’s tow-yard and pay $107 in San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority fees. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next day, his RV was towed, requiring two trucks to haul it away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kauffman has three vehicles: two RVs and a shuttle bus. All have mechanical issues except the bus, but all are registered under his name and paid off, he said. Thieves have repeatedly tried breaking into the vehicles, damaging ignition systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since enforcement began, Kauffman said he spent roughly $4,000 on impound and towing fees. Even with a low-income waiver, he pays just over $100 per impound, plus approximately $700 to transport the vehicle back to its parking spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Citywide, the two-hour ordinance has generated 599 citations at $108 each, which is worth $64,692, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/large--vehicle--program--outcomes\">public dashboard.\u003c/a> But that figure captures only one slice of enforcement.[aside postID=news_12062202 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RV1-scaled.jpg']From November to Feb. 12, San Francisco towed 194 RVs for expired registration and violation of the 72-hour rule. Nearly 40% of all tows were for registration issues alone, paving another way for the city to clear RVs from its streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kauffman said he was only able to secure one permit sticker. Because the city issues one permit per vehicle and does not allow multiple permits for one person, his friend, an 80-year-old mechanic with memory issues, was displaced from one of the unpermitted RVs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s sleeping in his car now,” Kauffman said. “He’s old — very old.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response, DEM’s Jackie Thornhill said, ”One individual cannot occupy multiple vehicles, and therefore should not be issued multiple permits.” Thornhill did not comment on how the city addresses situations where vehicles are used as shared shelter among friends or relatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, the 70-year-old has adapted to enforcement by changing his strategy on where he parks his other RV. In early February, someone smashed the windows and ransacked the RV. He then had it towed across the city line to Daly City, hoping to avoid more problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He implores the city to reform the LVRP rules so more people can be met where they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How has anything changed since that program? We’re just paying the costs,” Kauffman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kauffman is not the only one. The Coalition on Homelessness often hears from people getting towed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Friedenbach, the coalition’s director, described one recent case: an in-home care worker who was at his job — caring for someone else’s home — when his own home was towed away. His dog was inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077868\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077868\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1326\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-01.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-01-1536x1029.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob Kauffman, 70, who’s been towed three times since the city’s Large Vehicle Refuge Permit Program, rests inside his van where he sleeps in San Francisco, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2026. Kauffman has been navigating new parking restrictions that aim to eliminate RVs in the city. Since his RV is inoperable, he’s had to pay $700 to tow it out of the city’s tow-yard and pay $107 in San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority fees. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The dog didn’t get hurt, but that’s very dangerous because all the stuff falls down,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The man, who had $60 to his name, needed $107 to get his RV back. He asked the Coalition about shelter options, but with shelter waitlists stretching months long, there was nothing they could offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>José Arámbula, 48, experienced a similar loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 18, the trailer he had been sleeping in was towed in the Mission District. He had been visiting a friend nearby when neighbors called to warn him that a tow truck had arrived. Arámbula said he rushed over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I got there, it was gone,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077871\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9799.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1322\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9799.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9799-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9799-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">José Arámbula smiles at his pitbull, Kira, who sleeps in the car with him on March 6, 2026. Days earlier, the RV he had been living in was towed from the Mission District with Kira still inside. He retrieved his dog, but lost his IDs, clothes and everything he owned. \u003ccite>(Erika Carlos/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>His beloved pitbull, Kira, had been inside the vehicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time they take one, they take everything,” Arámbula said. “They give you a phone number to recover your things, but nobody ever answers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said losing documents during previous tows has made it difficult to replace his identification or recover his belongings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My IDs were in there. My clothes. Everything,” he said. “You lose it all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arámbula said he was able to retrieve Kira, but not his belongings. He now has only the clothes he was wearing and is sleeping in his small car with his dog. He said he plans to sell the vehicle in hopes of saving enough money to buy another RV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They promise help when everything is happening,” he said. “But once things calm down, they forget about the people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077872\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077872\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9825.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1322\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9825.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9825-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9825-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">José Arámbula drives through the Mission District looking for a place to safely park and sleep for the night on March 6, 2026. \u003ccite>(Erika Carlos/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Friedenbach also noted that despite the program budgeting funds for parking signage, many warning signs have yet to appear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/o0122-25.pdf\">ordinance\u003c/a> states the city intended to install 400 signs warning drivers of the new enforcement zones. But parking control officers no longer chalk tires to warn residents of time limits, she said, meaning many people don’t know they’re at risk of being towed until it’s too late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This idea that they needed to hammer people and scare them in order to push them into housing is silly,” she said. “There’s nothing positive about the rest of the program.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Gap to widen as permits begin to expire\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>LVRP permits are set to expire by April, but could be extended for up to six additional months for eligible residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city is currently making arrangements for extensions for those vehicles and will work directly with permitted occupants on the process,” wrote DEM’s Jackie Thornhill in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates say that’s not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077874\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077874\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_3.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_3-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_3-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado charges his LED lamp inside his RV in the Mission District on Feb. 12, 2026. The solar system in the RV barely holds enough power to get through the night, just enough for his phone and lights. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Coalition on Homelessness is calling on the city to follow the Large Vehicle legislation’s requirement for “automatic renewal” without a new application process — and to keep renewing permits every six months until residents secure housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also want the city to reopen the permit process for people who were left out and people who have become homeless after the qualifying date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our affordability crisis is going nowhere,” Friedenbach said. “We’re going to continue having folks who rely on RVs to shelter themselves. The city needs to plan for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Latino residents, she said, additional barriers compounded the problem: few Spanish-speaking outreach workers, schedules that conflicted with work, and heightened fear of Immigration Customs Enforcement after recent federal raids. “Folks are nervous about answering their doors,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077876\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077876\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-14.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1317\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-14.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-14-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-14-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob Kauffman, 70, inspects his RV on the side of the road after retrieving it from the City & County of San Francisco Impound in Daly City, Calif., on Jan. 21, 2026. Kauffman has been towed three times since the city’s Large Vehicle Refuge Permit Program, and has been navigating new parking restrictions that aim to eliminate RVs in the city. Since his RV is inoperable, he’s had to pay $700 to tow it out of the city’s tow-yard and pay $107 in San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority fees. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As permits begin to expire this spring, the uneven outcomes of the rollout are likely to become more visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Mercado, the stakes could not be higher. His asylum case hangs in the balance. He is required to check in with ICE in June, but with no stable place to live and no money for a lawyer, he doesn’t know how he will manage it. One misstep could mean deportation to a country he fled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no one who advocates for the immigrants who are on the streets, who are surviving — not at the government’s expense,” he said. “But through their own survival.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Erika Carlos contributed to this report\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A San Francisco policy aimed at reducing RV homelessness is displacing vulnerable residents, as enforcement data shows hundreds of vehicle tows far outpacing housing placements, exposing gaps in outreach, eligibility rules and support for people living in vehicles they do not own.",
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"title": "San Francisco RV Permit Program Leaves Some Residents Homeless Despite Promises | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/sf-rv-permit-homelessness-impacts/\">\u003cem>published\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> by El Tecolote.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/rvs\">San Francisco’s RV permit\u003c/a> promised stability. For Miguel Mercado, it delivered the opposite. Last week, after the RV was turned over to the city, Mercado started sleeping on the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For almost three years, the 58-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant had lived inside a friend’s RV without paying rent. In exchange, he helped with repairs, kept it clean and pushed it down the block at midnight each Sunday to avoid street-sweeping tickets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fragile arrangement has now unraveled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, San Francisco \u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/rv-permit-large-vehicles-san-francisco/\">imposed\u003c/a> a two-hour parking limit citywide for oversized vehicles in an effort to reduce the number of RVs used as shelters. Residents who could prove they had been living in the city in May 2025 were granted temporary exemptions through the Large Vehicle Refuge Permit Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077851\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12077851 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_5.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_5-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_5-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado hangs the keys to his home on a key holder inside his RV in the Mission District on Feb. 12, 2026. He has lived here for two years, but now faces eviction after his housemate enrolled their RV in the city’s vehicle buyback program, meaning it will be sold and destroyed. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/strategy-to-address-vehicular-homelessness-and-restore-public-spaces\">City officials said\u003c/a> the program would stabilize vehicle residents while restoring public space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Daniel Lurie claims it is producing results. He recently \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/post/san-franciscos-quarterly-homelessness-data-shows-record-lows-3rd-time-daniel-lurie-took-office/18675815/\">announced\u003c/a> that the number of RVs in San Francisco has dropped about 20% since December, falling from 462 vehicles to 374 in February, while 67 vehicle households have moved from RVs into housing or shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But early results show a stark imbalance: since enforcement began in November 2025, the city has \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/large--vehicle--program--outcomes\">towed 159 RVs\u003c/a> under the ordinance and another 194 for other reasons — more than five times the number of households placed into housing through the permit program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077852\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077852\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_15.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_15.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_15-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_15-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado poses for a portrait in front of the RV he called home for nearly three years, moments before city staff arrived to tow and destroy it on March 9, 2026. He moved into the RV after finding no other refuge as an immigrant with an asylum case. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Months into enforcement, residents say that while the program offers relief to some, it is pushing others into deeper instability through denials, displacement and mounting fines.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Collateral displacement\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Without the RV, Mercado said, he has nowhere left to sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The RV’s owner, who lives in the vehicle with him, qualified for housing through the LVRP permit and opted into the city’s large vehicle buyback program. Mercado said outreach workers communicated only with the registered owner during the permit rollout, and they never contacted him or offered him housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result: his friend got a studio apartment with his wife. Mercado got the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077853\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077853\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_13.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_13.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado packs his belongings before city staff arrives to tow his RV on March 9, 2026. Not knowing where he will sleep next, he gets rid of most of his things, even giving his bed to a neighbor who sleeps in a van. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know what I can do. That’s the concern of the immigrant,” Mercado said. “I’ll figure it out. I do wish him the best.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The permit system is largely tied to vehicle registration, meaning assistance often goes to the person who appears on the title, not necessarily the person sleeping inside the RV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Applicants were required to provide documents such as vehicle registration in their name, insurance, towing records and vehicle purchase, requirements that can exclude secondary occupants like Mercado.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A city official, speaking on background, said permits are intended for the people living in the RV but acknowledged that assistance depends on outreach teams knowing those occupants exist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they’re not known to city outreach teams… that is going to have an effect on them,” the official said. Mercado’s case illustrates this program gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The official added that the purpose of the buyback program is to buy RVs that people are living in, “not to buy back RVs from owners who are not living in them.” But without a system to track who actually sleeps inside, that distinction can be lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Emergency Management did not provide data on how many people may be living in vehicles they do not own, nor did they clarify what options exist for secondary occupants once a registered owner exits the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Mercado, the consequence is immediate: he has no roof over his head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without the RV, he said, memories of his early days in the U.S. resurface: standing in the rain with only his passport after his belongings were confiscated at the border and sleeping on the streets after exiting the immigration detention center, while battling pneumonia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077854\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077854\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_12.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_12.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_12-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_12-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado helps his housemate, Armando, clear out the RV they shared for years on March 9, 2026. Armando qualified for housing through the city’s LVRP program. Mercado did not. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now, as the program has ended for him, he fears reliving it all over again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They make it difficult, even when one wants to better oneself and not be a burden,” Mercado said. “The immigrant doesn’t want to be a burden. But they become a burden. Why?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, he sleeps in a broken-down car borrowed from a friend in El Sobrante — in another city and county, another life he didn’t choose.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A promise of housing, a return to temporary shelter\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Katia S., who recently gave birth to her first child, believed the permit program would provide her family with a lasting housing opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After repeatedly being \u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/sf-rv-permit-denied/\">denied\u003c/a> a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit despite submitting documentation, she and her husband were later placed in a hotel for 90 days in December, after\u003cem> El Tecolote\u003c/em>’s reporting on allegations that a Homeless Outreach Team worker sold \u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/rv-permit-cash-scam/\">permits for cash\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077856\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077856\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/2025-2026-RVMIGUELMERCADO-ET-PU-01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/2025-2026-RVMIGUELMERCADO-ET-PU-01.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/2025-2026-RVMIGUELMERCADO-ET-PU-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/2025-2026-RVMIGUELMERCADO-ET-PU-01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado, 58, holds his Nicaraguan passport, one of the few things that he carried throughout his migration journey, in San Francisco, Calif., on Dec. 8, 2025. Mercado, who has lived in a friend’s RV, will once again be out on the street with very few resources available to him. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Katia said an outreach worker named Alejandra made her a clear promise: stay at the hotel, and then you will qualify for an apartment. “When two or three months pass, we’re going to place you in a permanent place,” she recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katia said she was also told that giving up the RV would help her qualify for permanent housing through the LVRP program and its buyback option. Instead, the same day they moved into the hotel — Dec. 19 — the vehicle was towed. The family has since been unable to locate it and retrieve all their personal belongings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three days later, on Dec. 23, Katia gave birth to her son via emergency C-section. “The baby was tangled in the cord,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077858\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1973px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077858\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/112025-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-14-BW-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1973\" height=\"1316\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/112025-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-14-BW-scaled-1.jpeg 1973w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/112025-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-14-BW-scaled-1-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/112025-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-14-BW-scaled-1-1536x1025.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1973px) 100vw, 1973px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathia Z., 30, who was eight months pregnant, holds Yerservi M.’s hand on her belly outside their RV in San Francisco’s Bayview–Hunters Point neighborhood on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Feb. 19, Katia, her husband and their newborn were moved into another shelter run by Compass, where they could remain for another 90 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Katia recently asked her social worker about transitioning to permanent housing, the answer was bleak. She was told that permanent placements are now largely reserved for people with disabilities, serious illnesses, or addictions. For her family, a permanent home was “very unlikely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The contrast with other RV families is stark. Katia said she knows of another family who, through the program, had their RV paid off and were placed in a home for two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why not us?” she asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer, she was told, lies in the scam she never asked to be part of. When Katia pressed for more help from the city, her outreach worker told her they no longer qualified for certain programs because they had obtained an “illegal sticker.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077879\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1987px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077879\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/121725-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-12-BW-1-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1987\" height=\"1322\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/121725-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-12-BW-1-scaled-1.jpeg 1987w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/121725-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-12-BW-1-scaled-1-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/121725-UNPERMITTEDRVS-ET-PU-12-BW-1-scaled-1-1536x1022.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1987px) 100vw, 1987px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Melissa Millsaps, an investigator with the City Attorney’s Office, and Eric Karsseboom, an inspector with the District Attorney’s Office, speak with Yerservi M. about a Homeless Outreach Team worker accused of illegally selling him a Large Vehicle Refuge Permit in San Francisco on Dec. 17, 2025. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And the scams continue. The Coalition on Homelessness said it recently received another call from an RV resident, reporting that a permit was offered to him for cash. While the Homeless Outreach Team worker was fired, it appears concerns about fraud persist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing acknowledged the allegation against the HOT outreach worker and said it is “committed to maintaining the utmost integrity” of the permitting process. However, the department did not respond to questions about the most recent scam report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Katia’s family, reporting the fraud changed nothing. They remain in limbo, caught in the fallout of the alleged scam, still waiting for the stability that they were promised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I asked to at least return the RV, or help me find something stable,” Katia said to her outreach worker. “I’m thinking, ‘do we have to leave San Francisco?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her family’s case highlights one of the key tensions in the rollout: while the permit program is designed to transition residents out of vehicular homelessness, some families say they have instead cycled through temporary placements without securing long-term stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077883\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12077883 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_1.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado walks out of the United States Appraisers Building at 630 Sansome Street, after his annual immigration check-in on Jan. 27, 2026. Fearful that he was going to be detained, Mercado becomes emotional and wipes away his tears after walking out of his appointment. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>City officials stress that the permit program is not the only gateway to assistance. “The permit is not a prerequisite to receive services,” said Jackie Thornhill, communications manager for the Department of Emergency Management. Anyone experiencing homelessness is “still eligible to engage with city outreach workers,” receive problem-solving assistance, and potentially shelter or housing placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as \u003cem>El Tecolote’s\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://eltecolote.org/content/en/sf-housing-homeless-families/\">reporting\u003c/a> has documented, eligibility is far from a guarantee. According to city data, from July 2024 to May 2025, 1,826 families were assessed for rental support. Only 30 — less than 1.6% — were placed into housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Katia’s family, that math means the promise of stability remains just out of reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Mounting fines and towing push residents to the brink\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For residents who remain outside the permit system, the two-hour rule has translated into mounting fines and repeated towing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bob Kauffman, 70, vividly remembers a parking control officer telling him, “We’re going to come get you tomorrow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077862\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077862\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1317\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-03.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-03-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-03-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob Kauffman, 70, keeps his belongings in his van where he sleeps, in San Francisco, Calif., on Jan. 21, 2026. Kauffman has been towed three times since the city’s Large Vehicle Refuge Permit Program, and has been navigating new parking restrictions that aim to eliminate RVs in the city. Since his RV is inoperable, he’s had to pay $700 to tow it out of the city’s tow-yard and pay $107 in San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority fees. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next day, his RV was towed, requiring two trucks to haul it away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kauffman has three vehicles: two RVs and a shuttle bus. All have mechanical issues except the bus, but all are registered under his name and paid off, he said. Thieves have repeatedly tried breaking into the vehicles, damaging ignition systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since enforcement began, Kauffman said he spent roughly $4,000 on impound and towing fees. Even with a low-income waiver, he pays just over $100 per impound, plus approximately $700 to transport the vehicle back to its parking spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Citywide, the two-hour ordinance has generated 599 citations at $108 each, which is worth $64,692, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/large--vehicle--program--outcomes\">public dashboard.\u003c/a> But that figure captures only one slice of enforcement.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>From November to Feb. 12, San Francisco towed 194 RVs for expired registration and violation of the 72-hour rule. Nearly 40% of all tows were for registration issues alone, paving another way for the city to clear RVs from its streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kauffman said he was only able to secure one permit sticker. Because the city issues one permit per vehicle and does not allow multiple permits for one person, his friend, an 80-year-old mechanic with memory issues, was displaced from one of the unpermitted RVs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s sleeping in his car now,” Kauffman said. “He’s old — very old.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response, DEM’s Jackie Thornhill said, ”One individual cannot occupy multiple vehicles, and therefore should not be issued multiple permits.” Thornhill did not comment on how the city addresses situations where vehicles are used as shared shelter among friends or relatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, the 70-year-old has adapted to enforcement by changing his strategy on where he parks his other RV. In early February, someone smashed the windows and ransacked the RV. He then had it towed across the city line to Daly City, hoping to avoid more problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He implores the city to reform the LVRP rules so more people can be met where they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How has anything changed since that program? We’re just paying the costs,” Kauffman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kauffman is not the only one. The Coalition on Homelessness often hears from people getting towed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Friedenbach, the coalition’s director, described one recent case: an in-home care worker who was at his job — caring for someone else’s home — when his own home was towed away. His dog was inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077868\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077868\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1326\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-01.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-01-1536x1029.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob Kauffman, 70, who’s been towed three times since the city’s Large Vehicle Refuge Permit Program, rests inside his van where he sleeps in San Francisco, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2026. Kauffman has been navigating new parking restrictions that aim to eliminate RVs in the city. Since his RV is inoperable, he’s had to pay $700 to tow it out of the city’s tow-yard and pay $107 in San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority fees. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The dog didn’t get hurt, but that’s very dangerous because all the stuff falls down,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The man, who had $60 to his name, needed $107 to get his RV back. He asked the Coalition about shelter options, but with shelter waitlists stretching months long, there was nothing they could offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>José Arámbula, 48, experienced a similar loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 18, the trailer he had been sleeping in was towed in the Mission District. He had been visiting a friend nearby when neighbors called to warn him that a tow truck had arrived. Arámbula said he rushed over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I got there, it was gone,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077871\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9799.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1322\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9799.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9799-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9799-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">José Arámbula smiles at his pitbull, Kira, who sleeps in the car with him on March 6, 2026. Days earlier, the RV he had been living in was towed from the Mission District with Kira still inside. He retrieved his dog, but lost his IDs, clothes and everything he owned. \u003ccite>(Erika Carlos/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>His beloved pitbull, Kira, had been inside the vehicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time they take one, they take everything,” Arámbula said. “They give you a phone number to recover your things, but nobody ever answers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said losing documents during previous tows has made it difficult to replace his identification or recover his belongings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My IDs were in there. My clothes. Everything,” he said. “You lose it all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arámbula said he was able to retrieve Kira, but not his belongings. He now has only the clothes he was wearing and is sleeping in his small car with his dog. He said he plans to sell the vehicle in hopes of saving enough money to buy another RV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They promise help when everything is happening,” he said. “But once things calm down, they forget about the people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077872\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077872\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9825.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1322\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9825.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9825-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/EBC_9825-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">José Arámbula drives through the Mission District looking for a place to safely park and sleep for the night on March 6, 2026. \u003ccite>(Erika Carlos/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Friedenbach also noted that despite the program budgeting funds for parking signage, many warning signs have yet to appear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/o0122-25.pdf\">ordinance\u003c/a> states the city intended to install 400 signs warning drivers of the new enforcement zones. But parking control officers no longer chalk tires to warn residents of time limits, she said, meaning many people don’t know they’re at risk of being towed until it’s too late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This idea that they needed to hammer people and scare them in order to push them into housing is silly,” she said. “There’s nothing positive about the rest of the program.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Gap to widen as permits begin to expire\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>LVRP permits are set to expire by April, but could be extended for up to six additional months for eligible residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city is currently making arrangements for extensions for those vehicles and will work directly with permitted occupants on the process,” wrote DEM’s Jackie Thornhill in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates say that’s not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077874\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077874\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_3.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_3-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Mercado_3-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel Mercado charges his LED lamp inside his RV in the Mission District on Feb. 12, 2026. The solar system in the RV barely holds enough power to get through the night, just enough for his phone and lights. \u003ccite>(Yesica Prado/El Tecolote)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Coalition on Homelessness is calling on the city to follow the Large Vehicle legislation’s requirement for “automatic renewal” without a new application process — and to keep renewing permits every six months until residents secure housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also want the city to reopen the permit process for people who were left out and people who have become homeless after the qualifying date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our affordability crisis is going nowhere,” Friedenbach said. “We’re going to continue having folks who rely on RVs to shelter themselves. The city needs to plan for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Latino residents, she said, additional barriers compounded the problem: few Spanish-speaking outreach workers, schedules that conflicted with work, and heightened fear of Immigration Customs Enforcement after recent federal raids. “Folks are nervous about answering their doors,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077876\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077876\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-14.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1317\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-14.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-14-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/01212026-BOBRVTOW-ET-PU-14-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob Kauffman, 70, inspects his RV on the side of the road after retrieving it from the City & County of San Francisco Impound in Daly City, Calif., on Jan. 21, 2026. Kauffman has been towed three times since the city’s Large Vehicle Refuge Permit Program, and has been navigating new parking restrictions that aim to eliminate RVs in the city. Since his RV is inoperable, he’s had to pay $700 to tow it out of the city’s tow-yard and pay $107 in San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority fees. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote/CatchLight Local)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As permits begin to expire this spring, the uneven outcomes of the rollout are likely to become more visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Mercado, the stakes could not be higher. His asylum case hangs in the balance. He is required to check in with ICE in June, but with no stable place to live and no money for a lawyer, he doesn’t know how he will manage it. One misstep could mean deportation to a country he fled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no one who advocates for the immigrants who are on the streets, who are surviving — not at the government’s expense,” he said. “But through their own survival.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Erika Carlos contributed to this report\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "a-new-homelessness-strategy-with-roots-in-the-south-bay-is-sweeping-california",
"title": "A New Homelessness Strategy With Roots in the South Bay Is Sweeping California",
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"headTitle": "A New Homelessness Strategy With Roots in the South Bay Is Sweeping California | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe the way out of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/housing\">California’s homelessness \u003c/a>crisis is to prevent it in the first place, rather than focusing only on people who have already lost their housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the thinking behind a program in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/santa-clara-county\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a> — and others like it around the state — that has gained traction and will soon test its strategy beyond California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These prevention programs have found that with a payment of several thousand dollars, aid organizations can head off someone’s homelessness. That both prevents the trauma that comes with losing a home, and saves the state or local government the potentially tens of thousands of dollars it takes to help someone after they become homeless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Santa Clara County program by nonprofit Destination: Home recently inspired the launch of \u003ca href=\"https://rightathomeusa.org/\">10 more pilot projects\u003c/a> throughout the country, marking the first large-scale, multi-state test of this strategy. If it works in those test counties, advocates will push for a nationwide program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12015960\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12015960\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clusters of tents belonging to unhoused residents line the banks of Coyote Creek near Tully Road on Jan. 4, 2023, in San José, California. \u003ccite>(Dai Sugano/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1924\">a bill\u003c/a> introduced this year in California would require the state to come up with a broad homelessness prevention strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The single most obvious answer to homelessness is to not let it happen in the first place,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Focusing on prevention marks a significant shift in thinking. Traditionally, cities, counties and the state reserve their resources for helping the people in most dire need — those currently living on the street — get back on their feet. The problem with that strategy is that for every one person they move into housing, multiple other people fall into homelessness. That leaves cities spinning their wheels without meaningfully lessening the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But prevention has its own challenges: The aid is most effective when it goes to people imminently at risk of losing their housing, and determining exactly who that is can be tricky. Several Bay Area communities use a questionnaire to evaluate how likely someone is to wind up homeless unless they get help. A Los Angeles County program \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/03/california-homeless-los-angeles-ai/\">uses artificial intelligence\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The risk is you give out a lot of precious resources to people who otherwise would be able to prevent homelessness on their own, and that takes away from things like emergency shelters or transitional shelters or permanent supportive housing,” said Jim Sullivan, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Lab for Economic Opportunities. His team evaluated Santa Clara County’s prevention program and found that people who received prevention funds were 78% less likely to become homeless than people in similar situations who got no funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even among the people who didn’t get prevention funds, the overall rate of homelessness in these studies tends to be small (in Santa Clara County, 4.1% of people who didn’t get help became homeless, compared to 0.9% who did get help). That’s because, despite the very visible humanitarian crisis on the streets of California, statistically speaking, homelessness is still extremely rare, said Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA, which helped develop a similar program in Los Angeles County. The vast majority of people are able to keep a roof over their head by getting help from family or friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How homelessness prevention works\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Destination: Home helped launch Santa Clara County’s first homelessness prevention program in 2017. At the time, there wasn’t much help available for people on the brink of homelessness. Families staring down looming evictions were told to call back once they actually ended up on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With a budget of $1 million secured through donations, the program helped 200 households that first year. Over the following years, the nonprofit got results — and buy-in from county officials. Now, the program has an annual budget of $30 million (most of which is publicly funded) and serves 2,500 households per year. [aside postID=news_12077101 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-02-BL_qed.jpg'] The program appears to be making a dent. Prior to its existence, for every homeless person who got housing, another three lost their homes. Now, for every one person housed, the math works out to 1.7 people losing their homes, according to Destination: Home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who apply to the program hear about it in different ways, including through food banks and other service providers, by word of mouth and through outreach workers in eviction court. Then they fill out a questionnaire designed to assess how likely they are to become homeless. Multiple factors could put them at greater risk: if they have experienced domestic violence, have been homeless before or are disabled, for example. If they check off enough risk factors, they qualify for aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past year, people accepted into the program received an average of about $6,500 (including if they returned multiple times for help), most of which went directly to rent, security deposits and other housing expenses. Participants can use the money to address whatever problem is threatening their housing, including fixing their car so they can get to work, paying for a hotel while they are between apartments, covering medical expenses or paying down a credit card debt if the large monthly payment is hurting their ability to pay rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Participants can come back for help multiple times if they need, and many do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re providing temporary assistance to folks that are facing long-term, systemic problems, and we don’t expect that hanging out with us for a few months is all of a sudden going to increase the supply of affordable housing or living-wage jobs,” said Erin Stanton, director of family assistance at Sacred Heart Community Service, which coordinates the aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Destination: Home is expanding its prevention model to 10 new places across the country, including San Mateo County in California, as well as Miami-Dade County, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin-Travis County, Texas; communities in Alaska and multiple tribal communities in Minnesota. The idea is to see if the model can be successful outside of Santa Clara County and to see how it might be tweaked depending on the community it is serving. The needs in an economically depressed community, or one saturated by addiction, will be different from those in a rapidly gentrifying area, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>California is an expensive place to live. Are you feeling the pinch? \u003ca href=\"#Shareyourstory\">Share your story\u003c/a> with KQED by leaving us a voicemail at \u003ca href=\"tel:4155532115\">415-553-2115\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\">clicking here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Destination: Home, which raised nearly $80 million for this effort from private donors, is giving each community $500,000 to plan their own homelessness prevention program modeled after Santa Clara County’s, and then at least $5 million to run the program for three years. The first programs are expected to launch this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The University of Notre Dame will evaluate the programs to see if they work. If they do, Destination: Home plans to push for a nationwide prevention strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Mateo County signed on to be a test community because it’s an “exciting opportunity,” said Amy Davidson, director of the county’s Center on Homelessness. The county already runs an emergency financial assistance program, but it doesn’t screen participants to determine who is most likely to end up on the street. With Destination: Home’s help, the county will launch a second program that more specifically targets people at risk of homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It seemed like a really great learning experience for us to try to learn what works really well, and what haven’t we done that we could consider doing,” Davidson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Lower rates of homelessness\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Five other Bay Area communities, including San Francisco and Oakland, already have \u003ca href=\"https://www.allhomeca.org/regional-homelessness-prevention-2/\">similar prevention programs\u003c/a>, which together have served more than 30,000 people. They’re supported by the organizations All Home and Bay Area Community Services, which helped fund the programs and developed a standardized online form that evaluates each applicant’s risk of homelessness. A sixth program in Marin County is set to launch later this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, participants were \u003ca href=\"https://focusstrategies.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/SF-ERAP-Evaluation-Brief_Focus-Strategies.pdf\">40% less likely\u003c/a> to end up homeless than those in similar circumstances who didn’t get help. Between March 2023 and February 2025, less than 5% of program participants became homeless within a year of receiving prevention funds, compared with 8% of similarly situated people who didn’t receive funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072190\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072190\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jacob Miles pets the dogs he helps care for after moving his belongings from Merlin Street to nearby Fifth Street in San Francisco on Jan. 27, 2026, following a scheduled encampment sweep. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Los Angeles County, people helped by the Homelessness Prevention Unit were \u003ca href=\"https://capolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/HPU-Early-Outcomes-Report.pdf\">71% less likely\u003c/a> to later end up in a homeless shelter or use street outreach services. As in Santa Clara County, the overall rates of homelessness are still small: Less than 2% of people enrolled in the program became homeless and used street or shelter services within 18 months, compared to a little more than 6% of people in similar circumstances but not enrolled in the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County’s tool is unique because it \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/03/california-homeless-los-angeles-ai/\">uses AI to predict\u003c/a> who is most likely to become homeless. Participants don’t apply to the program. If the AI model picks them out, program staff cold-call them and invite them to participate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county is still testing the program, and a detailed analysis is expected next year. In the meantime, local leaders have thrown their support behind it. The county recently poured additional Measure A funding into the program, and is launching a new prevention program focused on young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feeding off the momentum generated by these efforts, a bill introduced this year would require the state to establish a statewide homelessness prevention strategy by July 2027. The state is expecting a budget deficit this year, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1924\">Assembly Bill 1924\u003c/a> doesn’t come with funding. But supporters say it’s still a step forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now that we have proven models from the Bay Area and LA, we believe that it’s time for the state to be doing more to articulate goals and strategies for having a prevention program, with the hope that in the future if there’s more budget surplus those strategies could get better funding,” said Irene Farnsworth, director of regional homelessness prevention for All Home, which is co-sponsoring the bill by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/jesse-gabriel-160858\">Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel\u003c/a>, a Democrat from Encino.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘They won’t just leave you hanging’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Desiré Campusano knows how to hustle. She’s crashed with relatives when she couldn’t afford rent and worked multiple jobs at once. But in 2021, something unexpected happened: She became an emergency foster parent to two of her young relatives. She felt herself foundering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s when she found Santa Clara County’s homelessness prevention program. It helped her stay afloat as she navigated moving into her own apartment in Milpitas, changing jobs and suddenly becoming a single guardian to two children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She asked for help twice that year, once receiving her full rent payment of $1,575, and once receiving $1,000 to help her get by. The next year, her rent increased and she asked for help each time she couldn’t quite make the payment — for example when the kids got COVID and couldn’t go to day care, so she had to miss work and not get paid. She got help four times that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d be fine for a month or two, and then I’d need it again,” Campusano said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, her rent went up again and she had to move out. She went to stay with her godfather in Hollister, but that meant a grueling commute to San Jose for work every day. Then, at the start of 2025, Campusano moved into a subsidized apartment in San Jose. The county’s homelessness prevention program helped her secure the apartment by paying her first and last month’s rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That ongoing support was a gamechanger for Campusano, who finally feels like she’s back on her feet. She’s now teaching sociology and Mexican-American history at San Jose City College.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They won’t just leave you hanging,” she said. “They’ll make sure you feel stable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2026/03/homelessness-prevention-pilot/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Shareyourstory\">\u003c/a>California is expensive. Share your story of how you get by\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Homelessness prevention shows promising results in California, as advocates push to spread it statewide and nationally.\r\n\r\n",
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"title": "A New Homelessness Strategy With Roots in the South Bay Is Sweeping California | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe the way out of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/housing\">California’s homelessness \u003c/a>crisis is to prevent it in the first place, rather than focusing only on people who have already lost their housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the thinking behind a program in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/santa-clara-county\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a> — and others like it around the state — that has gained traction and will soon test its strategy beyond California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These prevention programs have found that with a payment of several thousand dollars, aid organizations can head off someone’s homelessness. That both prevents the trauma that comes with losing a home, and saves the state or local government the potentially tens of thousands of dollars it takes to help someone after they become homeless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Santa Clara County program by nonprofit Destination: Home recently inspired the launch of \u003ca href=\"https://rightathomeusa.org/\">10 more pilot projects\u003c/a> throughout the country, marking the first large-scale, multi-state test of this strategy. If it works in those test counties, advocates will push for a nationwide program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12015960\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12015960\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/SantaClaraCountyHomelessnessGetty1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clusters of tents belonging to unhoused residents line the banks of Coyote Creek near Tully Road on Jan. 4, 2023, in San José, California. \u003ccite>(Dai Sugano/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1924\">a bill\u003c/a> introduced this year in California would require the state to come up with a broad homelessness prevention strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The single most obvious answer to homelessness is to not let it happen in the first place,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Focusing on prevention marks a significant shift in thinking. Traditionally, cities, counties and the state reserve their resources for helping the people in most dire need — those currently living on the street — get back on their feet. The problem with that strategy is that for every one person they move into housing, multiple other people fall into homelessness. That leaves cities spinning their wheels without meaningfully lessening the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But prevention has its own challenges: The aid is most effective when it goes to people imminently at risk of losing their housing, and determining exactly who that is can be tricky. Several Bay Area communities use a questionnaire to evaluate how likely someone is to wind up homeless unless they get help. A Los Angeles County program \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/03/california-homeless-los-angeles-ai/\">uses artificial intelligence\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The risk is you give out a lot of precious resources to people who otherwise would be able to prevent homelessness on their own, and that takes away from things like emergency shelters or transitional shelters or permanent supportive housing,” said Jim Sullivan, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Lab for Economic Opportunities. His team evaluated Santa Clara County’s prevention program and found that people who received prevention funds were 78% less likely to become homeless than people in similar situations who got no funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even among the people who didn’t get prevention funds, the overall rate of homelessness in these studies tends to be small (in Santa Clara County, 4.1% of people who didn’t get help became homeless, compared to 0.9% who did get help). That’s because, despite the very visible humanitarian crisis on the streets of California, statistically speaking, homelessness is still extremely rare, said Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA, which helped develop a similar program in Los Angeles County. The vast majority of people are able to keep a roof over their head by getting help from family or friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How homelessness prevention works\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Destination: Home helped launch Santa Clara County’s first homelessness prevention program in 2017. At the time, there wasn’t much help available for people on the brink of homelessness. Families staring down looming evictions were told to call back once they actually ended up on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With a budget of $1 million secured through donations, the program helped 200 households that first year. Over the following years, the nonprofit got results — and buy-in from county officials. Now, the program has an annual budget of $30 million (most of which is publicly funded) and serves 2,500 households per year. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The program appears to be making a dent. Prior to its existence, for every homeless person who got housing, another three lost their homes. Now, for every one person housed, the math works out to 1.7 people losing their homes, according to Destination: Home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who apply to the program hear about it in different ways, including through food banks and other service providers, by word of mouth and through outreach workers in eviction court. Then they fill out a questionnaire designed to assess how likely they are to become homeless. Multiple factors could put them at greater risk: if they have experienced domestic violence, have been homeless before or are disabled, for example. If they check off enough risk factors, they qualify for aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past year, people accepted into the program received an average of about $6,500 (including if they returned multiple times for help), most of which went directly to rent, security deposits and other housing expenses. Participants can use the money to address whatever problem is threatening their housing, including fixing their car so they can get to work, paying for a hotel while they are between apartments, covering medical expenses or paying down a credit card debt if the large monthly payment is hurting their ability to pay rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Participants can come back for help multiple times if they need, and many do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re providing temporary assistance to folks that are facing long-term, systemic problems, and we don’t expect that hanging out with us for a few months is all of a sudden going to increase the supply of affordable housing or living-wage jobs,” said Erin Stanton, director of family assistance at Sacred Heart Community Service, which coordinates the aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Destination: Home is expanding its prevention model to 10 new places across the country, including San Mateo County in California, as well as Miami-Dade County, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin-Travis County, Texas; communities in Alaska and multiple tribal communities in Minnesota. The idea is to see if the model can be successful outside of Santa Clara County and to see how it might be tweaked depending on the community it is serving. The needs in an economically depressed community, or one saturated by addiction, will be different from those in a rapidly gentrifying area, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>California is an expensive place to live. Are you feeling the pinch? \u003ca href=\"#Shareyourstory\">Share your story\u003c/a> with KQED by leaving us a voicemail at \u003ca href=\"tel:4155532115\">415-553-2115\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\">clicking here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Destination: Home, which raised nearly $80 million for this effort from private donors, is giving each community $500,000 to plan their own homelessness prevention program modeled after Santa Clara County’s, and then at least $5 million to run the program for three years. The first programs are expected to launch this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The University of Notre Dame will evaluate the programs to see if they work. If they do, Destination: Home plans to push for a nationwide prevention strategy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Mateo County signed on to be a test community because it’s an “exciting opportunity,” said Amy Davidson, director of the county’s Center on Homelessness. The county already runs an emergency financial assistance program, but it doesn’t screen participants to determine who is most likely to end up on the street. With Destination: Home’s help, the county will launch a second program that more specifically targets people at risk of homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It seemed like a really great learning experience for us to try to learn what works really well, and what haven’t we done that we could consider doing,” Davidson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Lower rates of homelessness\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Five other Bay Area communities, including San Francisco and Oakland, already have \u003ca href=\"https://www.allhomeca.org/regional-homelessness-prevention-2/\">similar prevention programs\u003c/a>, which together have served more than 30,000 people. They’re supported by the organizations All Home and Bay Area Community Services, which helped fund the programs and developed a standardized online form that evaluates each applicant’s risk of homelessness. A sixth program in Marin County is set to launch later this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, participants were \u003ca href=\"https://focusstrategies.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/SF-ERAP-Evaluation-Brief_Focus-Strategies.pdf\">40% less likely\u003c/a> to end up homeless than those in similar circumstances who didn’t get help. Between March 2023 and February 2025, less than 5% of program participants became homeless within a year of receiving prevention funds, compared with 8% of similarly situated people who didn’t receive funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072190\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072190\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260127-SUPERBOWLHOMELESSNESS-11-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jacob Miles pets the dogs he helps care for after moving his belongings from Merlin Street to nearby Fifth Street in San Francisco on Jan. 27, 2026, following a scheduled encampment sweep. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Los Angeles County, people helped by the Homelessness Prevention Unit were \u003ca href=\"https://capolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/HPU-Early-Outcomes-Report.pdf\">71% less likely\u003c/a> to later end up in a homeless shelter or use street outreach services. As in Santa Clara County, the overall rates of homelessness are still small: Less than 2% of people enrolled in the program became homeless and used street or shelter services within 18 months, compared to a little more than 6% of people in similar circumstances but not enrolled in the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County’s tool is unique because it \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/03/california-homeless-los-angeles-ai/\">uses AI to predict\u003c/a> who is most likely to become homeless. Participants don’t apply to the program. If the AI model picks them out, program staff cold-call them and invite them to participate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county is still testing the program, and a detailed analysis is expected next year. In the meantime, local leaders have thrown their support behind it. The county recently poured additional Measure A funding into the program, and is launching a new prevention program focused on young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feeding off the momentum generated by these efforts, a bill introduced this year would require the state to establish a statewide homelessness prevention strategy by July 2027. The state is expecting a budget deficit this year, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1924\">Assembly Bill 1924\u003c/a> doesn’t come with funding. But supporters say it’s still a step forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now that we have proven models from the Bay Area and LA, we believe that it’s time for the state to be doing more to articulate goals and strategies for having a prevention program, with the hope that in the future if there’s more budget surplus those strategies could get better funding,” said Irene Farnsworth, director of regional homelessness prevention for All Home, which is co-sponsoring the bill by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/jesse-gabriel-160858\">Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel\u003c/a>, a Democrat from Encino.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘They won’t just leave you hanging’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Desiré Campusano knows how to hustle. She’s crashed with relatives when she couldn’t afford rent and worked multiple jobs at once. But in 2021, something unexpected happened: She became an emergency foster parent to two of her young relatives. She felt herself foundering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s when she found Santa Clara County’s homelessness prevention program. It helped her stay afloat as she navigated moving into her own apartment in Milpitas, changing jobs and suddenly becoming a single guardian to two children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She asked for help twice that year, once receiving her full rent payment of $1,575, and once receiving $1,000 to help her get by. The next year, her rent increased and she asked for help each time she couldn’t quite make the payment — for example when the kids got COVID and couldn’t go to day care, so she had to miss work and not get paid. She got help four times that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d be fine for a month or two, and then I’d need it again,” Campusano said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, her rent went up again and she had to move out. She went to stay with her godfather in Hollister, but that meant a grueling commute to San Jose for work every day. Then, at the start of 2025, Campusano moved into a subsidized apartment in San Jose. The county’s homelessness prevention program helped her secure the apartment by paying her first and last month’s rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That ongoing support was a gamechanger for Campusano, who finally feels like she’s back on her feet. She’s now teaching sociology and Mexican-American history at San Jose City College.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They won’t just leave you hanging,” she said. “They’ll make sure you feel stable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2026/03/homelessness-prevention-pilot/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Shareyourstory\">\u003c/a>California is expensive. Share your story of how you get by\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe\n src='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header?embedded=true'\n title='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header'\n width='760' height='500'\n frameborder='0'\n marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "scott-wiener-passed-laws-making-it-easier-to-build-in-california-can-he-do-the-same-in-congress",
"title": "Scott Wiener Passed Laws Making It Easier to Build in California. Can He Do the Same in Congress?",
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"headTitle": "Scott Wiener Passed Laws Making It Easier to Build in California. Can He Do the Same in Congress? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the shaded courtyard of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> affordable housing complex in early March, California’s most prolific Yes In My Backyard legislator rolled out his congressional campaign’s new housing platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/scott-wiener\">Sen. Scott Wiener\u003c/a>, it was all very on brand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flanked by union construction workers, campaign volunteers and some of the YIMBY advocates who have been on “Team Wiener” since his days on the city’s Board of Supervisors, Wiener ticked through the housing policy highlights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The package was a mix of hyperambitious spending proposals — the type that rarely make it beyond campaign literature — wonky left-of-center objectives and a raft of the kind of pro-development, deregulatory proposals upon which Wiener has built his political reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposals to cut red tape might seem an odd fit for Congress, which has historically steered clear of local land-use and construction rules. Wiener was happy to address the apparent mismatch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was also an area, first of all, that the state traditionally was not involved in — and we changed that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/100724_Senate-Special_FG_CM_07-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A small group of people face each other as they talk on the side of a room, where other people gather for a hearing.\">\u003cfigcaption>Left to right, State senators Scott Wiener, Henry Stern, and Benjamin Allen talk before the start of the Senate floor session at the Capitol Annex Swing Space in Sacramento on Oct. 7, 2024. (Fred Greaves/CalMatters)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since Wiener joined the state Senate in 2017, California’s legislature has undergone a historic pivot on housing. Majorities now embrace the notion, at least rhetorically, that the state has an active role to play in promoting the construction of more homes, even if that means bigfooting local governments and neighborhood groups. More so than any other legislator, Wiener has been the hinge of that pivot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The question now is whether Wiener, if elected, could help orchestrate the same feat of political reengineering in Congress, given its longstanding aversion to legislating on his policy issue of choice — or, as is increasingly the case, to doing much of anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Where everything good goes to die’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On the one hand, of course Wiener wants to go to Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision last year to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/11/california-nancy-pelosi-retirement/\">step aside\u003c/a> after holding the seat for nearly four decades created a once-in-a-generation opportunity in San Francisco, a city brimming with Democratic political talent and few empty rungs further up the electoral ladder. Wiener has been a professional politician going on 16 years and is possessed of a professional politician’s career ambitions. He’s also termed out of the state legislature in 2028. When he announced his candidacy \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/10/scott-wiener-nancy-pelosi-election/\">last October\u003c/a>, it was a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/us/politics/pelosi-house-race-san-francisco.html\">well-foreshadowed\u003c/a> decision that caught virtually no one in the political world by surprise.[aside postID=news_12076862 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/031826-Wiener-Tan-KQED.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand … really, Congress?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the legislative branch of the federal government is not a body known for its productivity, Wiener is an exceptionally productive lawmaker. He is the rare California state legislator who can plausibly claim a degree of public name recognition not just outside of his district, but outside the state. That’s in part thanks to his knack for taking up \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/scott-wiener-right-wing-hatred-17880318.php\">searingly controversial\u003c/a>, headline-baiting bills – \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/12/controversial-bills-california-legislature/#:~:text=Lots%20to%20say%20about%20ICE%20agent%20masks\">banning ICE agents from wearing masks\u003c/a>, decriminalizing \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/digital-democracy/2024/02/wiener-waldron-psychedelic-alliance/\">psychedelics\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/12/new-ai-regulation/\">regulating AI\u003c/a>, forcing corporations to publicize their \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/09/california-corporate-climate-impacts-bill/\">carbon footprints\u003c/a> and repealing penalties for activities \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/02/us/california-prostitution-loitering-law\">related to sex work\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s also because he has a habit of actually getting a lot of them passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://thelawmakers.org/\">Center for Effective Lawmaking\u003c/a>, run jointly out of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, regularly rank lawmakers on a “State Legislative Effectiveness Score” based on the number of bills authored, how far those bills go and how substantive they are. In California’s Senate last legislative session, Wiener came first, and has spent his entire Senate tenure in the top five.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener has been particularly effective at pushing legislation aimed at boosting the construction of new housing. He has authored bills to speed up the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb423\">building of apartment buildings\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_201720180sb828\">tighten the screws\u003c/a> on uncooperative local governments and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2025/06/california-budget-sweeping-environmental-law-rollbacks-manufacturing/\">limit environmental review\u003c/a> for new development. In an ideological grand finale last year, Gov. Newsom signed a Wiener bill that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/10/newsom-signs-massive-california-housing-overhaul/\">legalizes mid-rise apartments\u003c/a> around major public transportation stops. That’s been a policy priority of Wiener’s since his \u003ca href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/scott-wiener-defeated-californias-nimbys-can-he-fix-americas-housing-crisis/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CScott%20responded%2C%20%E2%80%98I%E2%80%99ll%20take%20it%2C%E2%80%99%E2%80%9D%20Hanlon%20says\">first year\u003c/a> in the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might be some time before anyone can say conclusively whether those bills have actually resulted in significantly more homes getting built or if the state has become more affordable as a result. But love him as the state’s most prolific housing champion or hate him as a developer shill — there are plenty who fall into either camp — no one can deny that Wiener gets bills passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress, where he hopes to serve, does not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By some measures, 2025 may be \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/17/us/politics/house-republicans-majority-productivity.html\">among the least productive years\u003c/a> in recent congressional memory and legislative productivity has been on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics\">downward slope\u003c/a> for decades. That makes it an odd place for Wiener to take his next career step.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I gave him that same speech when he was running for state Senate,” said Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action and longtime Wiener ally, describing Wiener’s 2016 legislative run while still on the San Francisco board. “I was like ‘Scott, the state is a garbage hole. You’re gonna leave us here when we’re actually making some progress here locally. You’re gonna go up to the state level where everything good goes to die.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So there’s a lesson learned there,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener pushed back on the caricature of a “Do Nothing” Congress, pointing to an expansion of the Child Tax Credit during the pandemic and massive clean energy spending programs enacted under the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is Congress a tough place? Absolutely. But am I excited about the prospect of being able to take our work federal? I’m very excited about that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/012325_Capitol-Session_FG_CM_35-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A lawmaker, wearing a light blue suit and patterned tie, stands in front of a microphone, while surrounded by other lawmakers sitting at their desks inside a legislative room of the state Capitol.\">\u003cfigcaption>State Sen. Scott Wiener addresses lawmakers during a Senate floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Jan. 23, 2025. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He also stressed that his plan would not be to simply re-run his state legislative playbook at the federal level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the state level, what we learned and acted on was that the state has dramatic power to shape zoning and permitting,” he said. But other barriers, like the high cost of construction, a relative shortage of construction workers and costly financing, are well within Congress’ wheelhouse, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other big ticket items from his platform include the creation of a federal revolving loan fund for mixed-income “\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/affordable-housing-montgomery-county.html\">social housing\u003c/a>” projects, a proposed boost in funding for rental assistance programs and more federal support for trade schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The proposals that I’m making for Congress strongly complement the land use reforms at the state level,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are also some Wiener classics in the mix. They include tweaking construction regulations and building codes to allow for cheaper development, rewriting the National Environmental Policy Act so that it won’t impede “climate friendly housing” and the creating a “Prohousing Incentive Fund” to reward the governments of localities where more housing is getting built.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Is Congress going YIMBY?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Congress does appear to be coming around slowly to Wiener’s view on housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year-and-a-half ago, a bipartisan group of House members formed the chamber’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook/2024/11/21/scoop-the-yimbys-are-coming-to-congress-00190812\">first YIMBY Caucus\u003c/a>. No coincidence that many of them, like Democratic co-chairs Robert Garcia from Long Beach and Scott Peters from San Diego, hail from California, the political \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/585765/golden-gates-by-conor-dougherty/\">birthplace\u003c/a> of the movement and Patient Zero of what has now become a national housing affordability crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>California is an expensive place to live. Are you feeling the pinch? \u003ca href=\"#Shareyourstory\">Share your story\u003c/a> with KQED by leaving us a voicemail at \u003ca href=\"tel:4155532115\">415-553-2115\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\">clicking here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“California is a little ahead of the curve because we had our crisis hit 10 years ago,” said Rep. Laura Friedman, a Burbank Democrat and former Assemblymember who ran for Congress under the YIMBY mantle in 2024. It’s only in the last few years that once-affordable refuges across the country are \u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/06/zoning-sun-belt-housing-shortage/683352/\">starting to look a bit Californian\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leading the pack in unaffordability also gave California’s lawmakers an early headstart in trying to tackle the problem, she said. “California has become a testing ground for a lot of these solutions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed what is widely seen as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/us/politics/senate-housing-bill.html\">largest housing bill\u003c/a> in a generation. The legislation includes \u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/whats-in-the-21st-century-road-to-housing-act/\">measures\u003c/a> that would be at home in Wiener’s platform, including tying federal grants to local housing production and adding new tools to speed up or bypass federal environmental review. (The House still needs to pass the bill.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill represents an unusual development in Congress, where housing was thought of as a “silent crisis,” said Dennis Shea, who oversees housing policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington D.C.-based thinktank. “Now you can’t go a day without being bombarded by three or four stories about housing affordability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As in California, housing has become an issue that cuts across partisan and ideological lines, making it one of the more dealmaking-friendly topics in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Housing has been a bit of an island of bipartisanship in a sea of division,” said Shea. Case in point: The Senate bill is co-authored by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive, and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, policymaking in Congress looks a little different than it does in Sacramento, said Friedman, who served in the Assembly between 2016 and 2024. That can make it challenging for former state lawmakers eager to pick up where they left off in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/032016-Scott-Wiener-Campaign-BC-CM-01-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A candidate speaks at a podium during a campaign event while supporters stand behind them holding “Scott Wiener for Congress” signs. The group gathers outside a residential building under a clear sky.\">\u003cfigcaption>State Sen. Scott Wiener speaks to supporters during a campaign event at an affordable senior housing complex in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood, on March 9, 2026. (Ben Christopher/CalMatters)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The skills are transferable because the skills are really about building consensus, but also being strategic about how you can get things moved through. But the process is much harder,” she said. A Democrat in the much smaller California legislature can expect most of their bills to at least get a hearing. Not so in Congress, said Friedman, which has five times the membership and where leadership plays a more assertive role in elevating or throttling legislative proposals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The flavor of housing policy is a bit different too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, lawmakers have passed a raft of bills over the last decade, steamrolling the preferences and prerogatives of local governments over issues of development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The federal government has never played that role,” said David Garcia, deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. Nor is it likely to anytime soon. The bill awaiting a vote in the House is heavy on carrots and light on sticks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, it remains unusual in its aim to promote new housing construction more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The speed with which it has become accepted that the federal government should do more on supply is shocking,” Garcia said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Good timing, it would seem, for California’s YIMBY-in-chief to run for Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/03/scott-wiener-congress-legislation/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Shareyourstory\">\u003c/a>California is expensive. Share your story of how you get by\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Scott Wiener has a reputation for producing and passing a lot of legislation. Congress has a reputation for doing nothing. If elected, will Wiener get housing laws passed at a national level?",
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"title": "Scott Wiener Passed Laws Making It Easier to Build in California. Can He Do the Same in Congress? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the shaded courtyard of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> affordable housing complex in early March, California’s most prolific Yes In My Backyard legislator rolled out his congressional campaign’s new housing platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/scott-wiener\">Sen. Scott Wiener\u003c/a>, it was all very on brand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flanked by union construction workers, campaign volunteers and some of the YIMBY advocates who have been on “Team Wiener” since his days on the city’s Board of Supervisors, Wiener ticked through the housing policy highlights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The package was a mix of hyperambitious spending proposals — the type that rarely make it beyond campaign literature — wonky left-of-center objectives and a raft of the kind of pro-development, deregulatory proposals upon which Wiener has built his political reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposals to cut red tape might seem an odd fit for Congress, which has historically steered clear of local land-use and construction rules. Wiener was happy to address the apparent mismatch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was also an area, first of all, that the state traditionally was not involved in — and we changed that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/100724_Senate-Special_FG_CM_07-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A small group of people face each other as they talk on the side of a room, where other people gather for a hearing.\">\u003cfigcaption>Left to right, State senators Scott Wiener, Henry Stern, and Benjamin Allen talk before the start of the Senate floor session at the Capitol Annex Swing Space in Sacramento on Oct. 7, 2024. (Fred Greaves/CalMatters)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since Wiener joined the state Senate in 2017, California’s legislature has undergone a historic pivot on housing. Majorities now embrace the notion, at least rhetorically, that the state has an active role to play in promoting the construction of more homes, even if that means bigfooting local governments and neighborhood groups. More so than any other legislator, Wiener has been the hinge of that pivot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The question now is whether Wiener, if elected, could help orchestrate the same feat of political reengineering in Congress, given its longstanding aversion to legislating on his policy issue of choice — or, as is increasingly the case, to doing much of anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Where everything good goes to die’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On the one hand, of course Wiener wants to go to Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision last year to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/11/california-nancy-pelosi-retirement/\">step aside\u003c/a> after holding the seat for nearly four decades created a once-in-a-generation opportunity in San Francisco, a city brimming with Democratic political talent and few empty rungs further up the electoral ladder. Wiener has been a professional politician going on 16 years and is possessed of a professional politician’s career ambitions. He’s also termed out of the state legislature in 2028. When he announced his candidacy \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/10/scott-wiener-nancy-pelosi-election/\">last October\u003c/a>, it was a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/us/politics/pelosi-house-race-san-francisco.html\">well-foreshadowed\u003c/a> decision that caught virtually no one in the political world by surprise.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand … really, Congress?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the legislative branch of the federal government is not a body known for its productivity, Wiener is an exceptionally productive lawmaker. He is the rare California state legislator who can plausibly claim a degree of public name recognition not just outside of his district, but outside the state. That’s in part thanks to his knack for taking up \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/scott-wiener-right-wing-hatred-17880318.php\">searingly controversial\u003c/a>, headline-baiting bills – \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/12/controversial-bills-california-legislature/#:~:text=Lots%20to%20say%20about%20ICE%20agent%20masks\">banning ICE agents from wearing masks\u003c/a>, decriminalizing \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/digital-democracy/2024/02/wiener-waldron-psychedelic-alliance/\">psychedelics\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/12/new-ai-regulation/\">regulating AI\u003c/a>, forcing corporations to publicize their \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/09/california-corporate-climate-impacts-bill/\">carbon footprints\u003c/a> and repealing penalties for activities \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/02/us/california-prostitution-loitering-law\">related to sex work\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s also because he has a habit of actually getting a lot of them passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://thelawmakers.org/\">Center for Effective Lawmaking\u003c/a>, run jointly out of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, regularly rank lawmakers on a “State Legislative Effectiveness Score” based on the number of bills authored, how far those bills go and how substantive they are. In California’s Senate last legislative session, Wiener came first, and has spent his entire Senate tenure in the top five.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener has been particularly effective at pushing legislation aimed at boosting the construction of new housing. He has authored bills to speed up the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb423\">building of apartment buildings\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_201720180sb828\">tighten the screws\u003c/a> on uncooperative local governments and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2025/06/california-budget-sweeping-environmental-law-rollbacks-manufacturing/\">limit environmental review\u003c/a> for new development. In an ideological grand finale last year, Gov. Newsom signed a Wiener bill that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/10/newsom-signs-massive-california-housing-overhaul/\">legalizes mid-rise apartments\u003c/a> around major public transportation stops. That’s been a policy priority of Wiener’s since his \u003ca href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/scott-wiener-defeated-californias-nimbys-can-he-fix-americas-housing-crisis/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CScott%20responded%2C%20%E2%80%98I%E2%80%99ll%20take%20it%2C%E2%80%99%E2%80%9D%20Hanlon%20says\">first year\u003c/a> in the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might be some time before anyone can say conclusively whether those bills have actually resulted in significantly more homes getting built or if the state has become more affordable as a result. But love him as the state’s most prolific housing champion or hate him as a developer shill — there are plenty who fall into either camp — no one can deny that Wiener gets bills passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress, where he hopes to serve, does not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By some measures, 2025 may be \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/17/us/politics/house-republicans-majority-productivity.html\">among the least productive years\u003c/a> in recent congressional memory and legislative productivity has been on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics\">downward slope\u003c/a> for decades. That makes it an odd place for Wiener to take his next career step.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I gave him that same speech when he was running for state Senate,” said Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action and longtime Wiener ally, describing Wiener’s 2016 legislative run while still on the San Francisco board. “I was like ‘Scott, the state is a garbage hole. You’re gonna leave us here when we’re actually making some progress here locally. You’re gonna go up to the state level where everything good goes to die.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So there’s a lesson learned there,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener pushed back on the caricature of a “Do Nothing” Congress, pointing to an expansion of the Child Tax Credit during the pandemic and massive clean energy spending programs enacted under the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is Congress a tough place? Absolutely. But am I excited about the prospect of being able to take our work federal? I’m very excited about that,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/012325_Capitol-Session_FG_CM_35-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A lawmaker, wearing a light blue suit and patterned tie, stands in front of a microphone, while surrounded by other lawmakers sitting at their desks inside a legislative room of the state Capitol.\">\u003cfigcaption>State Sen. Scott Wiener addresses lawmakers during a Senate floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Jan. 23, 2025. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He also stressed that his plan would not be to simply re-run his state legislative playbook at the federal level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the state level, what we learned and acted on was that the state has dramatic power to shape zoning and permitting,” he said. But other barriers, like the high cost of construction, a relative shortage of construction workers and costly financing, are well within Congress’ wheelhouse, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other big ticket items from his platform include the creation of a federal revolving loan fund for mixed-income “\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/affordable-housing-montgomery-county.html\">social housing\u003c/a>” projects, a proposed boost in funding for rental assistance programs and more federal support for trade schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The proposals that I’m making for Congress strongly complement the land use reforms at the state level,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are also some Wiener classics in the mix. They include tweaking construction regulations and building codes to allow for cheaper development, rewriting the National Environmental Policy Act so that it won’t impede “climate friendly housing” and the creating a “Prohousing Incentive Fund” to reward the governments of localities where more housing is getting built.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Is Congress going YIMBY?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Congress does appear to be coming around slowly to Wiener’s view on housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year-and-a-half ago, a bipartisan group of House members formed the chamber’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook/2024/11/21/scoop-the-yimbys-are-coming-to-congress-00190812\">first YIMBY Caucus\u003c/a>. No coincidence that many of them, like Democratic co-chairs Robert Garcia from Long Beach and Scott Peters from San Diego, hail from California, the political \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/585765/golden-gates-by-conor-dougherty/\">birthplace\u003c/a> of the movement and Patient Zero of what has now become a national housing affordability crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>California is an expensive place to live. Are you feeling the pinch? \u003ca href=\"#Shareyourstory\">Share your story\u003c/a> with KQED by leaving us a voicemail at \u003ca href=\"tel:4155532115\">415-553-2115\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\">clicking here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“California is a little ahead of the curve because we had our crisis hit 10 years ago,” said Rep. Laura Friedman, a Burbank Democrat and former Assemblymember who ran for Congress under the YIMBY mantle in 2024. It’s only in the last few years that once-affordable refuges across the country are \u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/06/zoning-sun-belt-housing-shortage/683352/\">starting to look a bit Californian\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leading the pack in unaffordability also gave California’s lawmakers an early headstart in trying to tackle the problem, she said. “California has become a testing ground for a lot of these solutions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed what is widely seen as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/us/politics/senate-housing-bill.html\">largest housing bill\u003c/a> in a generation. The legislation includes \u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/whats-in-the-21st-century-road-to-housing-act/\">measures\u003c/a> that would be at home in Wiener’s platform, including tying federal grants to local housing production and adding new tools to speed up or bypass federal environmental review. (The House still needs to pass the bill.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill represents an unusual development in Congress, where housing was thought of as a “silent crisis,” said Dennis Shea, who oversees housing policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington D.C.-based thinktank. “Now you can’t go a day without being bombarded by three or four stories about housing affordability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As in California, housing has become an issue that cuts across partisan and ideological lines, making it one of the more dealmaking-friendly topics in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Housing has been a bit of an island of bipartisanship in a sea of division,” said Shea. Case in point: The Senate bill is co-authored by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive, and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, policymaking in Congress looks a little different than it does in Sacramento, said Friedman, who served in the Assembly between 2016 and 2024. That can make it challenging for former state lawmakers eager to pick up where they left off in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/032016-Scott-Wiener-Campaign-BC-CM-01-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A candidate speaks at a podium during a campaign event while supporters stand behind them holding “Scott Wiener for Congress” signs. The group gathers outside a residential building under a clear sky.\">\u003cfigcaption>State Sen. Scott Wiener speaks to supporters during a campaign event at an affordable senior housing complex in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood, on March 9, 2026. (Ben Christopher/CalMatters)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The skills are transferable because the skills are really about building consensus, but also being strategic about how you can get things moved through. But the process is much harder,” she said. A Democrat in the much smaller California legislature can expect most of their bills to at least get a hearing. Not so in Congress, said Friedman, which has five times the membership and where leadership plays a more assertive role in elevating or throttling legislative proposals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The flavor of housing policy is a bit different too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, lawmakers have passed a raft of bills over the last decade, steamrolling the preferences and prerogatives of local governments over issues of development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The federal government has never played that role,” said David Garcia, deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. Nor is it likely to anytime soon. The bill awaiting a vote in the House is heavy on carrots and light on sticks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, it remains unusual in its aim to promote new housing construction more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The speed with which it has become accepted that the federal government should do more on supply is shocking,” Garcia said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Good timing, it would seem, for California’s YIMBY-in-chief to run for Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/03/scott-wiener-congress-legislation/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Shareyourstory\">\u003c/a>California is expensive. Share your story of how you get by\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe\n src='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header?embedded=true'\n title='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header'\n width='760' height='500'\n frameborder='0'\n marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Gary Parkinson waited at the end of the line in San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/tenderloin\">Tenderloin \u003c/a>neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and others waited for their turn at a little window, like one where you might pick up fast food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The window is a post office, but not one where Parkinson can buy stamps or mail a letter. It’s the U.S. Postal Service \u003ca href=\"https://tools.usps.com/locations/details/1492402\">General Delivery Unit\u003c/a> — a mail service where people who don’t have a permanent address can pick up mail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Two weeks ago in the hospital, I lost my — I had two IDs, I lost them both, and my phone,” he said. “So I’m hoping it’s come in the mail.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson hoped to find out if his replacement driver’s license had arrived. He uses General Delivery’s address — 391 Ellis St. — on his license because, like most patrons in line here, he does not have an address of his own. He’s been unhoused for the better part of 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson, 65, has lived in various vehicles for the past year, and currently parks his van a couple of miles away in the Bayview neighborhood. He’s been using General Delivery to get his mail for as long as it’s been open: a decade. Before moving to San Francisco about 25 years ago, Parkinson grew up in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077126\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-03-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-03-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-03-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-03-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A line outside of the San Francisco General Delivery in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco on March 10, 2026. The service allows people without a permanent address to receive mail by picking it up at the post office. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I started out as a professional foosball player,” he said, “traveling the country. It was great. It almost got super big, but it died off. I went into sales and marketing before I gave up the desire for money.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson said he now lives on his social security benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So, getting my information on that’s really important cause they’ll cut you off if you don’t respond,” he said. “So this has been important for that, to have an address that’s consistent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unhoused people need an address to stay on other government services, too — like food stamps.[aside postID=news_12051236 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250626-GRANTSPASSDECISIONANNI-03-BL-KQED.jpg']Kay waited in line ahead of Parkinson in her hiking boots, her grey hair pulled back with a clip. She didn’t want to share her last name. She’s a fan of General Delivery, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s great,” Kay said. “It’s a way to safely get your mail. And you don’t have to pay for it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>General Delivery is a free service. To get their mail, patrons slip their IDs through a small hole in the thick plexiglass window. A USPS clerk inside searches for their mail and delivers stacks of letters and packages through a small, transparent door on one side of the window.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Before post offices did delivery, this was the original way,” Kay said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Formed in 1775, the postal system predates the U.S. But free home delivery didn’t start in cities until the 1860s, and began even later in rural areas. So for decades, people went to the post office to pick up their mail. General Delivery service has evolved since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Usually, the General Delivery is in the main post office for a city,” Kay said. “Here, it’s kind of unique. It’s the first one I’ve ever seen like this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because standalone General Delivery locations like this one are rare. In most parts of the United States, General Delivery is a service offered at designated post offices, not an entire dedicated branch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Tenderloin, its services are in demand; the district is home to nearly 2000 unhoused residents. General Delivery is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. And from the moment this post office opens, it is busy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-04-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-04-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-04-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-04-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">USPS employee Robert Tapia works at San Francisco General Delivery on March 10, 2026. The service allows people without a permanent address to receive mail by picking it up at the post office. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s like nonstop,” USPS clerk Robert Tapia said. “Ever since I opened the door, it’s like no break, nonstop, keep going and going and going.\u003cstrong>”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tapia is 44, and his freckled face is quick to smile. He described the types of mail that patrons commonly receive here: IDs, bills, phones and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of course, from the first of the month, it’s checks,” Tapia said. “Like social security checks. And if it’s not here, I have to be able to tell them it hasn’t arrived yet. It feels bad ‘cause I want to give them their mail. And I know they could be homeless, and they depend on the money.”[aside postID=news_12065083 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/wmn-afrofuturism-gallery-03-2000x1337.jpg']Tapia has only worked at General Delivery for around six months, but he’s starting to build relationships with his regular customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s one lady, I don’t even need to see her ID because I know her face,” Tapia said. “There are also some customers whom I’m gonna go check again. Even though I know their mail’s not there, I just go the extra mile to do a thorough look for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mail addressed to 391 Ellis St. is held for pickup for 30 days before it’s returned to the sender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After 20 minutes, Parkinson reached the front of the line. He carried a tablet, which he flashed at Tapia through the window. The screen showed a photo of his lost driver’s license, which lists the General Delivery address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tapia disappeared into the mailroom, where he examined a wall full of alphabetized slots, some stuffed with mail. He returned with a stack of a dozen letters for Parkinson, which he delivered through the tiny door in the window. Parkinson flipped through them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Credit union, Social Security Administration, City of Oakland. No driver’s license.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson then spied a hand-addressed envelope in his stack. It was a letter from Zuckerberg, San Francisco General Hospital, where he lost his ID. Parkinson opens it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077131\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077131\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-16-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-16-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-16-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-16-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco General Delivery in the Tenderloin neighborhood on March 10, 2026. The service allows people without a permanent address to receive mail by picking it up at the post office. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Notice of Unclaimed Valuables: You left your phone and California ID,” he read. “This is great news. I figured maybe someone threw it away. But they had it all along. Woo! I’m going to get them right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson started to head off, but turned back around and began to recite a poem he said he wrote about 20 years ago:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I’m dreaming of the day \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>That we can get away \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>From all our pains and sorrows. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sunshine replacing \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The rains of our tomorrows.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cradling his stack of letters, Gary Parkinson crossed the street, walking out of the shade and into the sun. He’s off to the hospital to collect his once-lost belongings — now found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Erin Bump is a radio reporter and podcast producer living in San Francisco. Find more of her work at \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://kalw.org\">\u003cem>kalw.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> or in the Century Lives podcast feed.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Gary Parkinson waited at the end of the line in San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/tenderloin\">Tenderloin \u003c/a>neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and others waited for their turn at a little window, like one where you might pick up fast food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The window is a post office, but not one where Parkinson can buy stamps or mail a letter. It’s the U.S. Postal Service \u003ca href=\"https://tools.usps.com/locations/details/1492402\">General Delivery Unit\u003c/a> — a mail service where people who don’t have a permanent address can pick up mail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Two weeks ago in the hospital, I lost my — I had two IDs, I lost them both, and my phone,” he said. “So I’m hoping it’s come in the mail.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson hoped to find out if his replacement driver’s license had arrived. He uses General Delivery’s address — 391 Ellis St. — on his license because, like most patrons in line here, he does not have an address of his own. He’s been unhoused for the better part of 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson, 65, has lived in various vehicles for the past year, and currently parks his van a couple of miles away in the Bayview neighborhood. He’s been using General Delivery to get his mail for as long as it’s been open: a decade. Before moving to San Francisco about 25 years ago, Parkinson grew up in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077126\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-03-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-03-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-03-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-03-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A line outside of the San Francisco General Delivery in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco on March 10, 2026. The service allows people without a permanent address to receive mail by picking it up at the post office. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I started out as a professional foosball player,” he said, “traveling the country. It was great. It almost got super big, but it died off. I went into sales and marketing before I gave up the desire for money.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson said he now lives on his social security benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So, getting my information on that’s really important cause they’ll cut you off if you don’t respond,” he said. “So this has been important for that, to have an address that’s consistent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unhoused people need an address to stay on other government services, too — like food stamps.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Kay waited in line ahead of Parkinson in her hiking boots, her grey hair pulled back with a clip. She didn’t want to share her last name. She’s a fan of General Delivery, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s great,” Kay said. “It’s a way to safely get your mail. And you don’t have to pay for it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>General Delivery is a free service. To get their mail, patrons slip their IDs through a small hole in the thick plexiglass window. A USPS clerk inside searches for their mail and delivers stacks of letters and packages through a small, transparent door on one side of the window.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Before post offices did delivery, this was the original way,” Kay said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Formed in 1775, the postal system predates the U.S. But free home delivery didn’t start in cities until the 1860s, and began even later in rural areas. So for decades, people went to the post office to pick up their mail. General Delivery service has evolved since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Usually, the General Delivery is in the main post office for a city,” Kay said. “Here, it’s kind of unique. It’s the first one I’ve ever seen like this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because standalone General Delivery locations like this one are rare. In most parts of the United States, General Delivery is a service offered at designated post offices, not an entire dedicated branch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Tenderloin, its services are in demand; the district is home to nearly 2000 unhoused residents. General Delivery is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. And from the moment this post office opens, it is busy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-04-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-04-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-04-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-04-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">USPS employee Robert Tapia works at San Francisco General Delivery on March 10, 2026. The service allows people without a permanent address to receive mail by picking it up at the post office. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s like nonstop,” USPS clerk Robert Tapia said. “Ever since I opened the door, it’s like no break, nonstop, keep going and going and going.\u003cstrong>”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tapia is 44, and his freckled face is quick to smile. He described the types of mail that patrons commonly receive here: IDs, bills, phones and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of course, from the first of the month, it’s checks,” Tapia said. “Like social security checks. And if it’s not here, I have to be able to tell them it hasn’t arrived yet. It feels bad ‘cause I want to give them their mail. And I know they could be homeless, and they depend on the money.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Tapia has only worked at General Delivery for around six months, but he’s starting to build relationships with his regular customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s one lady, I don’t even need to see her ID because I know her face,” Tapia said. “There are also some customers whom I’m gonna go check again. Even though I know their mail’s not there, I just go the extra mile to do a thorough look for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mail addressed to 391 Ellis St. is held for pickup for 30 days before it’s returned to the sender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After 20 minutes, Parkinson reached the front of the line. He carried a tablet, which he flashed at Tapia through the window. The screen showed a photo of his lost driver’s license, which lists the General Delivery address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tapia disappeared into the mailroom, where he examined a wall full of alphabetized slots, some stuffed with mail. He returned with a stack of a dozen letters for Parkinson, which he delivered through the tiny door in the window. Parkinson flipped through them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Credit union, Social Security Administration, City of Oakland. No driver’s license.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson then spied a hand-addressed envelope in his stack. It was a letter from Zuckerberg, San Francisco General Hospital, where he lost his ID. Parkinson opens it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077131\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077131\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-16-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-16-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-16-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260310-UnhousedMail-16-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco General Delivery in the Tenderloin neighborhood on March 10, 2026. The service allows people without a permanent address to receive mail by picking it up at the post office. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Notice of Unclaimed Valuables: You left your phone and California ID,” he read. “This is great news. I figured maybe someone threw it away. But they had it all along. Woo! I’m going to get them right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parkinson started to head off, but turned back around and began to recite a poem he said he wrote about 20 years ago:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I’m dreaming of the day \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>That we can get away \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>From all our pains and sorrows. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sunshine replacing \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The rains of our tomorrows.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cradling his stack of letters, Gary Parkinson crossed the street, walking out of the shade and into the sun. He’s off to the hospital to collect his once-lost belongings — now found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Erin Bump is a radio reporter and podcast producer living in San Francisco. Find more of her work at \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://kalw.org\">\u003cem>kalw.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> or in the Century Lives podcast feed.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> City Council voted Tuesday to explore converting the city’s largest interim housing community into permanent housing — just days after officials moved to terminate the city’s contract with the site’s operators, following a staff member’s arrest on drug charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Councilmember Pamela Campos, whose district hosts the shelter, led the charge to pursue the conversion of the Branham Lane Emergency Interim Housing Community from a transitional shelter into permanent low-income housing. The transition would prioritize residents over age 55 and people with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move follows the March 9 arrest of LifeMoves caseworker Yasmin Wright, 46, outside the site for allegedly selling methamphetamine to residents, as first reported by \u003ca href=\"https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-ends-homeless-shelter-contract-amid-worker-drug-charges/\">San José Spotlight\u003c/a>. LifeMoves, one of the most prominent shelter operators and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12073006/once-a-last-stop-for-the-citys-homeless-sfo-ramps-up-outreach-and-support\">homelessness outreach nonprofits\u003c/a> in the Bay Area, has come under fire for its failure to investigate Wright, who faces felony charges for possession with intent to sell and for transporting drugs, as well as a misdemeanor for drug paraphernalia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vote came during a broader budget discussion that drew hundreds of residents to City Hall. The three-story modular site in South San José, which currently houses more than 200 people, has become a flashpoint for neighbors concerned about safety and site management.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12042370/in-san-jose-a-controversial-choice-for-unhoused-shelter-or-arrest\">Issa Ajlouny\u003c/a>, who chairs the community advisory committee for the site, said nearly 100 community members submitted emails in support of the transition. Neighborhood resident Lisa Doyle echoed those concerns during public comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We sincerely appreciate an expedited change in operator and approval process so our quality of life, public safety and property values can be restored,” Doyle said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076666\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076666\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260316-SJ-SHELTER-FOLO-MD-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260316-SJ-SHELTER-FOLO-MD-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260316-SJ-SHELTER-FOLO-MD-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260316-SJ-SHELTER-FOLO-MD-03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The LifeMoves Branham Lane, the largest temporary housing site in San José, on March 16, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Margie, a former resident who gave only their first name, told the council the site had been mismanaged and called on the city to pull funding from the current program because of “unprofessional” conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s Housing Department said that while a formal notice ending the contract has not yet been issued to LifeMoves, the intent has been communicated directly to the nonprofit’s leadership. Current residents will continue to receive on-site services and support throughout the transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LifeMoves said in a statement it first learned of the city’s position during a meeting with neighbors — not from city officials directly — and has since requested a meeting with the Housing Department.[aside postID=news_12076238 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/020526SJ-Tiny-Homes_GH_013_qed.jpg']“Our first priority remains the well-being and stability of the clients currently residing at the Branham Lane community and all of our 25 sites,” LifeMoves said. The nonprofit added that it is conducting an “organization-wide risk assessment” and a thorough review of internal processes following the arrest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The modular site at Branham Lane and Monterey Road opened in early 2025 and serves up to 216 people across 204 units, all of which include full bathrooms and kitchenettes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://lifemoves.org/city-of-san-jose-and-lifemoves-unveil-citys-largest-interim-housing-community/\">LifeMoves website\u003c/a>, the project was funded through a $51.8 million state Project Homekey grant, $38.8 million from the city, $4 million from Santa Clara County and $5 million from the Sobrato Foundation. The site was designed and built with the long-term possibility of conversion to permanent housing, according to the city’s Housing Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Campos directed the city manager to update the status of the transition by Aug. 31.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The directive was folded into Mayor Matt Mahan’s annual March budget message, which sets city priorities for the coming fiscal year. Mahan said the process of finding a new operator is already underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Interim housing sites exist to help vulnerable residents get back on a better path,” Mahan said Tuesday in an emailed statement. “Hearing allegations that someone entrusted with their care took advantage of them is an egregious violation of trust. We’ve already begun the process to transfer operations of this site to a provider capable of meeting the standards our residents and neighbors deserve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan added that he hopes to have a new operator in place before the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> City Council voted Tuesday to explore converting the city’s largest interim housing community into permanent housing — just days after officials moved to terminate the city’s contract with the site’s operators, following a staff member’s arrest on drug charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Councilmember Pamela Campos, whose district hosts the shelter, led the charge to pursue the conversion of the Branham Lane Emergency Interim Housing Community from a transitional shelter into permanent low-income housing. The transition would prioritize residents over age 55 and people with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move follows the March 9 arrest of LifeMoves caseworker Yasmin Wright, 46, outside the site for allegedly selling methamphetamine to residents, as first reported by \u003ca href=\"https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-ends-homeless-shelter-contract-amid-worker-drug-charges/\">San José Spotlight\u003c/a>. LifeMoves, one of the most prominent shelter operators and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12073006/once-a-last-stop-for-the-citys-homeless-sfo-ramps-up-outreach-and-support\">homelessness outreach nonprofits\u003c/a> in the Bay Area, has come under fire for its failure to investigate Wright, who faces felony charges for possession with intent to sell and for transporting drugs, as well as a misdemeanor for drug paraphernalia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vote came during a broader budget discussion that drew hundreds of residents to City Hall. The three-story modular site in South San José, which currently houses more than 200 people, has become a flashpoint for neighbors concerned about safety and site management.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12042370/in-san-jose-a-controversial-choice-for-unhoused-shelter-or-arrest\">Issa Ajlouny\u003c/a>, who chairs the community advisory committee for the site, said nearly 100 community members submitted emails in support of the transition. Neighborhood resident Lisa Doyle echoed those concerns during public comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We sincerely appreciate an expedited change in operator and approval process so our quality of life, public safety and property values can be restored,” Doyle said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076666\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076666\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260316-SJ-SHELTER-FOLO-MD-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260316-SJ-SHELTER-FOLO-MD-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260316-SJ-SHELTER-FOLO-MD-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260316-SJ-SHELTER-FOLO-MD-03-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The LifeMoves Branham Lane, the largest temporary housing site in San José, on March 16, 2026. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Margie, a former resident who gave only their first name, told the council the site had been mismanaged and called on the city to pull funding from the current program because of “unprofessional” conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s Housing Department said that while a formal notice ending the contract has not yet been issued to LifeMoves, the intent has been communicated directly to the nonprofit’s leadership. Current residents will continue to receive on-site services and support throughout the transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LifeMoves said in a statement it first learned of the city’s position during a meeting with neighbors — not from city officials directly — and has since requested a meeting with the Housing Department.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Our first priority remains the well-being and stability of the clients currently residing at the Branham Lane community and all of our 25 sites,” LifeMoves said. The nonprofit added that it is conducting an “organization-wide risk assessment” and a thorough review of internal processes following the arrest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The modular site at Branham Lane and Monterey Road opened in early 2025 and serves up to 216 people across 204 units, all of which include full bathrooms and kitchenettes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://lifemoves.org/city-of-san-jose-and-lifemoves-unveil-citys-largest-interim-housing-community/\">LifeMoves website\u003c/a>, the project was funded through a $51.8 million state Project Homekey grant, $38.8 million from the city, $4 million from Santa Clara County and $5 million from the Sobrato Foundation. The site was designed and built with the long-term possibility of conversion to permanent housing, according to the city’s Housing Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Campos directed the city manager to update the status of the transition by Aug. 31.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The directive was folded into Mayor Matt Mahan’s annual March budget message, which sets city priorities for the coming fiscal year. Mahan said the process of finding a new operator is already underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Interim housing sites exist to help vulnerable residents get back on a better path,” Mahan said Tuesday in an emailed statement. “Hearing allegations that someone entrusted with their care took advantage of them is an egregious violation of trust. We’ve already begun the process to transfer operations of this site to a provider capable of meeting the standards our residents and neighbors deserve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan added that he hopes to have a new operator in place before the end of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "congress-advanced-some-major-housing-reforms-heres-how-it-could-impact-california",
"title": "Congress Advanced Some Major Housing Reforms. Here’s How It Could Impact California",
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"headTitle": "Congress Advanced Some Major Housing Reforms. Here’s How It Could Impact California | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>As California’s housing crisis spreads across the country, Congress is finalizing a package of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/housing\">bills \u003c/a>to forestall the worst of the Golden State’s fate by proposing what some national experts say are among the most significant federal housing reforms in years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed bills attack the country’s housing shortage at multiple angles: from innovating construction methods to simplifying federal programs to encouraging localities to plan for more housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in many cases, they emulate laws California has already enacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local housing activists say Congress’ bills are unlikely to result in big changes here, but that some could support California’s goal of building \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/05/14/governor-newsom-unveils-proposal-to-cut-red-tape-and-fast-track-housing-and-development/\">2.5 million homes by 2030\u003c/a> by jumpstarting construction innovation and further streamlining existing laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The federal government could be doing a lot more to really put the pedal to the metal, but this is a good first step,” said Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075046\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075046\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/251007-sacramentomiddlehousing_00240_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/251007-sacramentomiddlehousing_00240_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/251007-sacramentomiddlehousing_00240_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/251007-sacramentomiddlehousing_00240_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Middle housing units are under construction at 2824 D St. in Sacramento on Oct. 7, 2025. Developers are reviving “middle housing” such as duplexes and cottage clusters, but say California’s rollout of the new rules has been anything but smooth. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Both the House and Senate have been working on bipartisan bill packages since last year, which were consolidated \u003ca href=\"https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/scott-warren-release-21st-century-road-to-housing-act-legislative-package-to-boost-housing-supply-and-bring-down-costs\">earlier this month\u003c/a> into the \u003ca href=\"https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/MIR26311.pdf\">21st Century ROAD to Housing Act\u003c/a>. Last week, the Senate approved the package, but House leaders have called for a conference to discuss changes to the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the center of the debate is a recently added provision, which limits large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, a proposed rule President Donald \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/13/housing-deal-faces-new-hurdle-as-trump-pushes-investor-ban-00779021\">Trump requested in February\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Friday, he announced his own set of reforms: two executive orders aiming to tackle both supply and demand. One order seeks to \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-removes-regulatory-barriers-to-affordable-home-construction/\">remove regulatory barriers, such as green building mandates, from\u003c/a> permitting requirements, while the other \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-promotes-access-to-mortgage-credit/\">loosens mortgage lending regulations\u003c/a> for community banks, according to the White House’s fact sheets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California experts say, should Congress’ suite of bills pass, it could amplify or complement efforts locally in some of the key areas they say have been clogging the housing production pipeline for years: old construction methods, lengthy environmental reviews and outdated regulations.[aside postID=news_12075689 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/RibbonCutting.jpg']Reforming some of those outdated federal regulations could help boost the state’s factory-built housing industry, which local lawmakers are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075043/its-expensive-to-build-housing-california-lawmakers-say-factory-built-is-the-future\">paying close attention\u003c/a> to this year. Congress’ package includes multiple provisions to improve financing for modular housing and removes \u003ca href=\"https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/COMPS-10382\">outdated safety standard\u003c/a>s that industry experts argue makes manufactured housing more expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, the federal regulations could work in lockstep with local bills encouraging modular and factory-built housing construction across California. State Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, a Democrat from Berkeley, plans to soon introduce a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075043/its-expensive-to-build-housing-california-lawmakers-say-factory-built-is-the-future\">package of state bills\u003c/a> aimed at the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Dworkin, CEO of the National Housing Conference, a housing advocacy coalition, said Congress’ focus on modular housing could also help Californian communities rebuild faster after a wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can tell you right now, if [Congress passes] this, people in California are gonna see it immediately in places like Altadena and other communities that were devastated by these fires,” he said. “It’s gonna significantly improve the ability to create housing off-site and design it so that it matches the existing architecture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068866\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068866\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction workers build at 750 Golden Gate Ave., in San Francisco, on June 18, 2025, during a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of two affordable housing projects. One will deliver 75 units prioritized for SFUSD and City College educators, and the other at 850 Turk will add 92 family apartments. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He also noted parts of the federal package were inspired by California’s recently passed laws \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046558/california-lawmakers-approve-major-overhaul-of-landmark-environmental-law\">streamlining state environmental reviews\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal package proposes similar streamlining under its national counterpart, the National Environmental Policy Act, for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/6644/text#H9CB10B2CEB434513B2CF9AE36E3688E1\">number of federally funded projects\u003c/a>, including infill housing, small-scale construction and rehabilitation work. Dworkin said those changes were more palatable for Congressional progressives because of the reforms California already enacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“President Trump would never say this,” Dworkin said, “but I think that Gov. [Gavin] Newsom gets to pat himself on the back on this one.”[aside postID=news_12075043 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/026_KQED_Vallejo_FactoryOS_08062020_qed.jpg']The federal legislation could also complement California laws like AB 609, which exempts infill housing from state environmental review, by exempting those projects from national review as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other recently passed California laws could get a boost from Congress’ package, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059533/newsom-signs-ambitious-bill-to-boost-housing-density-near-public-transit\">SB 79\u003c/a>, which encourages dense housing near busy bus stops and train stations. That law could work in tandem with Congress’ package, which would reward projects built near public transit with easier access to federal funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed federal bills could also help California develop housing more quickly by encouraging localities to approve standardized designs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tara Roche, project director for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ housing policy initiative, pointed to a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1332\">2023 California law\u003c/a> that required cities and counties to create pre-approved designs for accessory dwelling units (ADUs), also known as in-law units or granny flats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress’ bill takes that a step further by offering grants to local governments to develop a similar type of “pattern book” for ADUs, as well as for duplexes and townhomes. Roche said that could speed approval timelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, California housing advocates say the bill package could go further to penalize cities and counties that don’t want to allow more housing. Foote said she doesn’t think the bills “will greatly change the incentives for cities” in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12059485\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12059485\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251007-SACRAMENTOMIDDLEHOUSING_00195_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251007-SACRAMENTOMIDDLEHOUSING_00195_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251007-SACRAMENTOMIDDLEHOUSING_00195_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251007-SACRAMENTOMIDDLEHOUSING_00195_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A site of new middle housing units is under construction at 2824 D St. in Sacramento on Oct. 7, 2025. Developers are reviving “middle housing” such as duplexes and cottage clusters, but say California’s rollout of the new rules has been anything but smooth. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This doesn’t have a lot of sticks,” she said. “This is all carrots.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area Congressman Sam Liccardo, D-16, sponsored two of the bills that became part of the House’s package, which focus on making it easier to build affordable and infill housing with federal dollars. He said the reality of these bills is that they “will marginally reduce the cost of construction,” but said every dollar counts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, he said, the fact that Congress was able to agree on something is in itself commendable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a group of modest improvements on housing policy,” he said. “We need to do far more, and we need to go far faster, but I think we should celebrate a first step.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As California’s housing crisis spreads across the country, Congress is finalizing a package of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/housing\">bills \u003c/a>to forestall the worst of the Golden State’s fate by proposing what some national experts say are among the most significant federal housing reforms in years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed bills attack the country’s housing shortage at multiple angles: from innovating construction methods to simplifying federal programs to encouraging localities to plan for more housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in many cases, they emulate laws California has already enacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local housing activists say Congress’ bills are unlikely to result in big changes here, but that some could support California’s goal of building \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/05/14/governor-newsom-unveils-proposal-to-cut-red-tape-and-fast-track-housing-and-development/\">2.5 million homes by 2030\u003c/a> by jumpstarting construction innovation and further streamlining existing laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The federal government could be doing a lot more to really put the pedal to the metal, but this is a good first step,” said Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075046\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075046\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/251007-sacramentomiddlehousing_00240_TV_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/251007-sacramentomiddlehousing_00240_TV_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/251007-sacramentomiddlehousing_00240_TV_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/251007-sacramentomiddlehousing_00240_TV_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Middle housing units are under construction at 2824 D St. in Sacramento on Oct. 7, 2025. Developers are reviving “middle housing” such as duplexes and cottage clusters, but say California’s rollout of the new rules has been anything but smooth. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Both the House and Senate have been working on bipartisan bill packages since last year, which were consolidated \u003ca href=\"https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/scott-warren-release-21st-century-road-to-housing-act-legislative-package-to-boost-housing-supply-and-bring-down-costs\">earlier this month\u003c/a> into the \u003ca href=\"https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/MIR26311.pdf\">21st Century ROAD to Housing Act\u003c/a>. Last week, the Senate approved the package, but House leaders have called for a conference to discuss changes to the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the center of the debate is a recently added provision, which limits large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, a proposed rule President Donald \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/13/housing-deal-faces-new-hurdle-as-trump-pushes-investor-ban-00779021\">Trump requested in February\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Friday, he announced his own set of reforms: two executive orders aiming to tackle both supply and demand. One order seeks to \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-removes-regulatory-barriers-to-affordable-home-construction/\">remove regulatory barriers, such as green building mandates, from\u003c/a> permitting requirements, while the other \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-promotes-access-to-mortgage-credit/\">loosens mortgage lending regulations\u003c/a> for community banks, according to the White House’s fact sheets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California experts say, should Congress’ suite of bills pass, it could amplify or complement efforts locally in some of the key areas they say have been clogging the housing production pipeline for years: old construction methods, lengthy environmental reviews and outdated regulations.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Reforming some of those outdated federal regulations could help boost the state’s factory-built housing industry, which local lawmakers are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075043/its-expensive-to-build-housing-california-lawmakers-say-factory-built-is-the-future\">paying close attention\u003c/a> to this year. Congress’ package includes multiple provisions to improve financing for modular housing and removes \u003ca href=\"https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/COMPS-10382\">outdated safety standard\u003c/a>s that industry experts argue makes manufactured housing more expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, the federal regulations could work in lockstep with local bills encouraging modular and factory-built housing construction across California. State Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, a Democrat from Berkeley, plans to soon introduce a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075043/its-expensive-to-build-housing-california-lawmakers-say-factory-built-is-the-future\">package of state bills\u003c/a> aimed at the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Dworkin, CEO of the National Housing Conference, a housing advocacy coalition, said Congress’ focus on modular housing could also help Californian communities rebuild faster after a wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can tell you right now, if [Congress passes] this, people in California are gonna see it immediately in places like Altadena and other communities that were devastated by these fires,” he said. “It’s gonna significantly improve the ability to create housing off-site and design it so that it matches the existing architecture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068866\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068866\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction workers build at 750 Golden Gate Ave., in San Francisco, on June 18, 2025, during a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of two affordable housing projects. One will deliver 75 units prioritized for SFUSD and City College educators, and the other at 850 Turk will add 92 family apartments. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He also noted parts of the federal package were inspired by California’s recently passed laws \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046558/california-lawmakers-approve-major-overhaul-of-landmark-environmental-law\">streamlining state environmental reviews\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal package proposes similar streamlining under its national counterpart, the National Environmental Policy Act, for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/6644/text#H9CB10B2CEB434513B2CF9AE36E3688E1\">number of federally funded projects\u003c/a>, including infill housing, small-scale construction and rehabilitation work. Dworkin said those changes were more palatable for Congressional progressives because of the reforms California already enacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“President Trump would never say this,” Dworkin said, “but I think that Gov. [Gavin] Newsom gets to pat himself on the back on this one.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The federal legislation could also complement California laws like AB 609, which exempts infill housing from state environmental review, by exempting those projects from national review as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other recently passed California laws could get a boost from Congress’ package, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059533/newsom-signs-ambitious-bill-to-boost-housing-density-near-public-transit\">SB 79\u003c/a>, which encourages dense housing near busy bus stops and train stations. That law could work in tandem with Congress’ package, which would reward projects built near public transit with easier access to federal funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed federal bills could also help California develop housing more quickly by encouraging localities to approve standardized designs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tara Roche, project director for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ housing policy initiative, pointed to a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1332\">2023 California law\u003c/a> that required cities and counties to create pre-approved designs for accessory dwelling units (ADUs), also known as in-law units or granny flats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress’ bill takes that a step further by offering grants to local governments to develop a similar type of “pattern book” for ADUs, as well as for duplexes and townhomes. Roche said that could speed approval timelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, California housing advocates say the bill package could go further to penalize cities and counties that don’t want to allow more housing. Foote said she doesn’t think the bills “will greatly change the incentives for cities” in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12059485\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12059485\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251007-SACRAMENTOMIDDLEHOUSING_00195_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251007-SACRAMENTOMIDDLEHOUSING_00195_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251007-SACRAMENTOMIDDLEHOUSING_00195_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251007-SACRAMENTOMIDDLEHOUSING_00195_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A site of new middle housing units is under construction at 2824 D St. in Sacramento on Oct. 7, 2025. Developers are reviving “middle housing” such as duplexes and cottage clusters, but say California’s rollout of the new rules has been anything but smooth. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This doesn’t have a lot of sticks,” she said. “This is all carrots.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area Congressman Sam Liccardo, D-16, sponsored two of the bills that became part of the House’s package, which focus on making it easier to build affordable and infill housing with federal dollars. He said the reality of these bills is that they “will marginally reduce the cost of construction,” but said every dollar counts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, he said, the fact that Congress was able to agree on something is in itself commendable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a group of modest improvements on housing policy,” he said. “We need to do far more, and we need to go far faster, but I think we should celebrate a first step.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "san-jose-council-advances-plan-to-spread-homeless-shelters-citywide",
"title": "San José Council Advances Plan to Spread Homeless Shelters Citywide",
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"headTitle": "San José Council Advances Plan to Spread Homeless Shelters Citywide | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>San José leaders are considering a plan to spread future shelters for people experiencing homelessness across the city, in response to complaints from some residents about the concentration of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072999/tiny-homes-big-ambitions-matt-mahans-run-for-governor-spotlights-his-shelter-strategy\">interim housing\u003c/a> in Downtown and South San José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://sanjose.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=15287745&GUID=E76CE262-AB90-4E36-B09E-1A3079B0EB10\">proposal\u003c/a>, unanimously approved Wednesday by the city council’s Rules and Open Government Committee, directs San José’s city manager to craft a policy to “decrease clustering” of future Emergency Interim Housing developments, typically communities of tiny homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The call for geographic equity mirrors a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050263/a-new-san-francisco-plan-would-spread-out-homeless-shelters-more-evenly\">similar push\u003c/a> in San Francisco, which enacted a policy last year to limit new shelter construction in certain neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San José recently completed a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072666/san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-wants-to-be-governor-heres-a-look-into-his-signature-homelessness-program\">rapid expansion\u003c/a> of temporary shelter, opening nearly 2,200 shelter spots across nearly two dozen tiny home villages, converted motels and RV parking lots. But even after the ambitious buildout, many neighborhoods — including upscale West San José and Evergreen — have no shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a staff memo, while previous city councils have approved policies referencing “equitable distribution” of shelters, the idea has never been codified into law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076281\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076281\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/250529-SJArrestShelterVote-25-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/250529-SJArrestShelterVote-25-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/250529-SJArrestShelterVote-25-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/250529-SJArrestShelterVote-25-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Via del Oro interim housing community in San José on May 29, 2025, developed by DignityMoves in partnership with the city. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Issa Ajlouny, who leads a neighborhood advisory committee for an interim housing site in South San José, said he pushed the council to consider a siting policy after reading a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059460/bay-area-cities-expand-homeless-shelters-winning-over-neighbors-is-the-hard-part\">KQED story\u003c/a> on the topic. Ajlouny and other supporters argue it is unfair that some neighborhoods aren’t part of a solution to a citywide problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just common sense,” Ajlouny said in an interview. “It keeps the integrity of what the city of San José officials have stated they were going to do, and it’s just the fair thing to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It remains to be seen whether the San José policy will require shelter in new neighborhoods — or simply restrict additional temporary housing near existing sites.[aside postID=news_12075812 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260202-SuperBowlOpeningNight-08-BL_qed.jpg']While the expansion of shelter into new parts of the city could garner neighborhood opposition, homeless advocates fear geographic equity plans implicitly promote the idea that shelters are a “burden” on local communities. Mayors, including Daniel Lurie in San Francisco and Matt Mahan in San José, have warned that such ordinances slow the process of bringing people indoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059460/bay-area-cities-expand-homeless-shelters-winning-over-neighbors-is-the-hard-part\">interview\u003c/a> last year, Mahan said a restriction on new shelter in South San José would have prevented the city from opening Via del Oro, a tiny home development on land donated by a private developer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you create a straitjacket through policy, you start missing opportunities,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Supervisor Bilal Mahmood first introduced San Francisco’s policy, it mandated a new temporary housing or behavioral health care facility in each supervisorial district by mid-2026. But after opposition from Lurie, the bill was amended to only \u003ca href=\"https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/o0172-25.pdf\">restrict new shelters\u003c/a> in neighborhoods where the number of existing beds exceeds the number of unhoused residents — and even that restriction can be paused by a board vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072538\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072538\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_025-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_025-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_025-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_025-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction workers continue building units at the Cerone Interim Housing Community on Feb. 5, 2026, in San José. The interim housing site is expected to house up to 200 people. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In San José, the opening of new shelters could be years away. A construction sprint that added 1,000 beds in 2025 finished last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Wednesday’s hearing, Councilmember Domingo Candelas questioned whether a siting policy is worth staff time now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I also want to be realistic given the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075812/mahan-calls-for-belt-tightening-in-san-jose-budget-plan\">$56 million deficit\u003c/a> that we are facing and the reality that the administration on numerous occasions has come back and said we are not in expansion mode at all whatsoever,” Candelas said at Wednesday’s meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Vice Mayor Pam Foley, who co-authored the proposal, argued it’s not too early for the city to think about its next phase of shelter construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unsheltered homelessness in San José decreased by 10% between 2023 and 2025, but last year’s point-in-time count found nearly 4,000 people were still without shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072535\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072535\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_014-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_014-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_014-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_014-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The interior of a finished tiny home is seen through an open doorway at the Cerone Interim Housing Community on Feb. 5, 2026, in San José. Each unit includes a bed, storage space and basic furnishings for residents transitioning out of homelessness. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’ve already said as a council that we’re not moving forward with any more EIH [Emergency Interim Housing] at the time,” Foley said. “The idea is in the future, when we do make that decision, that we look at districts that do not have EIHs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lori Katcher, a resident who spoke at the meeting on behalf of the civil rights group Standing Up for Racial Justice, said the policy could be especially valuable for people who fall into homelessness in neighborhoods without existing shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know that homelessness can befall anyone in any part of our city, and to have safe places for folks to go wherever they are living, near to where they are living, is very important,” Katcher said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A city committee approved a proposal that aims to spread future interim housing sites across the city. San Francisco enacted a similar law last year. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San José leaders are considering a plan to spread future shelters for people experiencing homelessness across the city, in response to complaints from some residents about the concentration of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072999/tiny-homes-big-ambitions-matt-mahans-run-for-governor-spotlights-his-shelter-strategy\">interim housing\u003c/a> in Downtown and South San José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://sanjose.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=15287745&GUID=E76CE262-AB90-4E36-B09E-1A3079B0EB10\">proposal\u003c/a>, unanimously approved Wednesday by the city council’s Rules and Open Government Committee, directs San José’s city manager to craft a policy to “decrease clustering” of future Emergency Interim Housing developments, typically communities of tiny homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The call for geographic equity mirrors a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050263/a-new-san-francisco-plan-would-spread-out-homeless-shelters-more-evenly\">similar push\u003c/a> in San Francisco, which enacted a policy last year to limit new shelter construction in certain neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San José recently completed a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12072666/san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-wants-to-be-governor-heres-a-look-into-his-signature-homelessness-program\">rapid expansion\u003c/a> of temporary shelter, opening nearly 2,200 shelter spots across nearly two dozen tiny home villages, converted motels and RV parking lots. But even after the ambitious buildout, many neighborhoods — including upscale West San José and Evergreen — have no shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a staff memo, while previous city councils have approved policies referencing “equitable distribution” of shelters, the idea has never been codified into law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12076281\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12076281\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/250529-SJArrestShelterVote-25-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/250529-SJArrestShelterVote-25-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/250529-SJArrestShelterVote-25-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/250529-SJArrestShelterVote-25-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Via del Oro interim housing community in San José on May 29, 2025, developed by DignityMoves in partnership with the city. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Issa Ajlouny, who leads a neighborhood advisory committee for an interim housing site in South San José, said he pushed the council to consider a siting policy after reading a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059460/bay-area-cities-expand-homeless-shelters-winning-over-neighbors-is-the-hard-part\">KQED story\u003c/a> on the topic. Ajlouny and other supporters argue it is unfair that some neighborhoods aren’t part of a solution to a citywide problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just common sense,” Ajlouny said in an interview. “It keeps the integrity of what the city of San José officials have stated they were going to do, and it’s just the fair thing to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It remains to be seen whether the San José policy will require shelter in new neighborhoods — or simply restrict additional temporary housing near existing sites.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While the expansion of shelter into new parts of the city could garner neighborhood opposition, homeless advocates fear geographic equity plans implicitly promote the idea that shelters are a “burden” on local communities. Mayors, including Daniel Lurie in San Francisco and Matt Mahan in San José, have warned that such ordinances slow the process of bringing people indoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059460/bay-area-cities-expand-homeless-shelters-winning-over-neighbors-is-the-hard-part\">interview\u003c/a> last year, Mahan said a restriction on new shelter in South San José would have prevented the city from opening Via del Oro, a tiny home development on land donated by a private developer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you create a straitjacket through policy, you start missing opportunities,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Supervisor Bilal Mahmood first introduced San Francisco’s policy, it mandated a new temporary housing or behavioral health care facility in each supervisorial district by mid-2026. But after opposition from Lurie, the bill was amended to only \u003ca href=\"https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/o0172-25.pdf\">restrict new shelters\u003c/a> in neighborhoods where the number of existing beds exceeds the number of unhoused residents — and even that restriction can be paused by a board vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072538\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072538\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_025-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_025-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_025-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_025-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction workers continue building units at the Cerone Interim Housing Community on Feb. 5, 2026, in San José. The interim housing site is expected to house up to 200 people. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In San José, the opening of new shelters could be years away. A construction sprint that added 1,000 beds in 2025 finished last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Wednesday’s hearing, Councilmember Domingo Candelas questioned whether a siting policy is worth staff time now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I also want to be realistic given the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075812/mahan-calls-for-belt-tightening-in-san-jose-budget-plan\">$56 million deficit\u003c/a> that we are facing and the reality that the administration on numerous occasions has come back and said we are not in expansion mode at all whatsoever,” Candelas said at Wednesday’s meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Vice Mayor Pam Foley, who co-authored the proposal, argued it’s not too early for the city to think about its next phase of shelter construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unsheltered homelessness in San José decreased by 10% between 2023 and 2025, but last year’s point-in-time count found nearly 4,000 people were still without shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072535\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072535\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_014-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_014-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_014-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/020526SJ-TINY-HOMES_GH_014-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The interior of a finished tiny home is seen through an open doorway at the Cerone Interim Housing Community on Feb. 5, 2026, in San José. Each unit includes a bed, storage space and basic furnishings for residents transitioning out of homelessness. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’ve already said as a council that we’re not moving forward with any more EIH [Emergency Interim Housing] at the time,” Foley said. “The idea is in the future, when we do make that decision, that we look at districts that do not have EIHs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lori Katcher, a resident who spoke at the meeting on behalf of the civil rights group Standing Up for Racial Justice, said the policy could be especially valuable for people who fall into homelessness in neighborhoods without existing shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know that homelessness can befall anyone in any part of our city, and to have safe places for folks to go wherever they are living, near to where they are living, is very important,” Katcher said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "campbell-fast-tracks-townhome-development-first-in-state",
"title": "Campbell Fast-tracks Townhome Development, First in State",
"publishDate": 1772895602,
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"headTitle": "Campbell Fast-tracks Townhome Development, First in State | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>A Campbell townhome complex that broke ground on Friday tests \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11970993/these-new-california-housing-laws-are-going-into-effect-in-2024\">a 2023 state law\u003c/a> designed to fast-track small-scale homeownership opportunities for middle-income families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The six-unit Mercury Lane Townhomes, located at 300 Redding Road in Campbell, is believed to be the first construction under \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB684\">SB 684\u003c/a>, a state law known as California’s Starter Home Revitalization Act, state Sen. Anna Caballero said Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SB 684 streamlines permitting for qualified projects that have two to ten units, like Mercury Lane, bypassing the public hearings and environmental reviews typically required for a new development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Units are expected to be completed in early 2027 with projected prices starting at around $1.15 million — well below the median home price in Campbell, which exceeds $1.8 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s event represents progress, partnership and practical solutions to California’s housing shortage,” said Caballero, who authored the bill, at the Friday groundbreaking ceremony. “Proof that smart policy can translate into real homes for real families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075717\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075717\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The lot at 300 Redding Road in Campbell, where the Mercury Lane Townhomes will be built. Construction broke ground on Friday, March 6, 2026. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of AlphaX RE Capital)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nolan Gray, California YIMBY’s senior director of legislation and research, said the bill was designed to mitigate the lengthy approval process that otherwise \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965492/san-francisco-takes-forever-to-approve-new-housing-california-officials-are-forcing-change\">slows down\u003c/a> construction across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11985468/map-what-you-need-to-earn-to-afford-a-median-priced-home-in-your-county-in-california\">Homeownership in California\u003c/a> has become increasingly out of reach, as the state holds the second-lowest homeownership rate in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s median home price is roughly eight times higher than the state’s median household income. Homeownership has skewed older, with younger buyers often banking on inherited wealth or property to get a foothold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You essentially need intergenerational wealth to become a homeowner, or you have to sort of morbidly wait for your parents to pass away and inherit their home,” said Gray.[aside postID=news_12075043 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/026_KQED_Vallejo_FactoryOS_08062020_qed.jpg']“This is not how we’re going to build the next generation of middle-class California families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under standard permitting, projects can face months or years of discretionary review, environmental analysis and potential litigation, Gray said. SB 684 created what is known as ministerial review — meaning if a project meets the legal requirements, it must be approved within 60 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s impossible to scale housing production as long as you have these sorts of delays,” Gray said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Campbell Mayor Daniel Furtado said projects like Mercury Lane are precisely what the city needs. Campbell, a city of about 47,000 in Santa Clara County, already has roughly equal shares of single-family and multi-family housing. Campbell is the first city in Santa Clara County with a state-certified housing plan and a pro-housing designation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project’s developer, AlphaX RE Capital, is a Silicon Valley firm that has used new state housing laws to build more than 500 units. In this case, the company submitted its application under SB 684 in January 2025 and received approval eight months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ruby Huo, a director at the firm, said the streamlined process led to a viable project that would have otherwise been financially unworkable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075718\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075718\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Stephanie-Yi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Stephanie-Yi.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Stephanie-Yi-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Stephanie-Yi-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stephanie Yi, founder and CEO of AlphaX RE Capital, speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for Mercury Lane Townhomes in Campbell on Friday, March 6, 2026. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of AlphaX RE Capital)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Huo said the streamlined review process helped the developer and builder reduce the holding and financing costs. Each unit will range from roughly 1,400 to nearly 2,000 square feet, with floor plans offering three or four bedrooms and two-car garages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AlphaX said that midway through construction, it plans to open an interest list for buyers, with a focus on younger families and first-time buyers. Huo said the firm is already using the same state law as it works on about 20 similar projects across the Bay Area, including four additional developments in Campbell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California YIMBY’s Muhammad Alameldin noted that while 60-day approval is a meaningful step forward, housing advocates would like to see more aggressive policy changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our goal here is for homes to be approved within 24 hours, just like it is in many other states,” he said. “This is a good start, but we’re in a housing crisis, and we’re treating it like a crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A Campbell townhome complex that broke ground on Friday tests \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11970993/these-new-california-housing-laws-are-going-into-effect-in-2024\">a 2023 state law\u003c/a> designed to fast-track small-scale homeownership opportunities for middle-income families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The six-unit Mercury Lane Townhomes, located at 300 Redding Road in Campbell, is believed to be the first construction under \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB684\">SB 684\u003c/a>, a state law known as California’s Starter Home Revitalization Act, state Sen. Anna Caballero said Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SB 684 streamlines permitting for qualified projects that have two to ten units, like Mercury Lane, bypassing the public hearings and environmental reviews typically required for a new development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Units are expected to be completed in early 2027 with projected prices starting at around $1.15 million — well below the median home price in Campbell, which exceeds $1.8 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s event represents progress, partnership and practical solutions to California’s housing shortage,” said Caballero, who authored the bill, at the Friday groundbreaking ceremony. “Proof that smart policy can translate into real homes for real families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075717\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075717\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Site-Aerial-Photo-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The lot at 300 Redding Road in Campbell, where the Mercury Lane Townhomes will be built. Construction broke ground on Friday, March 6, 2026. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of AlphaX RE Capital)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nolan Gray, California YIMBY’s senior director of legislation and research, said the bill was designed to mitigate the lengthy approval process that otherwise \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965492/san-francisco-takes-forever-to-approve-new-housing-california-officials-are-forcing-change\">slows down\u003c/a> construction across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11985468/map-what-you-need-to-earn-to-afford-a-median-priced-home-in-your-county-in-california\">Homeownership in California\u003c/a> has become increasingly out of reach, as the state holds the second-lowest homeownership rate in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s median home price is roughly eight times higher than the state’s median household income. Homeownership has skewed older, with younger buyers often banking on inherited wealth or property to get a foothold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You essentially need intergenerational wealth to become a homeowner, or you have to sort of morbidly wait for your parents to pass away and inherit their home,” said Gray.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This is not how we’re going to build the next generation of middle-class California families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under standard permitting, projects can face months or years of discretionary review, environmental analysis and potential litigation, Gray said. SB 684 created what is known as ministerial review — meaning if a project meets the legal requirements, it must be approved within 60 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s impossible to scale housing production as long as you have these sorts of delays,” Gray said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Campbell Mayor Daniel Furtado said projects like Mercury Lane are precisely what the city needs. Campbell, a city of about 47,000 in Santa Clara County, already has roughly equal shares of single-family and multi-family housing. Campbell is the first city in Santa Clara County with a state-certified housing plan and a pro-housing designation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project’s developer, AlphaX RE Capital, is a Silicon Valley firm that has used new state housing laws to build more than 500 units. In this case, the company submitted its application under SB 684 in January 2025 and received approval eight months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ruby Huo, a director at the firm, said the streamlined process led to a viable project that would have otherwise been financially unworkable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075718\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075718\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Stephanie-Yi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Stephanie-Yi.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Stephanie-Yi-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Stephanie-Yi-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stephanie Yi, founder and CEO of AlphaX RE Capital, speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for Mercury Lane Townhomes in Campbell on Friday, March 6, 2026. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of AlphaX RE Capital)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Huo said the streamlined review process helped the developer and builder reduce the holding and financing costs. Each unit will range from roughly 1,400 to nearly 2,000 square feet, with floor plans offering three or four bedrooms and two-car garages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AlphaX said that midway through construction, it plans to open an interest list for buyers, with a focus on younger families and first-time buyers. Huo said the firm is already using the same state law as it works on about 20 similar projects across the Bay Area, including four additional developments in Campbell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California YIMBY’s Muhammad Alameldin noted that while 60-day approval is a meaningful step forward, housing advocates would like to see more aggressive policy changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our goal here is for homes to be approved within 24 hours, just like it is in many other states,” he said. “This is a good start, but we’re in a housing crisis, and we’re treating it like a crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "one-of-the-slowest-us-cities-to-build-san-francisco-is-accelerating-housing-permits",
"title": "One of the Slowest US Cities to Build, San Francisco Is Accelerating Housing Permits",
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"headTitle": "One of the Slowest US Cities to Build, San Francisco Is Accelerating Housing Permits | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12055982/supervisors-proposal-seeks-to-address-housing-death-spiral-in-san-francisco\">infamously slow\u003c/a> building permitting process may be getting faster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A city study published Thursday found that between January 2024 and August 2025, the timeline on permit approvals for new housing in San Francisco was cut by half — from an average of 605 days down to around 280 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And permit applications that were filed within that 19-month window had even shorter turnaround times, at 114 days on average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco has addressed much of the “low-hanging fruit” to speed up its operation over the last two years, said San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who commissioned the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, he said the city still has a backlog of years-old permit applications, and tens of thousands of entitled units without approval to build — issues he said could require a ballot measure to fix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re also now getting to this point where, despite all of those changes, we’re still the slowest city to build,” he said. “We have to now take a stab at the harder problems, including Charter reform, to enable us to be able to make those changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, city leaders have lambasted San Francisco’s permitting process as disjointed and archaic. And a state-commissioned report published in 2022 found that San Francisco was the slowest California jurisdiction to approve permit applications for housing projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051931\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051931\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-TNDC-UNION-MD-07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-TNDC-UNION-MD-07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-TNDC-UNION-MD-07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-TNDC-UNION-MD-07-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supervisor Bilal Mahmood speaks at an event celebrating the creation of a union by the workers at the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation at Boeddeker Park in San Francisco on Aug. 12, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2024, Mahmood campaigned on cutting red tape that made development in the city challenging — including a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12055982/supervisors-proposal-seeks-to-address-housing-death-spiral-in-san-francisco\">still-vacant former car wash\u003c/a> lot in his district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Daniel Lurie has also focused on improving the city’s buildability, launching his landmark ‘PermitSF’ initiative to centralize the application process last year. In February, his office introduced an online portal that allows people to apply for certain types of permits. The state also passed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965492/san-francisco-takes-forever-to-approve-new-housing-california-officials-are-forcing-change\">new laws in 2023\u003c/a> aimed at expediting the application review process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a marked improvement, Mahmood said the process still takes significantly longer than other cities analyzed in the report — including San Diego, where permitting approvals took an average of 134 days, and Austin, Texas, where the same process spanned just 91 days.[aside postID=news_12075043 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/026_KQED_Vallejo_FactoryOS_08062020_qed.jpg']“Yes, we’re getting faster at the ones we’re approving, but there’s still a lot that aren’t even approved,” he said. Mahmood said that the report’s timeline is based on about 740 permits approved in that time, but there’s a backlog of more than 1,300 applications that haven’t yet been issued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of those pending applications have been in the pipeline since 2017 — as of Oct. 29, the average number of days that those permits had been awaiting approval was 1,489 days, or more than four years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city also needs to allow for more than 80,000 new housing units by 2031, in line with the state’s mandate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, five city departments are involved in approving a permit application, with no single point of contact that oversees applications all the way from filing to permit issuance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some cases, one or more departments start their review process later than others, the report said, causing delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahmood said it can also be complicated for developers to communicate with the many departments and fulfill requests of each of their reviews.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the ways he’s proposed to ease these problems is by consolidating the number of departments involved in the process. In January, Lurie announced plans to merge the Planning Department, the Department of Building Inspection and Permit Center, an effort he said would “mean better coordination, time and cost savings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965531\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11965531 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The TransAmerica Pyramid peeks out behind wooden walls as workers construct two affordable housing developments in San Francisco in February 2020. \u003ccite>(Jessica Christian/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But to achieve that goal, Mahmood said, voters would need to approve reforms to the city’s charter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the charter outlines each department’s responsibilities. Mahmood said the ballot measure he’s considering would move those department responsibilities into the city’s administrative code, giving the Mayor and Board of Supervisors flexibility to restructure the departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That will help to fully realize that vision that the Mayor’s already announced,” he told KQED. Lurie and Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman also \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/news-mayor-lurie-president-mandelman-launch-effort-to-reform-bloated-outdated-city-charter-improve-services-for-san-franciscans\">launched plans in December\u003c/a> to reform the city’s charter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If he chooses to do so, Mahmood will have until June to submit a proposed ordinance, with the support of at least four members of the Board of Supervisors or the Mayor’s office, in time for the November election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In the last few years, San Francisco cut its new housing permit processing time in half, despite trailing U.S. cities like San Diego and Austin.",
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"title": "One of the Slowest US Cities to Build, San Francisco Is Accelerating Housing Permits | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12055982/supervisors-proposal-seeks-to-address-housing-death-spiral-in-san-francisco\">infamously slow\u003c/a> building permitting process may be getting faster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A city study published Thursday found that between January 2024 and August 2025, the timeline on permit approvals for new housing in San Francisco was cut by half — from an average of 605 days down to around 280 days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And permit applications that were filed within that 19-month window had even shorter turnaround times, at 114 days on average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco has addressed much of the “low-hanging fruit” to speed up its operation over the last two years, said San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who commissioned the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, he said the city still has a backlog of years-old permit applications, and tens of thousands of entitled units without approval to build — issues he said could require a ballot measure to fix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re also now getting to this point where, despite all of those changes, we’re still the slowest city to build,” he said. “We have to now take a stab at the harder problems, including Charter reform, to enable us to be able to make those changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, city leaders have lambasted San Francisco’s permitting process as disjointed and archaic. And a state-commissioned report published in 2022 found that San Francisco was the slowest California jurisdiction to approve permit applications for housing projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051931\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051931\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-TNDC-UNION-MD-07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-TNDC-UNION-MD-07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-TNDC-UNION-MD-07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250812-TNDC-UNION-MD-07-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Supervisor Bilal Mahmood speaks at an event celebrating the creation of a union by the workers at the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation at Boeddeker Park in San Francisco on Aug. 12, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2024, Mahmood campaigned on cutting red tape that made development in the city challenging — including a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12055982/supervisors-proposal-seeks-to-address-housing-death-spiral-in-san-francisco\">still-vacant former car wash\u003c/a> lot in his district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Daniel Lurie has also focused on improving the city’s buildability, launching his landmark ‘PermitSF’ initiative to centralize the application process last year. In February, his office introduced an online portal that allows people to apply for certain types of permits. The state also passed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965492/san-francisco-takes-forever-to-approve-new-housing-california-officials-are-forcing-change\">new laws in 2023\u003c/a> aimed at expediting the application review process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a marked improvement, Mahmood said the process still takes significantly longer than other cities analyzed in the report — including San Diego, where permitting approvals took an average of 134 days, and Austin, Texas, where the same process spanned just 91 days.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Yes, we’re getting faster at the ones we’re approving, but there’s still a lot that aren’t even approved,” he said. Mahmood said that the report’s timeline is based on about 740 permits approved in that time, but there’s a backlog of more than 1,300 applications that haven’t yet been issued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of those pending applications have been in the pipeline since 2017 — as of Oct. 29, the average number of days that those permits had been awaiting approval was 1,489 days, or more than four years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city also needs to allow for more than 80,000 new housing units by 2031, in line with the state’s mandate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, five city departments are involved in approving a permit application, with no single point of contact that oversees applications all the way from filing to permit issuance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some cases, one or more departments start their review process later than others, the report said, causing delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahmood said it can also be complicated for developers to communicate with the many departments and fulfill requests of each of their reviews.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the ways he’s proposed to ease these problems is by consolidating the number of departments involved in the process. In January, Lurie announced plans to merge the Planning Department, the Department of Building Inspection and Permit Center, an effort he said would “mean better coordination, time and cost savings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965531\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11965531 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1282775801-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The TransAmerica Pyramid peeks out behind wooden walls as workers construct two affordable housing developments in San Francisco in February 2020. \u003ccite>(Jessica Christian/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But to achieve that goal, Mahmood said, voters would need to approve reforms to the city’s charter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the charter outlines each department’s responsibilities. Mahmood said the ballot measure he’s considering would move those department responsibilities into the city’s administrative code, giving the Mayor and Board of Supervisors flexibility to restructure the departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That will help to fully realize that vision that the Mayor’s already announced,” he told KQED. Lurie and Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman also \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/news-mayor-lurie-president-mandelman-launch-effort-to-reform-bloated-outdated-city-charter-improve-services-for-san-franciscans\">launched plans in December\u003c/a> to reform the city’s charter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If he chooses to do so, Mahmood will have until June to submit a proposed ordinance, with the support of at least four members of the Board of Supervisors or the Mayor’s office, in time for the November election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-south-san-francisco-became-the-birthplace-of-biotechnology",
"title": "How South San Francisco Became the Birthplace of Biotechnology",
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"headTitle": "How South San Francisco Became the Birthplace of Biotechnology | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long before sleek \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11933882/beyond-vaccines-biotech-is-booming-in-the-bay-area-despite-a-cooling-economy\">biotech campuses\u003c/a> and venture capital arrived, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/south-san-francisco\">South San Francisco\u003c/a> had a very different identity. For much of the 20th century, it absorbed the Bay Area’s mess — industries that were noisy, dirty, politically inconvenient, or simply unwanted elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Slaughterhouses. Steel mills. Shipyards. Freight terminals. Businesses that needed elbow room and cheap land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1923, the city declared its role in giant white letters on a hillside above town: “South San Francisco The Industrial City.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“South San Francisco, like Emeryville, were industrial suburbs,” said Richard Walker, a professor emeritus of economic and urban geography at the University of California, Berkeley. “These were set up expressly to shelter industry from taxes, from protest, from labor, and they worked very effectively.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Town councils limited housing, zoned big swaths for heavy industry, and kept taxes and rules light. The idea was to park loud, polluting businesses far from residential neighborhoods — and make them easy to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075369\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075369\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1473\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED-160x118.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED-1536x1131.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aerial view of South San Francisco’s Sign Hill, circa 1930. \u003ccite>(Courtesy South San Francisco Public Library Local History Collection)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beyond town borders, the Bay Area as a whole was comfortable with risk and experimentation, a mindset that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You had a lot of young people, a lot of skilled workers, and a lot of capital,” Walker said of the Bay Area. “So this was an intellectual center, an industrial center, a capitalist center because of Bank of America.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A risk-tolerant region meets a risky science\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Those conditions mattered when a new science arrived in the 1970s. Biotechnology required not just smart people and money, but a tolerance for uncertainty and perceived risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists were learning how to cut and paste genes — editing code, but for living things. The technique, called recombinant DNA, made it possible to insert genetic instructions into bacteria and harness them to manufacture human hormones and medicines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early days, that power was both thrilling and unsettling. Scientists worried that engineered microbes could behave unpredictably — escape the lab, spread through air or water, or create entirely new biological risks they didn’t yet know how to contain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concerns were serious enough that, in 1975, many molecular biologists took an extraordinary step: they voluntarily halted their own research. About 150 scientists gathered at an oceanside retreat in Pacific Grove called Asilomar. For four days, they debated the dangers, negotiated boundaries, and ultimately agreed on a set of guidelines for conducting recombinant DNA research safely.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Public backlash\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>But then the public learned about what was happening inside labs. To some, tinkering with DNA felt apocalyptic because scientists might create new life they couldn’t control. News headlines leaned into worst-case scenarios: superbugs and lab accidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the era of the Andromeda Strain,” said Robin Wolfe Scheffler, historian of biology and medicine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[aside postID=news_12074947 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260221-SUNNYSIDECONSERVATORY00252_TV-KQED.jpg']Trust in science and government was low. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11861810/no-the-tuskegee-study-is-not-the-top-reason-some-black-americans-question-the-covid-19-vaccine\">Tuskegee syphilis study\u003c/a> had recently been exposed, revealing profound abuses. Americans were reckoning with the health impacts of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11617827/this-vietnam-paratrooper-was-exposed-to-agent-orange-today-he-lives-with-parkinsons\">Agent Orange\u003c/a>. Nuclear anxiety lingered after the meltdown at \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/three/\">Three Mile Island\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backlash spread quickly. Cities began debating whether they should regulate or ban genetic engineering. In Cambridge, Mass., officials considered outlawing it altogether. In Berkeley and San Francisco, protesters marched, chanting slogans like, “We will not be cloned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For researchers hoping to commercialize their discoveries, this created a bottleneck. Biotech startups needed large laboratories, sewer hookups, industrial equipment, and stable local rules. They needed places without residential neighbors ready to revolt. A place like South San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Proof of concept\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By the mid-1970s, South San Francisco’s leaders were actively searching for a new economic base. The steel mills were mostly gone. Meatpacking was shrinking. Shipping was slowing. When a young venture capitalist named Bob Swanson arrived with an idea that scared much of the country, they didn’t recoil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swanson was newly laid off from a venture capital firm and living in San Francisco, broke and uncertain about his future. Convinced biotechnology was poised to take off, he cold-called a scruffy, long-haired biochemist named Herbert Boyer at the University of California, San Francisco, who agreed to a 20-minute meeting on a Friday afternoon. The casual meeting was so successful that they decided to pool $1,000 and start a new company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074375\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074375\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Genentech headquarters at 1 DNA Way in South San Francisco on Feb. 23, 2026. South San Francisco was historically an industrial area, housing shipyards, slaughterhouses and a steel mill. Now it’s a biotech hub. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Swanson floated the name Herbob — for Herb and Bob. Boyer vetoed it and suggested Genentech, short for Genetic Engineering and Technology. More marketable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They couldn’t afford office space in San Francisco. Plus, keeping a private company inside UCSF’s public labs raised thorny questions about who owned the science. (Those tensions would later surface in a long-running patent dispute between UCSF and Genentech tied to some of the earliest recombinant DNA research, \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/1999/11/genentech-pays-off-ucsf/\">a case\u003c/a> the two sides settled in 1999.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They landed in South San Francisco. Genentech’s first office sat off East Grand Avenue, next door to a pornography studio. There were few residents to complain, and plenty of industrial space suitable for fermentation tanks and pipes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the national debate over genetic engineering raged, Genentech’s scientists worked quietly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1977, they produced the first synthetic human insulin using genetically engineered bacteria, a breakthrough that transformed diabetes care and proved biotechnology could work at scale. Until then, people with diabetes relied on insulin extracted from cows and pigs: lifesaving, but imperfect. Genentech’s insulin was identical to the human version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The success triggered a cascade. Former Genentech scientists founded new companies nearby to develop drugs for HIV and cancer. Warehouses filled. A cluster emerged. Today, South San Francisco is one of the most valuable square miles in American science, with more than 250 biotechnology companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hey everyone. I’m Olivia Allen-Price, and this is Bay Curious.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today we head to South San Francisco. You pass it when you’re driving north from the airport along Highway 101– there are giant white letters carved into a hillside. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They read: “The Industrial City.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Faris Alikhan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It used to be meatpacking plants and steel foundries.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Faris Alikhan grew up in South San Francisco, went to high school there — and about half his graduating class went on to work in biotech. His mom did too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Faris Alikhan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why did it become this hub of biotechnology? People move here from all around the world to work in that one industry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Biotechnology is a process. Scientists take a living cell, like yeast or bacteria, and program them to make medicine. They grow those cells in massive tanks — like a brewery — and harvest what the cells produce to make vaccines, antibiotics, and cancer treatments. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, there are more than 250 biotech companies in South San Francisco, including Genentech. Faris wondered why \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">South San Francisco\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and not closer to an educational hub, like Stanford or Berkeley? How and why did this stretch of waterfront become the birthplace of biotechnology? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Turns out he’s not alone in wondering this. Today’s question won a public voting round on \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://baycurious.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BayCurious.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED health correspondent Lesley McClurg headed to South San Francisco to find out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When you drive down DNA way in South San Francisco it’s a little like a science fiction set. Shuttle buses glide between glass towers. Doctoral students sip matcha with CEOs. Researchers slip in workouts between experiments. Every amenity is available inside a self-contained city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Low rumble of a freight train\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But 100 years ago this stretch of land was nicknamed the smokestack capital of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Peninsula\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Peninsula\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… Freight terminals. Shipyards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>Archival clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> By July 1944 nearly 16,000 men and women were employed in the shipyards all playing a role in the country’s victory.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a dirty, loud, industrial area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> South San Francisco, like Emeryville, they were industrial suburbs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Richard Walker is a professor emeritus of economic and urban geography at UC Berkeley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These were these were set up expressly to shelter industry from taxes, from protest, from labor and they worked very effectively. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the early and mid-20th century, local governments actively steered factories, warehouses, and refineries into these fringe cities. Town councils zoned big swaths of land for heavy industry. They limited housing, and kept taxes and rules light. The idea was to park the loud, dirty stuff far from residential neighborhoods — and make it easy for companies to operate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beyond the town’s borders, Walker says the Bay Area as a region was also unusually comfortable with risk and experimentation, a mindset that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had a lot of young people, a lot of skilled workers, and a lot of capital. So this was an intellectual center, an industrial center, a capitalist center because of Bank of America, lots of capital available through San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of that mattered when a new science came along in the 70s. Biotech needed smart people and money — AND it needed places willing to tolerate risk. And that’s where South San Francisco stood apart. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Robin Wolfe Scheffler is a historian of biology and medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A community that was very used to dealing with potentially hazardous or unpleasant and industrial neighbors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And those industries were already in flux. The steel mills were mostly gone. Meatpacking was shrinking. Shipping was slowing. South San Francisco had space, infrastructure that was up for grabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For people seeking to work with recombinant DNA in the late 1970s, that was actually perfect. Because many of the cities next to academic centers of molecular biology research were very concerned about its potential health hazards.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Genetic research was controversial. And in some cities, like Berkely or Palo Alto, very unwelcome.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>NewsHour clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The hottest scientific controversy since man learned to split the atom is now raging over a new branch of biology called genetic engineering. This tampering with the most basic ingredients of life raises moral and ethical problems as grave as nuclear fission did.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scientists had just learned how to cut and paste genes — kind of like editing code, but for living things. This technique, called recombinant DNA, allows researchers to use special enzymes to slip pieces of genetic material into bacteria. Suddenly it seemed possible to rewrite the instructions inside living things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was both exciting and terrifying. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>NewsHour clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It might be a new drug of tremendous value in fighting disease, or it might be a new virus terribly dangerous to man. Some scientists want the research banned, and a large number want it controlled. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even molecular biologists were spooked by the possibilities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scientific community was divided over how hazardous this potential technique was.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were so worried that they called a halt to their own work – and decided to convene a meeting. In 1975, about 150 scientists gathered in California at an oceanside retreat in Pacific Grove called Asilomar. For four days they argued, negotiated, and finally agreed on a set of guidelines for doing recombinant DNA research safely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then the public learned about what was happening inside labs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the era of the Andromeda strain, this is the era of Three Mile Island, this is a a moment when overall there’s a huge amount of social concern over the impact of technology and science on the environment. and trust in the institutions of science and technology to regulate themselves is at a low ebb.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Americans had learned that the government had secretly let Black men suffer and die in the Tuskegee syphilis study. They were also just beginning to reckon with the health fallout of Agent Orange from the Vietnam War. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To some, tinkering with DNA felt apocalyptic. People worried engineered bacteria could escape the lab — through the air, water, or sewers — and make people sick. Others feared scientists were crossing an ethical line, creating new life they couldn’t control. Headlines leaned into worst-case scenarios: superbugs and lab accidents.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By 1975, there is a national conversation about what regulations should be placed on the use of recombinant DNA technology, and individual municipalities begin to consider whether or not they can regulate it as well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Cambridge, Massachusetts, city officials considered banning the new technology altogether. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The debate over the new experiments has filled over into the streets. “We science for the people are here to try to bring the issues of this controversy to the public. To the people. Because the people are at risk and will benefit from the experiments that are being done with recombinant DNA.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The same was true in San Francisco and Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People marching down the street chanting, we will not be cloned. And so this is a concern for anybody seeking to move outside of an academic laboratory to set up a fledgling biotechnology company because these companies need laboratories, they need space to work. They want to connect to sewers, they want to have the assurance that they’re going to be able to sort of operate on a stable basis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cue South San Francisco. It’s a community that was very used to dealing with potentially hazardous or unpleasant products. Plus, the 1970s were a time of deindustrialization and so…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The city leaders were very concerned to find a new economic base.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when a young venture capitalist came knocking with an idea that could revive South San Francisco – city leaders welcomed him.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music starts\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When we return – a behemoth is born. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the 1970s, South San Francisco leaders were concerned about the dwindling industries that propped up its tax base. Little did they know the next big thing was waiting at their doorstep. KQED’s Lesley McClurg.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the time Bob Swanson was an unemployed MIT graduate living in San Francisco. He’d just been laid off by the venture capital firm Kleiner and Perkins. According to his wife Judy he was living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judy Swanson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He had no extra money, and he was really scared that what am I going to do next? I don’t want to be a failure in life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He started reading about biotechnology. And was quickly convinced this was the moment it could take off. So, he called a scruffy long haired biochemist named Herb Boyer at UCSF, who agreed to a 20 minute meeting on a Friday afternoon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judy Swanson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bob showed up in his you know three piece vests outfit and and they hit it off. They decided to go get a beer afterwards. So the two of them decided to put what money they had which was five hundred dollars each to create a company.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bob wanted to call it Herbob. For Herb and Bob. Herb thought that was a terrible idea. His suggestion was Genentech for Genetic Engineering and Technology. They couldn’t afford office space in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And keeping a private company inside UCSF’s public labs raised thorny questions about who owned the science. Those tensions would later surface in a long-running patent dispute between UCSF and Genentech tied to some of the earliest recombinant DNA research, a case the two sides settled in 1999. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Long before the lawyers got involved, Bob looked south of the city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judy Swanson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He rented the most inexpensive office space that he could rent, which was in South San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The offices were in a nondescript building off East Grand Avenue.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judy Swanson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">South San Francisco was nothing then really, and they were welcoming, you know, of any idea. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Genentech’s new office was next door to a pornography studio. Because there were so few residential areas – nobody griped about what was in their backyard. And most importantly — there were plenty of empty warehouses large enough to handle vats, pipes, and fermentation columns that are key to biotechnology.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, as the nation argued over the risks of genetic engineering. Scientists at Genentech were quietly at work in South San Francisco, on the verge of transforming diabetes care.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>NBC News clip from 1977: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scientists around the country today were paying close attention to reports from California that genetic engineering in a laboratory may be able to produce an insulin gene that could have all kinds of effects.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until then, people with diabetes relied on insulin taken from cow and pig pancreases. It kept them alive, but it wasn’t an exact match for human insulin and could trigger immune reactions. Genentech made the first synthetic human insulin — identical to what our bodies produce, using genetically engineered bacteria. Production began in 1978. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>NBC News, 1977:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Genetic engineering has become big business\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Within a decade, companies founded by former Genentech scientists began filling nearby warehouses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>NBC News, 1977: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">nd entirely new firms have emerged solely devoted to genetic engineering.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A cluster formed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And over time, South San Francisco became one of the most valuable square miles in American science.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the years that followed, work done here led to HIV drugs that changed the course of the AIDS epidemic. And cancer treatments were developed that are now standard care.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While much of the country hesitated, South San Francisco made room. What had been noisy, polluted, and overlooked proved well suited for a risky new science — one that grew into a multibillion-dollar industry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED Health Correspondent Lesley McClurg. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This question was part of a Bay Curious voting round. Did you know we have a new one up on our website every month? This month, here’s what’s up for consideration…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Question 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why is there truly a taco truck on every corner in San Francisco and San Mateo?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Question 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why are there huge fans over the tunnels near the Golden Gate Bridge?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Question 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s the story with the abandoned cop car in front of the airport off of 101? Everyone knows no actual cop is in it, so what’s the scoop with leaving there?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voting takes just a click — no registering or drama, I promise. Do it at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://baycurious.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BayCurious.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. You can become a member today, and enjoy all sorts of nice benefits — the biggest one though. Those warm fuzzies you get knowing you support shows like ours. Thanks!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, Katherine Monahan, and everyone on Team KQED.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long before sleek \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11933882/beyond-vaccines-biotech-is-booming-in-the-bay-area-despite-a-cooling-economy\">biotech campuses\u003c/a> and venture capital arrived, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/south-san-francisco\">South San Francisco\u003c/a> had a very different identity. For much of the 20th century, it absorbed the Bay Area’s mess — industries that were noisy, dirty, politically inconvenient, or simply unwanted elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Slaughterhouses. Steel mills. Shipyards. Freight terminals. Businesses that needed elbow room and cheap land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1923, the city declared its role in giant white letters on a hillside above town: “South San Francisco The Industrial City.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“South San Francisco, like Emeryville, were industrial suburbs,” said Richard Walker, a professor emeritus of economic and urban geography at the University of California, Berkeley. “These were set up expressly to shelter industry from taxes, from protest, from labor, and they worked very effectively.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Town councils limited housing, zoned big swaths for heavy industry, and kept taxes and rules light. The idea was to park loud, polluting businesses far from residential neighborhoods — and make them easy to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075369\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075369\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1473\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED-160x118.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260304-South-San-Francisco-Archival-01-KQED-1536x1131.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aerial view of South San Francisco’s Sign Hill, circa 1930. \u003ccite>(Courtesy South San Francisco Public Library Local History Collection)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beyond town borders, the Bay Area as a whole was comfortable with risk and experimentation, a mindset that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You had a lot of young people, a lot of skilled workers, and a lot of capital,” Walker said of the Bay Area. “So this was an intellectual center, an industrial center, a capitalist center because of Bank of America.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A risk-tolerant region meets a risky science\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Those conditions mattered when a new science arrived in the 1970s. Biotechnology required not just smart people and money, but a tolerance for uncertainty and perceived risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists were learning how to cut and paste genes — editing code, but for living things. The technique, called recombinant DNA, made it possible to insert genetic instructions into bacteria and harness them to manufacture human hormones and medicines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the early days, that power was both thrilling and unsettling. Scientists worried that engineered microbes could behave unpredictably — escape the lab, spread through air or water, or create entirely new biological risks they didn’t yet know how to contain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concerns were serious enough that, in 1975, many molecular biologists took an extraordinary step: they voluntarily halted their own research. About 150 scientists gathered at an oceanside retreat in Pacific Grove called Asilomar. For four days, they debated the dangers, negotiated boundaries, and ultimately agreed on a set of guidelines for conducting recombinant DNA research safely.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Public backlash\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>But then the public learned about what was happening inside labs. To some, tinkering with DNA felt apocalyptic because scientists might create new life they couldn’t control. News headlines leaned into worst-case scenarios: superbugs and lab accidents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the era of the Andromeda Strain,” said Robin Wolfe Scheffler, historian of biology and medicine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Trust in science and government was low. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11861810/no-the-tuskegee-study-is-not-the-top-reason-some-black-americans-question-the-covid-19-vaccine\">Tuskegee syphilis study\u003c/a> had recently been exposed, revealing profound abuses. Americans were reckoning with the health impacts of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11617827/this-vietnam-paratrooper-was-exposed-to-agent-orange-today-he-lives-with-parkinsons\">Agent Orange\u003c/a>. Nuclear anxiety lingered after the meltdown at \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/three/\">Three Mile Island\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backlash spread quickly. Cities began debating whether they should regulate or ban genetic engineering. In Cambridge, Mass., officials considered outlawing it altogether. In Berkeley and San Francisco, protesters marched, chanting slogans like, “We will not be cloned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For researchers hoping to commercialize their discoveries, this created a bottleneck. Biotech startups needed large laboratories, sewer hookups, industrial equipment, and stable local rules. They needed places without residential neighbors ready to revolt. A place like South San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Proof of concept\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By the mid-1970s, South San Francisco’s leaders were actively searching for a new economic base. The steel mills were mostly gone. Meatpacking was shrinking. Shipping was slowing. When a young venture capitalist named Bob Swanson arrived with an idea that scared much of the country, they didn’t recoil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swanson was newly laid off from a venture capital firm and living in San Francisco, broke and uncertain about his future. Convinced biotechnology was poised to take off, he cold-called a scruffy, long-haired biochemist named Herbert Boyer at the University of California, San Francisco, who agreed to a 20-minute meeting on a Friday afternoon. The casual meeting was so successful that they decided to pool $1,000 and start a new company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074375\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074375\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/260224-SOUTHSF00325_TV-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Genentech headquarters at 1 DNA Way in South San Francisco on Feb. 23, 2026. South San Francisco was historically an industrial area, housing shipyards, slaughterhouses and a steel mill. Now it’s a biotech hub. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Swanson floated the name Herbob — for Herb and Bob. Boyer vetoed it and suggested Genentech, short for Genetic Engineering and Technology. More marketable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They couldn’t afford office space in San Francisco. Plus, keeping a private company inside UCSF’s public labs raised thorny questions about who owned the science. (Those tensions would later surface in a long-running patent dispute between UCSF and Genentech tied to some of the earliest recombinant DNA research, \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/1999/11/genentech-pays-off-ucsf/\">a case\u003c/a> the two sides settled in 1999.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They landed in South San Francisco. Genentech’s first office sat off East Grand Avenue, next door to a pornography studio. There were few residents to complain, and plenty of industrial space suitable for fermentation tanks and pipes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the national debate over genetic engineering raged, Genentech’s scientists worked quietly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1977, they produced the first synthetic human insulin using genetically engineered bacteria, a breakthrough that transformed diabetes care and proved biotechnology could work at scale. Until then, people with diabetes relied on insulin extracted from cows and pigs: lifesaving, but imperfect. Genentech’s insulin was identical to the human version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The success triggered a cascade. Former Genentech scientists founded new companies nearby to develop drugs for HIV and cancer. Warehouses filled. A cluster emerged. Today, South San Francisco is one of the most valuable square miles in American science, with more than 250 biotechnology companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hey everyone. I’m Olivia Allen-Price, and this is Bay Curious.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today we head to South San Francisco. You pass it when you’re driving north from the airport along Highway 101– there are giant white letters carved into a hillside. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They read: “The Industrial City.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Faris Alikhan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It used to be meatpacking plants and steel foundries.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Faris Alikhan grew up in South San Francisco, went to high school there — and about half his graduating class went on to work in biotech. His mom did too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Faris Alikhan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why did it become this hub of biotechnology? People move here from all around the world to work in that one industry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Biotechnology is a process. Scientists take a living cell, like yeast or bacteria, and program them to make medicine. They grow those cells in massive tanks — like a brewery — and harvest what the cells produce to make vaccines, antibiotics, and cancer treatments. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, there are more than 250 biotech companies in South San Francisco, including Genentech. Faris wondered why \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">South San Francisco\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and not closer to an educational hub, like Stanford or Berkeley? How and why did this stretch of waterfront become the birthplace of biotechnology? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Turns out he’s not alone in wondering this. Today’s question won a public voting round on \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://baycurious.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BayCurious.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED health correspondent Lesley McClurg headed to South San Francisco to find out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When you drive down DNA way in South San Francisco it’s a little like a science fiction set. Shuttle buses glide between glass towers. Doctoral students sip matcha with CEOs. Researchers slip in workouts between experiments. Every amenity is available inside a self-contained city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Low rumble of a freight train\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But 100 years ago this stretch of land was nicknamed the smokestack capital of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Peninsula\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Peninsula\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… Freight terminals. Shipyards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>Archival clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> By July 1944 nearly 16,000 men and women were employed in the shipyards all playing a role in the country’s victory.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a dirty, loud, industrial area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> South San Francisco, like Emeryville, they were industrial suburbs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Richard Walker is a professor emeritus of economic and urban geography at UC Berkeley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These were these were set up expressly to shelter industry from taxes, from protest, from labor and they worked very effectively. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the early and mid-20th century, local governments actively steered factories, warehouses, and refineries into these fringe cities. Town councils zoned big swaths of land for heavy industry. They limited housing, and kept taxes and rules light. The idea was to park the loud, dirty stuff far from residential neighborhoods — and make it easy for companies to operate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beyond the town’s borders, Walker says the Bay Area as a region was also unusually comfortable with risk and experimentation, a mindset that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had a lot of young people, a lot of skilled workers, and a lot of capital. So this was an intellectual center, an industrial center, a capitalist center because of Bank of America, lots of capital available through San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of that mattered when a new science came along in the 70s. Biotech needed smart people and money — AND it needed places willing to tolerate risk. And that’s where South San Francisco stood apart. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Robin Wolfe Scheffler is a historian of biology and medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A community that was very used to dealing with potentially hazardous or unpleasant and industrial neighbors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And those industries were already in flux. The steel mills were mostly gone. Meatpacking was shrinking. Shipping was slowing. South San Francisco had space, infrastructure that was up for grabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For people seeking to work with recombinant DNA in the late 1970s, that was actually perfect. Because many of the cities next to academic centers of molecular biology research were very concerned about its potential health hazards.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Genetic research was controversial. And in some cities, like Berkely or Palo Alto, very unwelcome.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>NewsHour clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The hottest scientific controversy since man learned to split the atom is now raging over a new branch of biology called genetic engineering. This tampering with the most basic ingredients of life raises moral and ethical problems as grave as nuclear fission did.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scientists had just learned how to cut and paste genes — kind of like editing code, but for living things. This technique, called recombinant DNA, allows researchers to use special enzymes to slip pieces of genetic material into bacteria. Suddenly it seemed possible to rewrite the instructions inside living things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was both exciting and terrifying. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>NewsHour clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It might be a new drug of tremendous value in fighting disease, or it might be a new virus terribly dangerous to man. Some scientists want the research banned, and a large number want it controlled. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even molecular biologists were spooked by the possibilities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scientific community was divided over how hazardous this potential technique was.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were so worried that they called a halt to their own work – and decided to convene a meeting. In 1975, about 150 scientists gathered in California at an oceanside retreat in Pacific Grove called Asilomar. For four days they argued, negotiated, and finally agreed on a set of guidelines for doing recombinant DNA research safely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then the public learned about what was happening inside labs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the era of the Andromeda strain, this is the era of Three Mile Island, this is a a moment when overall there’s a huge amount of social concern over the impact of technology and science on the environment. and trust in the institutions of science and technology to regulate themselves is at a low ebb.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Americans had learned that the government had secretly let Black men suffer and die in the Tuskegee syphilis study. They were also just beginning to reckon with the health fallout of Agent Orange from the Vietnam War. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To some, tinkering with DNA felt apocalyptic. People worried engineered bacteria could escape the lab — through the air, water, or sewers — and make people sick. Others feared scientists were crossing an ethical line, creating new life they couldn’t control. Headlines leaned into worst-case scenarios: superbugs and lab accidents.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By 1975, there is a national conversation about what regulations should be placed on the use of recombinant DNA technology, and individual municipalities begin to consider whether or not they can regulate it as well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Cambridge, Massachusetts, city officials considered banning the new technology altogether. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The debate over the new experiments has filled over into the streets. “We science for the people are here to try to bring the issues of this controversy to the public. To the people. Because the people are at risk and will benefit from the experiments that are being done with recombinant DNA.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The same was true in San Francisco and Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People marching down the street chanting, we will not be cloned. And so this is a concern for anybody seeking to move outside of an academic laboratory to set up a fledgling biotechnology company because these companies need laboratories, they need space to work. They want to connect to sewers, they want to have the assurance that they’re going to be able to sort of operate on a stable basis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cue South San Francisco. It’s a community that was very used to dealing with potentially hazardous or unpleasant products. Plus, the 1970s were a time of deindustrialization and so…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Wolfe Scheffler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The city leaders were very concerned to find a new economic base.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when a young venture capitalist came knocking with an idea that could revive South San Francisco – city leaders welcomed him.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music starts\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When we return – a behemoth is born. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the 1970s, South San Francisco leaders were concerned about the dwindling industries that propped up its tax base. Little did they know the next big thing was waiting at their doorstep. KQED’s Lesley McClurg.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the time Bob Swanson was an unemployed MIT graduate living in San Francisco. He’d just been laid off by the venture capital firm Kleiner and Perkins. According to his wife Judy he was living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judy Swanson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He had no extra money, and he was really scared that what am I going to do next? I don’t want to be a failure in life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He started reading about biotechnology. And was quickly convinced this was the moment it could take off. So, he called a scruffy long haired biochemist named Herb Boyer at UCSF, who agreed to a 20 minute meeting on a Friday afternoon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judy Swanson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bob showed up in his you know three piece vests outfit and and they hit it off. They decided to go get a beer afterwards. So the two of them decided to put what money they had which was five hundred dollars each to create a company.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bob wanted to call it Herbob. For Herb and Bob. Herb thought that was a terrible idea. His suggestion was Genentech for Genetic Engineering and Technology. They couldn’t afford office space in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And keeping a private company inside UCSF’s public labs raised thorny questions about who owned the science. Those tensions would later surface in a long-running patent dispute between UCSF and Genentech tied to some of the earliest recombinant DNA research, a case the two sides settled in 1999. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Long before the lawyers got involved, Bob looked south of the city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judy Swanson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He rented the most inexpensive office space that he could rent, which was in South San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The offices were in a nondescript building off East Grand Avenue.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judy Swanson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">South San Francisco was nothing then really, and they were welcoming, you know, of any idea. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Genentech’s new office was next door to a pornography studio. Because there were so few residential areas – nobody griped about what was in their backyard. And most importantly — there were plenty of empty warehouses large enough to handle vats, pipes, and fermentation columns that are key to biotechnology.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, as the nation argued over the risks of genetic engineering. Scientists at Genentech were quietly at work in South San Francisco, on the verge of transforming diabetes care.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>NBC News clip from 1977: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scientists around the country today were paying close attention to reports from California that genetic engineering in a laboratory may be able to produce an insulin gene that could have all kinds of effects.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until then, people with diabetes relied on insulin taken from cow and pig pancreases. It kept them alive, but it wasn’t an exact match for human insulin and could trigger immune reactions. Genentech made the first synthetic human insulin — identical to what our bodies produce, using genetically engineered bacteria. Production began in 1978. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>NBC News, 1977:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Genetic engineering has become big business\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Within a decade, companies founded by former Genentech scientists began filling nearby warehouses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>NBC News, 1977: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">nd entirely new firms have emerged solely devoted to genetic engineering.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A cluster formed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And over time, South San Francisco became one of the most valuable square miles in American science.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the years that followed, work done here led to HIV drugs that changed the course of the AIDS epidemic. And cancer treatments were developed that are now standard care.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While much of the country hesitated, South San Francisco made room. What had been noisy, polluted, and overlooked proved well suited for a risky new science — one that grew into a multibillion-dollar industry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED Health Correspondent Lesley McClurg. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This question was part of a Bay Curious voting round. Did you know we have a new one up on our website every month? This month, here’s what’s up for consideration…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Question 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why is there truly a taco truck on every corner in San Francisco and San Mateo?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Question 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why are there huge fans over the tunnels near the Golden Gate Bridge?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Question 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s the story with the abandoned cop car in front of the airport off of 101? Everyone knows no actual cop is in it, so what’s the scoop with leaving there?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voting takes just a click — no registering or drama, I promise. Do it at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://baycurious.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BayCurious.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. You can become a member today, and enjoy all sorts of nice benefits — the biggest one though. Those warm fuzzies you get knowing you support shows like ours. Thanks!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, Katherine Monahan, and everyone on Team KQED.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\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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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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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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"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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"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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"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.",
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"possible": {
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"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.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"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.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"radiolab": {
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"reveal": {
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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