San José’s Batman, Fighting for the Unhoused, Is the Real Life Superhero ‘We Need’
California’s Cost of Living Keeps Climbing — How Are You Coping?
Tenants ‘Crushed’ After California Renter Protections Bill Stalls in the Legislature
New San Bruno Home Offers Independence for Adults With Developmental Disabilities
Newsom’s Final Budget Disappoints Housing, Homeless Advocates
Neighborhood, Small Business Groups File Lawsuit Over San Francisco Rezoning Plan
After Tenderloin Apartment Fire, Rent-Controlled Tenants Fear They’re Being Pushed Out
San Francisco’s Historic ‘Relief Cottages,’ Built After the 1906 Earthquake, Are Hidden in Plain Sight
California Passed Big Housing Laws in 2025. What Does That Mean for Building More Homes?
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Miguel speaks with certainty: “He’s my friend.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monica, whom we’re referring to by her first name for the same reason, spotted Batman across St. James Park and ran up to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053072\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053072\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel reaches out to shake hands with the Batman of San José after receiving water and snacks at St. James Park in San José on Aug. 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’ve known him a long time,” she said excitedly, receiving the water Batman was handing out. “That’s my super[hero].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the Batman of San José — a masked volunteer who has spent nearly eight years walking the city at night to help unhoused residents. He’s a far cry from the vigilantes of comic books. He isn’t swooping from rooftops, seeking revenge or delivering justice through fists. His superpower is noticing people who feel ignored and offering them food, first aid supplies, and sometimes, being someone they can confide in.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Disguise as a form of protest\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In recent years, whimsical costumes — inflatable frogs, unicorns, oversized creatures — have become a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/g-s1-94724/trump-inflatable-animals-frog-no-kings-protest-portland\">national protest language\u003c/a>, mitigating tension between demonstrators and law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the tradition goes deeper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1974, California’s own \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-17-me-3053-story.html\">Captain Sticky\u003c/a> became the first widely documented \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.rlsh.net/wiki/RLSH_Map\">“real-life superhero,”\u003c/a> testifying before the Federal Trade Commission about health insurance fraud while dressed in a peanut-butter-and-jelly-themed cape. \u003cem>CBS San Diego\u003c/em>’s cameras \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf8Ibh1Y5JE\">captured\u003c/a> the contradiction at the heart of Captain Sticky: a quirky, outsized persona paired with a deadly serious mission — confronting “evil” by leading investigations into convalescent hospitals he said were defrauding consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others followed: \u003ca href=\"https://www.lametrochurches.org/dangerman-warns-la-is-not-safe-be-careful\">Danger Man\u003c/a> in Los Angeles, \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.rlsh.net/wiki/Shadarko\">Shadarko\u003c/a> in San Francisco — every day people donning costumes to protect their neighbors, deter violence, or simply show up when institutions didn’t. Batman of San José joined their ranks in 2018, when he was a high school junior.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An origin story that starts with one act of discrimination\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman’s story began on an ordinary drive home from school. He was 17 when he spotted an unhoused single mother stranded on the side of the road with a broken-down car. A nearby mechanic refused to help her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Batman asked the mechanic for the same assistance on her behalf later, the mechanic agreed.[aside postID=news_12051236 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250626-GRANTSPASSDECISIONANNI-03-BL-KQED.jpg']“She tried to do exactly what I did,” he remembered. “But for some reason, I was allowed to do that and not her. That very clear sense of discrimination stuck with me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went home unsettled — and then decided not to let the moment pass. Within days, he began figuring out how to help people like the single mother he’d seen on the roadside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, the effort was modest. His costume was bare-bones — just a sweatshirt with a Batman logo — and the supplies he handed out came from money saved from summer jobs. He stashed pieces of the outfit in his backpack or under his clothes, slipping into his Batman persona after class to check on people downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His choice of Batman was deliberate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I appreciate that the character is human,” he said. “[He] wants to do the right thing despite having no superpowers [and] turns personal struggle into something that helps others.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said his own struggles with a learning disability propelled him to become Batman. Now, helping others is a way to heal some of the pain he felt as a kid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then he grinned: “And the character looks cool. I won’t deny it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He embodied the character, not sharing his identity with even his parents. For Batman, anonymity is part of the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It means I can keep myself out of this,” he said. “And it helps people recognize me from a distance.” He added that it also makes him more approachable, using levity to connect with the unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Batman of San José walked beneath the Highway 87 underpass in 2020, the familiarity of the costume drew immediate attention — especially from a 3-year-old child living there with his mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053070\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053070\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">With bottles of water in hand, the Batman of San José prepares to distribute supplies in San José on Aug. 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The kid was absolutely fascinated,” Batman recalled. “He was grabbing at the ears of the mask and the cape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tender moment caught him off guard, and he found he was grateful to be wearing a mask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I lost it almost immediately,” he said, recalling the sadness of seeing a child so young without shelter. “The mask helped hide that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family was trying to get the child into school, he explained, but life on the street made regular attendance nearly impossible. Over the next several years, Batman worked alongside case managers, providing groceries, financial assistance and a steady presence as the family navigated housing instability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about two years, when the family received more permanent housing, the child finally started attending school. Batman was there for his kindergarten graduation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t high school or college,” he said. “But to that family, it meant everything, [and] that mom is my personal hero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Batman of San Jose films the clearing of the homeless encampment at Columbus Park in San Jose on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mother told him her child now runs around clutching a piece of black fabric, pretending it’s Batman — something that keeps him safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I never thought I’d have that kind of impact,” Batman said. “It taught me I don’t have to do everything — to that kid, that was everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, he has designed the costume with intention: gloves for scrambling up riverbanks, shin guards for kneeling beside tents, a belt filled with first-aid supplies, tools and tape. And the dramatic cape? It doubles as an emergency blanket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can give it to someone if I run out of everything else,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The weight of friendship and loss\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman has become a quiet keeper of stories and routes — able to trace who’s still around, who’s disappeared, and how lives on the margins shift over time. He has forged authentic relationships with the people he encounters, and each person leaves a mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider a lot of the people I meet out here to be my friends,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He shared the story of Susie, an unhoused woman he checked on often, until police cleared the area where she was living.[aside postID=news_12058091 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250831-CREATIVEMUTUALAID00140_TV-KQED.jpg']“She passed away recently,” he said. “She was swept [by police] and then got hit by a car [in the street] — that should have never happened to her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His grievance is with a system that he feels repeatedly casts unhoused people aside — clearing encampments without permanent housing solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials have said that the cost and pace of building permanent housing have led the city to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026437/san-jose-mayor-proposes-permanent-shift-homeless-funding-from-housing-shelter\">prioritize temporary shelter\u003c/a>. In an emailed statement, Mayor Matt Mahan’s office told KQED: “We’ve expanded temporary housing so that we can get people off the streets faster while continuing to invest in permanent supportive housing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office pointed to city data showing that more than 800 affordable housing units were permitted last year and that funding fromMeasure E — a San José tax on property sales of $2 million or more passed by voters in 2020 — helped prevent more than 1,200 families from falling into homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Batman, those metrics don’t capture what he has watched unfold on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People should be alive that aren’t anymore, “ he said, holding back tears. “My friends are dying, and I’m losing people I care about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, he keeps walking — beneath freeway ramps, through parks and along light rail stations — checking on people he hasn’t seen in days. Sometimes, he runs into someone he feared he’d lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this night, he spotted KC approaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a minute,” Batman said. “I’ve been worried about you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been locked up for like 13 months,” KC replied. Their longstanding friendship bridges any discomfort over asking for resources — what Batman can bring next time: underwear, flashlights and a sleeping bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked how it feels to see Batman, “I feel happy,” KC said, smiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Beyond the cape: advocacy, policy and mutual aid\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman’s work does not end on the sidewalk. He has spoken at \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGfuMC9Y97E\">City Hall\u003c/a>, intervened during police sweeps and shown up at demonstrations. At a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoE1fkZyIjI&t=58s\">San José protest\u003c/a> last summer over human rights violations under the Trump administration, he addressed the crowd with his own understanding of resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I look at people across the country standing up to authoritarianism, I see heroes,” he said. “And that’s the scariest thing — to be a hero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053075\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Batman walks through the former homeless encampment at Columbus Park in San José on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For him, that fear translated into urgency. He wanted the people he knew on the streets to live longer lives — not just endure them. He pushed back against the assumption that unhoused people were not trying hard enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People think, ‘Why don’t they have to work for it?’” he said. “Quite a few [unhoused] people work — it’s that it can be impossible to fit everything into one day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many, he explained, survival became a full-time job: finding food and water, staying clean, protecting belongings, getting to work — while also trying to secure housing. From what he has seen, the most common paths into being unhoused are job loss and medical debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why ‘Housing First’ is always the best way to go,” he said. “Research shows it’s the quickest way to stabilize someone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An \u003ca href=\"https://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/2024-04/housing-healthy-california-program-evaluation-2024.pdf\">evaluation \u003c/a>by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research echoes that view. Researchers found that California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcd.ca.gov/funding/archive/hhc\">Housing for a Healthy California\u003c/a> program — which follows a housing-first model that places people into stable housing before requiring medical treatment, employment or other conditions — improved long-term stability and health outcomes when paired with intensive case management and support services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman advocates for housing, medical support and is vocal about how San José has carried out encampment abatements like the one in Columbus Park in August of last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why are we not waiting for 1,000 beds to be open before sweeping people?” he asked.[aside postID=news_12058952 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250616_UNHOUSEDCREEKRESTORATION_GC-37-KQED.jpg']Mayor Matt Mahan’s office said that temporary shelter was being rolled out in phases and maintained that there were sufficient beds for people \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052645/san-jose-begins-clearing-columbus-park-the-citys-biggest-homeless-encampment\">displaced from Columbus Park\u003c/a>, one of San José’s largest encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were 370 people living there, and over a 70-day period of outreach before the abatement began, every single person was offered housing,” said Tasha Dean, a spokesperson for the mayor, in an email. “ About two-thirds of encampment residents accepted the city’s offer of housing, and no one who accepted housing was abated until their bed was ready for them to move in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052645/san-jose-begins-clearing-columbus-park-the-citys-biggest-homeless-encampment\">KQED’s reporting back in August\u003c/a> found there were people who were moved without consent — and some advocates felt the outreach period fell short in informing residents of the park about their possible outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman adds that clearing encampments before offering housing erodes trust, making people less likely to seek help: “The people who are trying to help them are also the people in their minds who are hurting them — they’re both wearing the city of San José logo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials frame the problem differently. They point to the cost of permanent housing — at about $1 million per unit — and the scale of unsheltered homelessness — around 5000 people — in San José, which they say makes a build-first approach untenable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t build a permanent unit for the lucky few, while leaving the vast majority of people to suffer and far too often, die, on our streets,” Dean said. “We’ve chosen to get people indoors faster with a solution that is cheaper and faster to build, so they don’t have to wait on the streets indefinitely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As that debate continues, Batman’s work has grown beyond a one-person effort. What began as solo nighttime rounds has become a small mutual-aid collective called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bayareasuperheroes/?hl=en\">Bay Area Superheroes\u003c/a>. He has joined forces with the Crimson Fist, Black Phoenix and KaiKai Bee, expanding their reach to San Francisco and Oakland. But, for Batman, San José has remained his anchor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fabric of San José is people who are from all different walks of life and they still come together and form a community, and I think the unhoused community is just that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053069\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aaron Fenton (left), a friend and former high school classmate of the Batman of San José, crosses paths with him during a routine outreach day on Aug. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He pointed to moments that rarely made headlines: people sharing clothes and stepping in to protect neighbors during raids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If ICE shows up, they hide people,” he said. “They stand up for each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman is woven into that fabric. In full costume, he cannot walk more than a few feet without running into someone he knows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s Batman!” one man called out. “Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman smiled, waved, and disappeared into the dark with his cart of snacks and supplies, the shimmer of purple and black satin trailing behind him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "With a homemade costume and a cart full of water bottles and supplies, the anonymous Bay Area resident advocates for housing and compassion for his neighbors. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Downtown \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> residents aren’t startled by the daunting figure in a billowing black-and-purple cape beneath the streetlights. They know what comes next: the gravelly rattle of a rolling cart stocked with water bottles and food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hey, Batman! Do what you do best,” one passerby shouted on a warm August night last year — an enthusiastic acknowledgement of Batman, and the superhero’s mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some nights, Batman meets new people. On others, he reconnects with familiar faces — like Miguel, who walked over when he saw Batman wheeling his cart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a good man,” Miguel said, as Batman kneeled to pour water for Miguel’s dog Lorio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re only using Miguel’s first name to protect his privacy as someone who is unhoused and part of a vulnerable population. Miguel speaks with certainty: “He’s my friend.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monica, whom we’re referring to by her first name for the same reason, spotted Batman across St. James Park and ran up to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053072\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053072\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel reaches out to shake hands with the Batman of San José after receiving water and snacks at St. James Park in San José on Aug. 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’ve known him a long time,” she said excitedly, receiving the water Batman was handing out. “That’s my super[hero].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the Batman of San José — a masked volunteer who has spent nearly eight years walking the city at night to help unhoused residents. He’s a far cry from the vigilantes of comic books. He isn’t swooping from rooftops, seeking revenge or delivering justice through fists. His superpower is noticing people who feel ignored and offering them food, first aid supplies, and sometimes, being someone they can confide in.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Disguise as a form of protest\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In recent years, whimsical costumes — inflatable frogs, unicorns, oversized creatures — have become a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/g-s1-94724/trump-inflatable-animals-frog-no-kings-protest-portland\">national protest language\u003c/a>, mitigating tension between demonstrators and law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the tradition goes deeper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1974, California’s own \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-17-me-3053-story.html\">Captain Sticky\u003c/a> became the first widely documented \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.rlsh.net/wiki/RLSH_Map\">“real-life superhero,”\u003c/a> testifying before the Federal Trade Commission about health insurance fraud while dressed in a peanut-butter-and-jelly-themed cape. \u003cem>CBS San Diego\u003c/em>’s cameras \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf8Ibh1Y5JE\">captured\u003c/a> the contradiction at the heart of Captain Sticky: a quirky, outsized persona paired with a deadly serious mission — confronting “evil” by leading investigations into convalescent hospitals he said were defrauding consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others followed: \u003ca href=\"https://www.lametrochurches.org/dangerman-warns-la-is-not-safe-be-careful\">Danger Man\u003c/a> in Los Angeles, \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.rlsh.net/wiki/Shadarko\">Shadarko\u003c/a> in San Francisco — every day people donning costumes to protect their neighbors, deter violence, or simply show up when institutions didn’t. Batman of San José joined their ranks in 2018, when he was a high school junior.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An origin story that starts with one act of discrimination\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman’s story began on an ordinary drive home from school. He was 17 when he spotted an unhoused single mother stranded on the side of the road with a broken-down car. A nearby mechanic refused to help her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Batman asked the mechanic for the same assistance on her behalf later, the mechanic agreed.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“She tried to do exactly what I did,” he remembered. “But for some reason, I was allowed to do that and not her. That very clear sense of discrimination stuck with me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went home unsettled — and then decided not to let the moment pass. Within days, he began figuring out how to help people like the single mother he’d seen on the roadside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, the effort was modest. His costume was bare-bones — just a sweatshirt with a Batman logo — and the supplies he handed out came from money saved from summer jobs. He stashed pieces of the outfit in his backpack or under his clothes, slipping into his Batman persona after class to check on people downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His choice of Batman was deliberate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I appreciate that the character is human,” he said. “[He] wants to do the right thing despite having no superpowers [and] turns personal struggle into something that helps others.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said his own struggles with a learning disability propelled him to become Batman. Now, helping others is a way to heal some of the pain he felt as a kid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then he grinned: “And the character looks cool. I won’t deny it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He embodied the character, not sharing his identity with even his parents. For Batman, anonymity is part of the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It means I can keep myself out of this,” he said. “And it helps people recognize me from a distance.” He added that it also makes him more approachable, using levity to connect with the unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Batman of San José walked beneath the Highway 87 underpass in 2020, the familiarity of the costume drew immediate attention — especially from a 3-year-old child living there with his mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053070\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053070\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">With bottles of water in hand, the Batman of San José prepares to distribute supplies in San José on Aug. 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The kid was absolutely fascinated,” Batman recalled. “He was grabbing at the ears of the mask and the cape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tender moment caught him off guard, and he found he was grateful to be wearing a mask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I lost it almost immediately,” he said, recalling the sadness of seeing a child so young without shelter. “The mask helped hide that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family was trying to get the child into school, he explained, but life on the street made regular attendance nearly impossible. Over the next several years, Batman worked alongside case managers, providing groceries, financial assistance and a steady presence as the family navigated housing instability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about two years, when the family received more permanent housing, the child finally started attending school. Batman was there for his kindergarten graduation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t high school or college,” he said. “But to that family, it meant everything, [and] that mom is my personal hero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Batman of San Jose films the clearing of the homeless encampment at Columbus Park in San Jose on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mother told him her child now runs around clutching a piece of black fabric, pretending it’s Batman — something that keeps him safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I never thought I’d have that kind of impact,” Batman said. “It taught me I don’t have to do everything — to that kid, that was everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, he has designed the costume with intention: gloves for scrambling up riverbanks, shin guards for kneeling beside tents, a belt filled with first-aid supplies, tools and tape. And the dramatic cape? It doubles as an emergency blanket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can give it to someone if I run out of everything else,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The weight of friendship and loss\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman has become a quiet keeper of stories and routes — able to trace who’s still around, who’s disappeared, and how lives on the margins shift over time. He has forged authentic relationships with the people he encounters, and each person leaves a mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider a lot of the people I meet out here to be my friends,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He shared the story of Susie, an unhoused woman he checked on often, until police cleared the area where she was living.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“She passed away recently,” he said. “She was swept [by police] and then got hit by a car [in the street] — that should have never happened to her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His grievance is with a system that he feels repeatedly casts unhoused people aside — clearing encampments without permanent housing solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials have said that the cost and pace of building permanent housing have led the city to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026437/san-jose-mayor-proposes-permanent-shift-homeless-funding-from-housing-shelter\">prioritize temporary shelter\u003c/a>. In an emailed statement, Mayor Matt Mahan’s office told KQED: “We’ve expanded temporary housing so that we can get people off the streets faster while continuing to invest in permanent supportive housing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office pointed to city data showing that more than 800 affordable housing units were permitted last year and that funding fromMeasure E — a San José tax on property sales of $2 million or more passed by voters in 2020 — helped prevent more than 1,200 families from falling into homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Batman, those metrics don’t capture what he has watched unfold on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People should be alive that aren’t anymore, “ he said, holding back tears. “My friends are dying, and I’m losing people I care about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, he keeps walking — beneath freeway ramps, through parks and along light rail stations — checking on people he hasn’t seen in days. Sometimes, he runs into someone he feared he’d lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this night, he spotted KC approaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a minute,” Batman said. “I’ve been worried about you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been locked up for like 13 months,” KC replied. Their longstanding friendship bridges any discomfort over asking for resources — what Batman can bring next time: underwear, flashlights and a sleeping bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked how it feels to see Batman, “I feel happy,” KC said, smiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Beyond the cape: advocacy, policy and mutual aid\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman’s work does not end on the sidewalk. He has spoken at \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGfuMC9Y97E\">City Hall\u003c/a>, intervened during police sweeps and shown up at demonstrations. At a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoE1fkZyIjI&t=58s\">San José protest\u003c/a> last summer over human rights violations under the Trump administration, he addressed the crowd with his own understanding of resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I look at people across the country standing up to authoritarianism, I see heroes,” he said. “And that’s the scariest thing — to be a hero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053075\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Batman walks through the former homeless encampment at Columbus Park in San José on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For him, that fear translated into urgency. He wanted the people he knew on the streets to live longer lives — not just endure them. He pushed back against the assumption that unhoused people were not trying hard enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People think, ‘Why don’t they have to work for it?’” he said. “Quite a few [unhoused] people work — it’s that it can be impossible to fit everything into one day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many, he explained, survival became a full-time job: finding food and water, staying clean, protecting belongings, getting to work — while also trying to secure housing. From what he has seen, the most common paths into being unhoused are job loss and medical debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why ‘Housing First’ is always the best way to go,” he said. “Research shows it’s the quickest way to stabilize someone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An \u003ca href=\"https://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/2024-04/housing-healthy-california-program-evaluation-2024.pdf\">evaluation \u003c/a>by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research echoes that view. Researchers found that California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcd.ca.gov/funding/archive/hhc\">Housing for a Healthy California\u003c/a> program — which follows a housing-first model that places people into stable housing before requiring medical treatment, employment or other conditions — improved long-term stability and health outcomes when paired with intensive case management and support services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman advocates for housing, medical support and is vocal about how San José has carried out encampment abatements like the one in Columbus Park in August of last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why are we not waiting for 1,000 beds to be open before sweeping people?” he asked.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mayor Matt Mahan’s office said that temporary shelter was being rolled out in phases and maintained that there were sufficient beds for people \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052645/san-jose-begins-clearing-columbus-park-the-citys-biggest-homeless-encampment\">displaced from Columbus Park\u003c/a>, one of San José’s largest encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were 370 people living there, and over a 70-day period of outreach before the abatement began, every single person was offered housing,” said Tasha Dean, a spokesperson for the mayor, in an email. “ About two-thirds of encampment residents accepted the city’s offer of housing, and no one who accepted housing was abated until their bed was ready for them to move in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052645/san-jose-begins-clearing-columbus-park-the-citys-biggest-homeless-encampment\">KQED’s reporting back in August\u003c/a> found there were people who were moved without consent — and some advocates felt the outreach period fell short in informing residents of the park about their possible outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman adds that clearing encampments before offering housing erodes trust, making people less likely to seek help: “The people who are trying to help them are also the people in their minds who are hurting them — they’re both wearing the city of San José logo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials frame the problem differently. They point to the cost of permanent housing — at about $1 million per unit — and the scale of unsheltered homelessness — around 5000 people — in San José, which they say makes a build-first approach untenable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t build a permanent unit for the lucky few, while leaving the vast majority of people to suffer and far too often, die, on our streets,” Dean said. “We’ve chosen to get people indoors faster with a solution that is cheaper and faster to build, so they don’t have to wait on the streets indefinitely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As that debate continues, Batman’s work has grown beyond a one-person effort. What began as solo nighttime rounds has become a small mutual-aid collective called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bayareasuperheroes/?hl=en\">Bay Area Superheroes\u003c/a>. He has joined forces with the Crimson Fist, Black Phoenix and KaiKai Bee, expanding their reach to San Francisco and Oakland. But, for Batman, San José has remained his anchor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fabric of San José is people who are from all different walks of life and they still come together and form a community, and I think the unhoused community is just that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053069\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aaron Fenton (left), a friend and former high school classmate of the Batman of San José, crosses paths with him during a routine outreach day on Aug. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He pointed to moments that rarely made headlines: people sharing clothes and stepping in to protect neighbors during raids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If ICE shows up, they hide people,” he said. “They stand up for each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman is woven into that fabric. In full costume, he cannot walk more than a few feet without running into someone he knows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s Batman!” one man called out. “Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman smiled, waved, and disappeared into the dark with his cart of snacks and supplies, the shimmer of purple and black satin trailing behind him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Californians are no strangers to compromise. Living here has long meant paying more for rent, mortgages, utilities, gas, child care — even groceries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In exchange, we’ve been rewarded with breathtaking natural beauty, a robust economy and a vibrant cultural scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as costs continue to rise, the payoff hasn’t proven to be enough for a growing number of people. Since 2016, in every year except one, more people have \u003ca href=\"https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/E-2/#:~:text=Net%20domestic%20migration%20from%20California,loss%20of%20over%2089%2C000%20residents.\">moved out of California\u003c/a> than moved in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Are you feeling the pinch? Share your story with KQED by leaving us a voicemail at 415-553-2115 or \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>clicking here\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those who have stayed in California, many expenses have only gotten worse. Monthly payments for a newly purchased mid-tier home have climbed a whopping 74% from just under $3,200 in Jan. 2020 to more than $5,500 in Sept. 2025, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793\">state’s Legislative Analysts’ Office\u003c/a>.[aside postID=science_1999400 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251105_HIGH-ELECTRICITY-BILLS_GH-17-KQED.jpg']Meanwhile, rents in California continue to outpace the nation, with real estate listings website Zillow reporting that a median one-bedroom goes for around $2,100 a month, 40% higher than the national average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These high costs are increasingly forcing painful trade-offs. Kenya Brown, who lives in Bay Point, sent her four youngest kids to spend time at her oldest son’s apartment because she was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999400/bay-area-electricity-bills-are-some-of-the-highest-where-does-your-money-go\">unable to pay\u003c/a> her utility bills. Davis resident Carin Lenk Sloane is considering leaving the country due to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999325/we-cant-afford-to-stay-californians-weigh-drastic-moves-as-health-premiums-rise\">rising health insurance\u003c/a> premiums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12061802/how-are-child-care-costs-affecting-the-lives-of-bay-area-families-you-told-us\">KQED reader survey\u003c/a>, one parent said child care costs more than her mortgage, while another said her family was putting off buying a home altogether to afford day care for her infant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, tell us, what trade-offs are you making? Maybe you’ve taken on a side hustle or two. Perhaps you’re leaning on your community more or eating out less. Big or small, we want to know how you’re making your life more affordable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Californians are no strangers to compromise. Living here has long meant paying more for rent, mortgages, utilities, gas, child care — even groceries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In exchange, we’ve been rewarded with breathtaking natural beauty, a robust economy and a vibrant cultural scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as costs continue to rise, the payoff hasn’t proven to be enough for a growing number of people. Since 2016, in every year except one, more people have \u003ca href=\"https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/E-2/#:~:text=Net%20domestic%20migration%20from%20California,loss%20of%20over%2089%2C000%20residents.\">moved out of California\u003c/a> than moved in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Are you feeling the pinch? Share your story with KQED by leaving us a voicemail at 415-553-2115 or \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5v6Atf-zIWjJr8ZXgyOmDSRVu2kSdv4_RdPTIWLdBmnVoXg/viewform?usp=header\">\u003cstrong>\u003cem>clicking here\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those who have stayed in California, many expenses have only gotten worse. Monthly payments for a newly purchased mid-tier home have climbed a whopping 74% from just under $3,200 in Jan. 2020 to more than $5,500 in Sept. 2025, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793\">state’s Legislative Analysts’ Office\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Meanwhile, rents in California continue to outpace the nation, with real estate listings website Zillow reporting that a median one-bedroom goes for around $2,100 a month, 40% higher than the national average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These high costs are increasingly forcing painful trade-offs. Kenya Brown, who lives in Bay Point, sent her four youngest kids to spend time at her oldest son’s apartment because she was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999400/bay-area-electricity-bills-are-some-of-the-highest-where-does-your-money-go\">unable to pay\u003c/a> her utility bills. Davis resident Carin Lenk Sloane is considering leaving the country due to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999325/we-cant-afford-to-stay-californians-weigh-drastic-moves-as-health-premiums-rise\">rising health insurance\u003c/a> premiums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12061802/how-are-child-care-costs-affecting-the-lives-of-bay-area-families-you-told-us\">KQED reader survey\u003c/a>, one parent said child care costs more than her mortgage, while another said her family was putting off buying a home altogether to afford day care for her infant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, tell us, what trade-offs are you making? Maybe you’ve taken on a side hustle or two. Perhaps you’re leaning on your community more or eating out less. Big or small, we want to know how you’re making your life more affordable.\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>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Tenants ‘Crushed’ After California Renter Protections Bill Stalls in the Legislature",
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"content": "\u003cp>After taking \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038224/california-bill-expand-rent-control-pulled-for-year-bay-area-lawmaker\">blows from landlord groups and the building trades\u003c/a>, a statewide bill that aimed to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034212/california-lawmakers-push-lower-rent-cap-expand-protections-property-owners-worried\">expand renter protections\u003c/a> and make them permanent is likely dead this legislative season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1157\">AB 1157\u003c/a>, dubbed the “Affordable Rent Act,” would have expanded the 2019 Tenant Protection Act to more renters and lowered the amount rent can increase each year. It would have also made those changes permanent, removing a 2030 sunset date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday marked the bill’s first hearing of the year in the Assembly Judiciary Committee, where tenants and advocates pleaded with committee members to advance the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, it faced stiff opposition from rental property and building trade groups, who said it would make housing construction more expensive and could push smaller landlords out of the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill failed to get enough votes, and without any additional hearings scheduled, AB 1157 will likely die there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m just really, really crushed because they talk about how they don’t want to hurt the property owners, they don’t want to have them take their properties off the market,” said Chula Vista renter Tammy Alvarado, who took a 13-hour bus ride to testify in support of the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069627\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069627\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/024_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/024_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/024_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/024_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A “For Rent” sign hangs in the window of an apartment building in Nob Hill in San Francisco on July 29, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The problem is these greedy landlords that raise their rent [to] the maximum. They can raise it every single year while our wages don’t go up to match.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as the 2019 Tenant Protection Act moves closer towards its expiration date, Alvarado and other tenants are worried about what it means for their own housing security.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She splits the monthly payment with her husband and two children for a two-bedroom, single-family home. In November, she said her rent jumped from $2,780 to $3,030 a month — a nearly 9% increase. She also had to pay more toward her security deposit. To make up the cost, she said she would have to miss payments for her gas and electricity bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>Devastated,” she said. “Next time I come up here [to Sacramento], I will probably be homeless.”[aside postID=news_12038224 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/2022-9-28-KQED-News_Tenant-Organizing_006_qed-1020x681.jpg']Since Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San José, introduced it last year, AB 1157 faced an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034212/california-lawmakers-push-lower-rent-cap-expand-protections-property-owners-worried\">uphill battle\u003c/a>. Powerful realtor and builder groups loudly opposed it, saying it would undermine the state’s efforts to build more housing supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late April, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038224/california-bill-expand-rent-control-pulled-for-year-bay-area-lawmaker\">Kalra transformed it\u003c/a> into a two-year bill, vowing to resurface the bill this year after buying more time to work on it with lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tenants rights advocates were feeling hopeful about its chances this time around, especially after Gov. Gavin Newsom called out the 2019 law in his \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069094/in-final-state-of-state-speech-gov-newsom-says-california-offers-model-for-the-nation\">State of the State\u003c/a> address, saying it was “the strongest statewide renter protections in America.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Kalra wanted to win over skeptical colleagues. Early in Tuesday’s hearing, he announced he would remove a controversial provision extending tenant protections to those renting single-family homes, individually owned condos and duplexes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s all on the table,” Kalra said, “if folks are willing to come to the table to have those conversations meaningfully.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069626\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069626\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_9984.JPG_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_9984.JPG_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_9984.JPG_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_9984.JPG_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Giselle Penuela, 10, and Alexander Penuela, 6 attend at a vigil outside Redwood City’s city council chamber calling for rent control and other renter protections. \u003ccite>(Farida Jhabvala Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Despite the concessions made, reactions to the bill were mixed. Some committee members spoke in favor, while others raised concerns about its impact on the already expensive rental market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m concerned about the big arm of government telling private property owners what they have to do,” said Asm. Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach. “Because at some point they say, ‘The heck with it, we’ll go to Arizona and build apartment units and housing units there for a lot less money.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Committee members also took issue with the bill’s lowered rent cap. Existing law allows property owners to annually increase rent by 5% plus the cost of living, or up to 10%. As inflation has increased in the years since the law was passed, the amount landlords can raise rents has \u003ca href=\"https://caanet.org/all-cpi-figures-for-2024-ab-1482-rent-increases-now-available/\">crept closer to that 10%\u003c/a> threshold. AB 1157 would have cut that in half, limiting landlords to a 5% annual increase.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement ahead of the hearing, Adam Pearce, president of the California Rental Housing Association, said the bill could push “mom-and-pop owners out of the market, ultimately shrinking housing supply and hurting the very renters it intends to help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069650\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069650\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-04-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-04-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-04-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-04-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the Sunset District from the Sunset Reservoir in San Francisco on March 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12008424/prop-33-rent-control-is-on-the-ballot-again-election-2024-california\">Research on this topic is mixed\u003c/a>. Traditionally, economists have largely agreed with that sentiment, saying that rent-control policies are \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/\">inefficient, create scarcity and drive up rents in non-regulated units\u003c/a>. But economists have also given credence to supporters’ claims that rent control is \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20181289\">effective at stemming displacement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Economists have argued that strict rent control could discourage new apartment construction — though other research shows \u003ca href=\"https://dornsife.usc.edu/eri/publications/rent-matters/\">more moderate policies\u003c/a> tend to have little impact. And one recent anecdotal example seemed to support that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, St. Paul, Minnesota, enacted one of the strictest rent-control policies in the country. Minneapolis, on the other hand, passed a series of land-use laws two years prior, boosting apartment construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/minnesota-rent-control-regulation-prices-34221bd4?mod=hp_lead_pos9#comments_sector\">\u003cem>Wall\u003c/em> \u003cem>Street\u003c/em> \u003cem>Journal\u003c/em> analysis\u003c/a>, permits to build apartments in St. Paul fell by nearly 80% in early 2022, after the city passed its rent-control ordinance. Conversely, housing permits in Minneapolis saw a fourfold increase during that same time period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069652\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069652\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apartment buildings in Nob Hill in San Francisco on July 29, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But support for rent stabilization has grown among tenants and lawmakers in recent years, including from a coalition of 32 economists who wrote to the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2023, urging the nationwide use of rental control. And last year, New York City voters elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform\">multi-year rent freeze\u003c/a> for the city’s rent-stabilized apartments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s vote is nothing short of betrayal,” Christina Livingston, executive director of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this moment, when Californians desperately need housing stability, our legislators chose to side with corporate landlords instead. When given the opportunity to solidify basic tenant protections, they failed, and we are outraged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After taking \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038224/california-bill-expand-rent-control-pulled-for-year-bay-area-lawmaker\">blows from landlord groups and the building trades\u003c/a>, a statewide bill that aimed to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034212/california-lawmakers-push-lower-rent-cap-expand-protections-property-owners-worried\">expand renter protections\u003c/a> and make them permanent is likely dead this legislative season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1157\">AB 1157\u003c/a>, dubbed the “Affordable Rent Act,” would have expanded the 2019 Tenant Protection Act to more renters and lowered the amount rent can increase each year. It would have also made those changes permanent, removing a 2030 sunset date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday marked the bill’s first hearing of the year in the Assembly Judiciary Committee, where tenants and advocates pleaded with committee members to advance the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, it faced stiff opposition from rental property and building trade groups, who said it would make housing construction more expensive and could push smaller landlords out of the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill failed to get enough votes, and without any additional hearings scheduled, AB 1157 will likely die there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m just really, really crushed because they talk about how they don’t want to hurt the property owners, they don’t want to have them take their properties off the market,” said Chula Vista renter Tammy Alvarado, who took a 13-hour bus ride to testify in support of the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069627\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069627\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/024_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/024_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/024_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/024_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A “For Rent” sign hangs in the window of an apartment building in Nob Hill in San Francisco on July 29, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The problem is these greedy landlords that raise their rent [to] the maximum. They can raise it every single year while our wages don’t go up to match.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as the 2019 Tenant Protection Act moves closer towards its expiration date, Alvarado and other tenants are worried about what it means for their own housing security.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She splits the monthly payment with her husband and two children for a two-bedroom, single-family home. In November, she said her rent jumped from $2,780 to $3,030 a month — a nearly 9% increase. She also had to pay more toward her security deposit. To make up the cost, she said she would have to miss payments for her gas and electricity bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>Devastated,” she said. “Next time I come up here [to Sacramento], I will probably be homeless.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Since Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San José, introduced it last year, AB 1157 faced an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034212/california-lawmakers-push-lower-rent-cap-expand-protections-property-owners-worried\">uphill battle\u003c/a>. Powerful realtor and builder groups loudly opposed it, saying it would undermine the state’s efforts to build more housing supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late April, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038224/california-bill-expand-rent-control-pulled-for-year-bay-area-lawmaker\">Kalra transformed it\u003c/a> into a two-year bill, vowing to resurface the bill this year after buying more time to work on it with lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tenants rights advocates were feeling hopeful about its chances this time around, especially after Gov. Gavin Newsom called out the 2019 law in his \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069094/in-final-state-of-state-speech-gov-newsom-says-california-offers-model-for-the-nation\">State of the State\u003c/a> address, saying it was “the strongest statewide renter protections in America.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Kalra wanted to win over skeptical colleagues. Early in Tuesday’s hearing, he announced he would remove a controversial provision extending tenant protections to those renting single-family homes, individually owned condos and duplexes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s all on the table,” Kalra said, “if folks are willing to come to the table to have those conversations meaningfully.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069626\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069626\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_9984.JPG_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_9984.JPG_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_9984.JPG_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_9984.JPG_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Giselle Penuela, 10, and Alexander Penuela, 6 attend at a vigil outside Redwood City’s city council chamber calling for rent control and other renter protections. \u003ccite>(Farida Jhabvala Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Despite the concessions made, reactions to the bill were mixed. Some committee members spoke in favor, while others raised concerns about its impact on the already expensive rental market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m concerned about the big arm of government telling private property owners what they have to do,” said Asm. Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach. “Because at some point they say, ‘The heck with it, we’ll go to Arizona and build apartment units and housing units there for a lot less money.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Committee members also took issue with the bill’s lowered rent cap. Existing law allows property owners to annually increase rent by 5% plus the cost of living, or up to 10%. As inflation has increased in the years since the law was passed, the amount landlords can raise rents has \u003ca href=\"https://caanet.org/all-cpi-figures-for-2024-ab-1482-rent-increases-now-available/\">crept closer to that 10%\u003c/a> threshold. AB 1157 would have cut that in half, limiting landlords to a 5% annual increase.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement ahead of the hearing, Adam Pearce, president of the California Rental Housing Association, said the bill could push “mom-and-pop owners out of the market, ultimately shrinking housing supply and hurting the very renters it intends to help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069650\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069650\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-04-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-04-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-04-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-04-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the Sunset District from the Sunset Reservoir in San Francisco on March 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12008424/prop-33-rent-control-is-on-the-ballot-again-election-2024-california\">Research on this topic is mixed\u003c/a>. Traditionally, economists have largely agreed with that sentiment, saying that rent-control policies are \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/\">inefficient, create scarcity and drive up rents in non-regulated units\u003c/a>. But economists have also given credence to supporters’ claims that rent control is \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20181289\">effective at stemming displacement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Economists have argued that strict rent control could discourage new apartment construction — though other research shows \u003ca href=\"https://dornsife.usc.edu/eri/publications/rent-matters/\">more moderate policies\u003c/a> tend to have little impact. And one recent anecdotal example seemed to support that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, St. Paul, Minnesota, enacted one of the strictest rent-control policies in the country. Minneapolis, on the other hand, passed a series of land-use laws two years prior, boosting apartment construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/minnesota-rent-control-regulation-prices-34221bd4?mod=hp_lead_pos9#comments_sector\">\u003cem>Wall\u003c/em> \u003cem>Street\u003c/em> \u003cem>Journal\u003c/em> analysis\u003c/a>, permits to build apartments in St. Paul fell by nearly 80% in early 2022, after the city passed its rent-control ordinance. Conversely, housing permits in Minneapolis saw a fourfold increase during that same time period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069652\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069652\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apartment buildings in Nob Hill in San Francisco on July 29, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But support for rent stabilization has grown among tenants and lawmakers in recent years, including from a coalition of 32 economists who wrote to the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2023, urging the nationwide use of rental control. And last year, New York City voters elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform\">multi-year rent freeze\u003c/a> for the city’s rent-stabilized apartments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s vote is nothing short of betrayal,” Christina Livingston, executive director of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this moment, when Californians desperately need housing stability, our legislators chose to side with corporate landlords instead. When given the opportunity to solidify basic tenant protections, they failed, and we are outraged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "New San Bruno Home Offers Independence for Adults With Developmental Disabilities",
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"content": "\u003cp>Community leaders gathered Monday to celebrate the opening of a new affordable \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/housing\">housing\u003c/a> project in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-bruno\">San Bruno\u003c/a> designed specifically for adults with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/disability\">developmental disabilities\u003c/a> — a population facing a severe shortage of stable living options in San Mateo County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Huntington House, purchased by the Peninsula Health Care District for approximately $1.8 million, will provide long-term housing for six people. The project is a collaboration between the health care district, the nonprofit AbilityPath and the Golden Gate Regional Center, a publicly funded nonprofit. It’s one of only a few of its kind on the Peninsula, joining another cooperative home in San Mateo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bryan Neider, CEO of AbilityPath and AbilityPath Housing, said the investment demonstrates that “housing is healthcare.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The healthcare district is fulfilling the highest claim in their charter, which is addressing the unmet needs of our most vulnerable residents,” Neider said. “They know that providing a stable home reduces emergency room visits and improves mental health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home follows a cooperative living model where residents share communal spaces — including a kitchen, living room and a dedicated gaming or activity area — while maintaining five private bedrooms and one shared bedroom. Rent is capped at one-third of a resident’s income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069437\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12069437 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00187_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00187_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00187_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00187_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gabi Derek, a lifelong participant of AbilityPath, speaks at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new affordable housing building in San Bruno on Jan. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The opening comes at a critical time for the Bay Area, where the cost of living often makes independence nearly impossible for those on fixed incomes. According to the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities, there are more than \u003ca href=\"https://scdd.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2020/06/People-with-IDD-in-California-Snapshot-5.27.20-ACCESSIBLE.pdf\">450,000 adults\u003c/a> with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the state, with many \u003ca href=\"http://scdd.ca.gov/ca_empl_rate/\">unemployed\u003c/a> or who earn less than 30% of the area median income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 51-year-old Gabrielle Dedek, who has Down syndrome and was raised in the Bay Area, the wait for independence lasted nearly her entire adult life. Dedek lived with her parents before moving into a similar affordable apartment in Palo Alto with AbilityPath’s help last year. She said the transition allowed her to stay in her community while finally having a home of her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really do love my new home,” Dedek said. “I can never go back to the past. This is my future, and I’m staying and pushing to the future.”[aside postID=news_12069177 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/HJA_2939_SOTS_001-2000x1333.jpg']Reggie San Pablo, a director with AbilityPath, noted that the average rent for a studio apartment in the region often exceeds the total monthly income for adults receiving Supplemental Security Income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the cooperative model is a deliberate alternative to traditional apartment living, which can lead to social isolation. While the home does not provide 24-hour on-site staffing, residents receive 20 to 25 hours of weekly support through the organization’s Independent Living Skills program. This includes coaching on budgeting, meal planning, community participation and tenancy stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization also operates a dedicated employment branch that currently supports nearly 300 people in obtaining and keeping work, with jobs in tech, retail and administrative roles, helping them through the application and interview process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huntington House is also located only a few blocks from the San Bruno Caltrain station and SamTrans bus routes, a detail officials said was intentional to ensure residents can access jobs and community amenities independently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Bruno Councilmember Tom Hamilton, a parent of two children with developmental disabilities, noted that while the city works hard to address the housing crisis for all families, the specific needs of people with developmental disabilities are often overlooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069435\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069435\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00130_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00130_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00130_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00130_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">AbilityPath Housing opened a new affordable housing building in San Bruno on Jan. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Housing is a human right,” Hamilton said. “We work very hard to address our housing crisis, but not enough is being done in this space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Golden Gate Regional Center and AbilityPath will manage the upcoming application process, which includes support for move-in and setting cooperative living expectations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the high demand, officials expect to use a lottery system to select the six residents who will call Huntington House home. Residents are expected to move in within the next two months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Housing [is] a crisis, not just for Silicon Valley, but for our special needs community,” said Jennifer Wagstaff-Hinton, board chair for AbilityPath. “It’s unacceptable to say, ‘I can’t solve that problem.’ Just get it done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Community leaders gathered Monday to celebrate the opening of a new affordable \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/housing\">housing\u003c/a> project in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-bruno\">San Bruno\u003c/a> designed specifically for adults with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/disability\">developmental disabilities\u003c/a> — a population facing a severe shortage of stable living options in San Mateo County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Huntington House, purchased by the Peninsula Health Care District for approximately $1.8 million, will provide long-term housing for six people. The project is a collaboration between the health care district, the nonprofit AbilityPath and the Golden Gate Regional Center, a publicly funded nonprofit. It’s one of only a few of its kind on the Peninsula, joining another cooperative home in San Mateo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bryan Neider, CEO of AbilityPath and AbilityPath Housing, said the investment demonstrates that “housing is healthcare.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The healthcare district is fulfilling the highest claim in their charter, which is addressing the unmet needs of our most vulnerable residents,” Neider said. “They know that providing a stable home reduces emergency room visits and improves mental health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home follows a cooperative living model where residents share communal spaces — including a kitchen, living room and a dedicated gaming or activity area — while maintaining five private bedrooms and one shared bedroom. Rent is capped at one-third of a resident’s income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069437\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12069437 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00187_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00187_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00187_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00187_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gabi Derek, a lifelong participant of AbilityPath, speaks at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new affordable housing building in San Bruno on Jan. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The opening comes at a critical time for the Bay Area, where the cost of living often makes independence nearly impossible for those on fixed incomes. According to the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities, there are more than \u003ca href=\"https://scdd.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2020/06/People-with-IDD-in-California-Snapshot-5.27.20-ACCESSIBLE.pdf\">450,000 adults\u003c/a> with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the state, with many \u003ca href=\"http://scdd.ca.gov/ca_empl_rate/\">unemployed\u003c/a> or who earn less than 30% of the area median income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For 51-year-old Gabrielle Dedek, who has Down syndrome and was raised in the Bay Area, the wait for independence lasted nearly her entire adult life. Dedek lived with her parents before moving into a similar affordable apartment in Palo Alto with AbilityPath’s help last year. She said the transition allowed her to stay in her community while finally having a home of her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really do love my new home,” Dedek said. “I can never go back to the past. This is my future, and I’m staying and pushing to the future.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Reggie San Pablo, a director with AbilityPath, noted that the average rent for a studio apartment in the region often exceeds the total monthly income for adults receiving Supplemental Security Income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the cooperative model is a deliberate alternative to traditional apartment living, which can lead to social isolation. While the home does not provide 24-hour on-site staffing, residents receive 20 to 25 hours of weekly support through the organization’s Independent Living Skills program. This includes coaching on budgeting, meal planning, community participation and tenancy stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization also operates a dedicated employment branch that currently supports nearly 300 people in obtaining and keeping work, with jobs in tech, retail and administrative roles, helping them through the application and interview process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huntington House is also located only a few blocks from the San Bruno Caltrain station and SamTrans bus routes, a detail officials said was intentional to ensure residents can access jobs and community amenities independently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Bruno Councilmember Tom Hamilton, a parent of two children with developmental disabilities, noted that while the city works hard to address the housing crisis for all families, the specific needs of people with developmental disabilities are often overlooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069435\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069435\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00130_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00130_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00130_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260112-SANBRUNOAFFORDABLEHOUSING00130_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">AbilityPath Housing opened a new affordable housing building in San Bruno on Jan. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Housing is a human right,” Hamilton said. “We work very hard to address our housing crisis, but not enough is being done in this space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Golden Gate Regional Center and AbilityPath will manage the upcoming application process, which includes support for move-in and setting cooperative living expectations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the high demand, officials expect to use a lottery system to select the six residents who will call Huntington House home. Residents are expected to move in within the next two months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Housing [is] a crisis, not just for Silicon Valley, but for our special needs community,” said Jennifer Wagstaff-Hinton, board chair for AbilityPath. “It’s unacceptable to say, ‘I can’t solve that problem.’ Just get it done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>After years of championing new funding to combat \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>‘s housing shortage and homelessness crisis, Gov. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/gavin-newsom\">Gavin Newsom\u003c/a>‘s final budget was a retreat from the major investments of years’ past and left many advocates disappointed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ebudget.ca.gov/FullBudgetSummary.pdf\">budget proposal\u003c/a>, released Friday, projected a modest $2.9 billion shortfall — a significantly rosier picture than the \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5091\">$18 billion anticipated\u003c/a> by the Legislative Analyst’s Office — and emphasized accountability and streamlining over new cash investments to address homelessness and bolster affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It comes as the state faces federal funding cuts and expected \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12064324/its-devastating-more-than-100m-for-housing-homeless-at-risk-under-new-hud-policy\">policy changes\u003c/a> that could restrict how much money agencies can spend on permanent housing for people exiting homelessness. As the governor works on finalizing his budget proposal in May, affordable housing groups hope they can sway the administration to fill the funding gaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am disappointed,” said Heather Hood, who helms the nonprofit housing provider Enterprise Community Partners’ Northern California work. “We hear over and over that housing affordability is a major concern for Californians and the governor, and yet we’re not seeing it reflected in the budget.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom kept promises he made \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12045673/newsom-slashes-funding-for-homelessness-in-state-budget-leaving-cities-scrambling\">last year\u003c/a>: The proposed budget includes $500 million for one of California’s largest homelessness services programs, the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) Grant — contingent on “enhanced accountability and performance requirements” — after it received \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12045673/newsom-slashes-funding-for-homelessness-in-state-budget-leaving-cities-scrambling\">no new funding last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have invested a significant amount over these last seven years,” Joe Stephenshaw, director of the state’s Department of Finance, said during a press conference on Friday announcing the budget proposal. “Prior to this administration, there were no significant investments at the state level in combating homelessness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12042903\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12042903\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The homeless encampment at Ohlone Park in Berkeley on May 29, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While affordable housing and homelessness services organizations say the $500 million is welcome, they had hoped to see funding levels ramp back up to what they were earlier in Newsom’s tenure, when the state consistently dedicated $1 billion to the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe we have to be much bigger and bolder in sustaining and growing our investments in affordable housing if we’re going to deliver the housing and services Californians really need right now,” said Chione Lucina Muñoz Flegal, executive director of advocacy organization, Housing California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During Newsom’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069094/in-final-state-of-state-speech-gov-newsom-says-california-offers-model-for-the-nation\">State of the State address\u003c/a> on Thursday, he said he wants cities and counties to bring people off the streets, out of encampments and into housing and treatment. “No more excuses,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Hood said the comment misrepresents the cash-strapped situation many municipalities face when trying to fund services and housing.[aside postID=news_12068746 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg']“There’s only so many places the counties and cities can go,” she said. “They’re not getting the money from the feds, and they’re not necessarily getting it from their residents and voters, and so that’s why there’s been a shift to the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without dedicated cash in the budget, she said the strained environment puts more pressure on securing a $10 billion statewide affordable housing bond. \u003ca href=\"https://mtc.ca.gov/sites/default/files/meetings/attachments/6260/9b_25_0447_1_Summary_Sheet_AB_736_Wicks_and_SB_417_Cabaldon.pdf?cb=b2c5668e\">Two bills \u003c/a>aiming to put the bond on this fall’s ballot are currently making their way through the legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the homelessness funding, the governor’s budget proposal nodded to achievements in previous years and pointed to the state’s Housing and Homeless Agency, a new department set to become \u003ca href=\"https://www.bcsh.ca.gov/about/chha_overview.pdf\">operational by July\u003c/a>, which promises to transform California’s fragmented housing finance system into a more streamlined machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During Thursday’s address, Newsom said the number of people sleeping in tents, cars and RVs \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/01/08/california-sees-drop-in-unsheltered-homelessness-bucking-national-trend-and-federal-headwinds/\">dropped by about 9%\u003c/a>, according to preliminary federal data from 2025 from a subset of counties. He contrasted that decrease with the nation’s \u003ca href=\"https://files.hudexchange.info/reports/published/CoC_PopSub_NatlTerrDC_2024.pdf\">18%\u003c/a> increase in homelessness last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But affordable housing advocates worry that, without further investment, those numbers may backslide, due to federal cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058501\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058501\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251001_BAYAREASHELTER_-18-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251001_BAYAREASHELTER_-18-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251001_BAYAREASHELTER_-18-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251001_BAYAREASHELTER_-18-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Outside the DignityMoves tiny home cabins at 33 Gough in San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In March, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said it would not dedicate any new funding to the Emergency Housing Voucher program, which has provided rental assistance to about 70,000 households nationwide, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/the-potential-end-of-emergency-housing-voucher-funding-public-housing-agencies-search-for-solutions/\">report \u003c/a>from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. That funding is set to run out by the end of 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later in November, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12064324/its-devastating-more-than-100m-for-housing-homeless-at-risk-under-new-hud-policy\">department announced\u003c/a> that jurisdictions applying for federal funds can only spend 30% of a key homelessness services grant on permanent housing and urged applicants to instead focus on temporary and emergency housing. The competitive grants also deprioritized funding for agencies that recognize transgender people, use harm reduction practices and follow Housing First principles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susannah Parsons, director of policy and legislation for the advocacy organization, All Home, said it’s not the time for California to pull back from investing in affordable housing and homelessness services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now it feels more important than ever that we backstop against some of these federal threats to ensure that the progress we’re starting to see doesn’t evaporate in the next 12 months,” Parsons said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After years of championing new funding to combat \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a>‘s housing shortage and homelessness crisis, Gov. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/gavin-newsom\">Gavin Newsom\u003c/a>‘s final budget was a retreat from the major investments of years’ past and left many advocates disappointed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ebudget.ca.gov/FullBudgetSummary.pdf\">budget proposal\u003c/a>, released Friday, projected a modest $2.9 billion shortfall — a significantly rosier picture than the \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5091\">$18 billion anticipated\u003c/a> by the Legislative Analyst’s Office — and emphasized accountability and streamlining over new cash investments to address homelessness and bolster affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It comes as the state faces federal funding cuts and expected \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12064324/its-devastating-more-than-100m-for-housing-homeless-at-risk-under-new-hud-policy\">policy changes\u003c/a> that could restrict how much money agencies can spend on permanent housing for people exiting homelessness. As the governor works on finalizing his budget proposal in May, affordable housing groups hope they can sway the administration to fill the funding gaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am disappointed,” said Heather Hood, who helms the nonprofit housing provider Enterprise Community Partners’ Northern California work. “We hear over and over that housing affordability is a major concern for Californians and the governor, and yet we’re not seeing it reflected in the budget.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom kept promises he made \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12045673/newsom-slashes-funding-for-homelessness-in-state-budget-leaving-cities-scrambling\">last year\u003c/a>: The proposed budget includes $500 million for one of California’s largest homelessness services programs, the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) Grant — contingent on “enhanced accountability and performance requirements” — after it received \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12045673/newsom-slashes-funding-for-homelessness-in-state-budget-leaving-cities-scrambling\">no new funding last year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have invested a significant amount over these last seven years,” Joe Stephenshaw, director of the state’s Department of Finance, said during a press conference on Friday announcing the budget proposal. “Prior to this administration, there were no significant investments at the state level in combating homelessness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12042903\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12042903\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250529_OhloneParkEncampment_GC-16_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The homeless encampment at Ohlone Park in Berkeley on May 29, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While affordable housing and homelessness services organizations say the $500 million is welcome, they had hoped to see funding levels ramp back up to what they were earlier in Newsom’s tenure, when the state consistently dedicated $1 billion to the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe we have to be much bigger and bolder in sustaining and growing our investments in affordable housing if we’re going to deliver the housing and services Californians really need right now,” said Chione Lucina Muñoz Flegal, executive director of advocacy organization, Housing California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During Newsom’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069094/in-final-state-of-state-speech-gov-newsom-says-california-offers-model-for-the-nation\">State of the State address\u003c/a> on Thursday, he said he wants cities and counties to bring people off the streets, out of encampments and into housing and treatment. “No more excuses,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Hood said the comment misrepresents the cash-strapped situation many municipalities face when trying to fund services and housing.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“There’s only so many places the counties and cities can go,” she said. “They’re not getting the money from the feds, and they’re not necessarily getting it from their residents and voters, and so that’s why there’s been a shift to the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without dedicated cash in the budget, she said the strained environment puts more pressure on securing a $10 billion statewide affordable housing bond. \u003ca href=\"https://mtc.ca.gov/sites/default/files/meetings/attachments/6260/9b_25_0447_1_Summary_Sheet_AB_736_Wicks_and_SB_417_Cabaldon.pdf?cb=b2c5668e\">Two bills \u003c/a>aiming to put the bond on this fall’s ballot are currently making their way through the legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the homelessness funding, the governor’s budget proposal nodded to achievements in previous years and pointed to the state’s Housing and Homeless Agency, a new department set to become \u003ca href=\"https://www.bcsh.ca.gov/about/chha_overview.pdf\">operational by July\u003c/a>, which promises to transform California’s fragmented housing finance system into a more streamlined machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During Thursday’s address, Newsom said the number of people sleeping in tents, cars and RVs \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/01/08/california-sees-drop-in-unsheltered-homelessness-bucking-national-trend-and-federal-headwinds/\">dropped by about 9%\u003c/a>, according to preliminary federal data from 2025 from a subset of counties. He contrasted that decrease with the nation’s \u003ca href=\"https://files.hudexchange.info/reports/published/CoC_PopSub_NatlTerrDC_2024.pdf\">18%\u003c/a> increase in homelessness last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But affordable housing advocates worry that, without further investment, those numbers may backslide, due to federal cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058501\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058501\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251001_BAYAREASHELTER_-18-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251001_BAYAREASHELTER_-18-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251001_BAYAREASHELTER_-18-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251001_BAYAREASHELTER_-18-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Outside the DignityMoves tiny home cabins at 33 Gough in San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In March, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said it would not dedicate any new funding to the Emergency Housing Voucher program, which has provided rental assistance to about 70,000 households nationwide, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/the-potential-end-of-emergency-housing-voucher-funding-public-housing-agencies-search-for-solutions/\">report \u003c/a>from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. That funding is set to run out by the end of 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later in November, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12064324/its-devastating-more-than-100m-for-housing-homeless-at-risk-under-new-hud-policy\">department announced\u003c/a> that jurisdictions applying for federal funds can only spend 30% of a key homelessness services grant on permanent housing and urged applicants to instead focus on temporary and emergency housing. The competitive grants also deprioritized funding for agencies that recognize transgender people, use harm reduction practices and follow Housing First principles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susannah Parsons, director of policy and legislation for the advocacy organization, All Home, said it’s not the time for California to pull back from investing in affordable housing and homelessness services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now it feels more important than ever that we backstop against some of these federal threats to ensure that the progress we’re starting to see doesn’t evaporate in the next 12 months,” Parsons said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Plaintiffs representing small businesses and neighborhood groups filed a lawsuit on Friday morning challenging Mayor Daniel Lurie’s controversial “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12065204/everything-you-need-to-know-about-san-franciscos-family-zoning-plan\">Family Zoning Plan\u003c/a>,” which allows for taller and more dense housing in large swaths of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The litigation comes after months of debate and input on the plan, which aims to make it easier to build housing as the city faces a state mandate to add tens of thousands of new homes by 2031. Filed by members of Neighborhoods United San Francisco and Small Business Forward, a progressive business coalition, the lawsuit seeks to pause implementation of the rezoning plan \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12065204/everything-you-need-to-know-about-san-franciscos-family-zoning-plan\">that the city passed in December\u003c/a> and is set to take effect Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You cannot claim to support families and affordability while advancing a rezoning that encourages displacement, strains infrastructure, and offers no clear path to housing people can afford,” Katherine Petrin, co-founder of Neighborhoods United, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California required San Francisco to adopt an updated zoning plan by Jan. 31 to make way for 82,000 housing units in the next five years. Some 43,000 units that the city has already approved, but that have yet to be developed, are included in the tally of total units. The city’s plan aims to create capacity for at least 36,000 units for various income levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mayor’s office, planning department and other agencies held numerous public meetings, workshops and feedback sessions on the plan leading up to its final vote in December. Some changes were included in the plan, including an amendment to remove any building with three or more rent-controlled units from demolition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044983\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12044983\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-14-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-14-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-14-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-14-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mayor Daniel Lurie, alongside members of the team behind a new housing project, during a groundbreaking ceremony in San Francisco on June 18, 2025. The event marked the start of two affordable housing developments — one with 75 units prioritized for SFUSD and City College educators, and another that will add 92 family apartments. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Critics of the zoning plan said it didn’t go far enough to protect tenants and businesses that could be displaced as a result of development or increasing rental prices. The lawsuit also alleges that the city did not conduct a proper review under the California Environmental Quality Act before passing the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rather than prepare a CEQA document to analyze the 2025 upzone’s impacts and to consider reasonable alternatives and mitigation measures, the city instead bypassed CEQA review and relied on the addendum to the environmental impact report prepared in 2022 for the Housing Element of the City’s General Plan,” the complaint said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A rezoning plan is also required under the city’s \u003ca href=\"https://sfplanning.org/project/housing-element-update-2022\">Housing Element\u003c/a>, a set of policies aimed at guiding where and how the city’s future housing should be built. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit also allege that the mayor’s plan does not fully comply with the Housing Element, saying the new rezoning rules allow for more dramatic redevelopment than what was approved in the city’s housing plan passed in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The mayor’s plan left in thousands of rent-controlled housing units. A lot of our small business employees live in these,” said Christin Evans, who owns The Booksmith in Haight-Ashbury.[aside postID=news_12065708 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250325-ApartmentsonWestside-06-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']“The concern from Small Business Forward is that we get this housing plan right, that we make sure that we are taking care of not displacing small business workers from the city, that we are protecting small business workers, not just their jobs and livelihoods, but also the housing that they live in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials defended the mayor’s housing plan on Friday, saying it underwent a thorough review before approval by state officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Family Zoning Plan is the product of years of study, outreach and hearings. The city took deliberate obligations under state law, including CEQA. We are comforted that the California Department of Housing and Community Development reviewed the Family Zoning Plan and felt it complied with state law,” said Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the city attorney. “We will review any lawsuit once we are served and will have more to say in court.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representatives from the mayor’s office underscored that the city needs to build more housing to meet state requirements and keep up with increasing demand for housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State housing authorities could have withheld critical public funding and taken over local housing plans and approvals if San Francisco failed to pass a housing plan by the end of this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“More and more, families are struggling to live in San Francisco, and the Family Zoning Plan will help us build the affordable homes they need to stay here,” said Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office. “The status quo isn’t working for families in this city, and we’re not going to wait around for someone else to do something about it.”\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>The lawsuit filed on Friday may not be the only legal challenge that Lurie’s rezoning plan faces. Pro-housing development advocacy groups such as YIMBY Law, the legal arm of Yes In My Backyard, have also suggested that they could file a lawsuit if the city doesn’t do enough to produce more housing in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We passed that Housing Element and it passed unanimously. So if we’re not just not meeting the spirit but not meeting the letter of the law, then we want to make sure we are holding San Francisco compliant,” said Jane Natoli, Bay Area Director of YIMBY Action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Estimates for how much housing might actually result from the zoning changes have been mixed. Due to economic constraints like building and construction costs, the Planning Department estimates that the mayor’s plan could realistically open up to 19,000 units; however, modeling from the city’s Chief Economist suggests that it could produce only around 14,600 units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the small ironies of today’s lawsuit is if they are saying we need to go back [to the zoning plan], we definitely don’t have a plan that’s compliant and are opening ourselves up to the builder’s remedy,” Natoli said, referring to a legal process through which the state allows developers to bypass local zoning rules if the city is not meeting state housing requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Friday are also exploring a 2026 ballot measure that would give voters a chance to potentially weigh in on additional changes to the new zoning plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richard Drury, the attorney representing Neighborhoods United and Small Business Forward, said that the plaintiffs have not yet decided whether they will seek preliminary relief or a resolution in the court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This plan didn’t go through the right public review process to produce more affordable housing and less damage,” Drury said. “Instead, they upzoned parts of the city and are threatening to eliminate some rent-controlled housing to build luxury condos, which is the opposite of what the plan aimed to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Plaintiffs representing small businesses and neighborhood groups filed a lawsuit on Friday morning challenging Mayor Daniel Lurie’s controversial “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12065204/everything-you-need-to-know-about-san-franciscos-family-zoning-plan\">Family Zoning Plan\u003c/a>,” which allows for taller and more dense housing in large swaths of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The litigation comes after months of debate and input on the plan, which aims to make it easier to build housing as the city faces a state mandate to add tens of thousands of new homes by 2031. Filed by members of Neighborhoods United San Francisco and Small Business Forward, a progressive business coalition, the lawsuit seeks to pause implementation of the rezoning plan \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12065204/everything-you-need-to-know-about-san-franciscos-family-zoning-plan\">that the city passed in December\u003c/a> and is set to take effect Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You cannot claim to support families and affordability while advancing a rezoning that encourages displacement, strains infrastructure, and offers no clear path to housing people can afford,” Katherine Petrin, co-founder of Neighborhoods United, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California required San Francisco to adopt an updated zoning plan by Jan. 31 to make way for 82,000 housing units in the next five years. Some 43,000 units that the city has already approved, but that have yet to be developed, are included in the tally of total units. The city’s plan aims to create capacity for at least 36,000 units for various income levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mayor’s office, planning department and other agencies held numerous public meetings, workshops and feedback sessions on the plan leading up to its final vote in December. Some changes were included in the plan, including an amendment to remove any building with three or more rent-controlled units from demolition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044983\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12044983\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-14-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-14-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-14-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-14-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mayor Daniel Lurie, alongside members of the team behind a new housing project, during a groundbreaking ceremony in San Francisco on June 18, 2025. The event marked the start of two affordable housing developments — one with 75 units prioritized for SFUSD and City College educators, and another that will add 92 family apartments. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Critics of the zoning plan said it didn’t go far enough to protect tenants and businesses that could be displaced as a result of development or increasing rental prices. The lawsuit also alleges that the city did not conduct a proper review under the California Environmental Quality Act before passing the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rather than prepare a CEQA document to analyze the 2025 upzone’s impacts and to consider reasonable alternatives and mitigation measures, the city instead bypassed CEQA review and relied on the addendum to the environmental impact report prepared in 2022 for the Housing Element of the City’s General Plan,” the complaint said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A rezoning plan is also required under the city’s \u003ca href=\"https://sfplanning.org/project/housing-element-update-2022\">Housing Element\u003c/a>, a set of policies aimed at guiding where and how the city’s future housing should be built. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit also allege that the mayor’s plan does not fully comply with the Housing Element, saying the new rezoning rules allow for more dramatic redevelopment than what was approved in the city’s housing plan passed in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The mayor’s plan left in thousands of rent-controlled housing units. A lot of our small business employees live in these,” said Christin Evans, who owns The Booksmith in Haight-Ashbury.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The concern from Small Business Forward is that we get this housing plan right, that we make sure that we are taking care of not displacing small business workers from the city, that we are protecting small business workers, not just their jobs and livelihoods, but also the housing that they live in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials defended the mayor’s housing plan on Friday, saying it underwent a thorough review before approval by state officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Family Zoning Plan is the product of years of study, outreach and hearings. The city took deliberate obligations under state law, including CEQA. We are comforted that the California Department of Housing and Community Development reviewed the Family Zoning Plan and felt it complied with state law,” said Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the city attorney. “We will review any lawsuit once we are served and will have more to say in court.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representatives from the mayor’s office underscored that the city needs to build more housing to meet state requirements and keep up with increasing demand for housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State housing authorities could have withheld critical public funding and taken over local housing plans and approvals if San Francisco failed to pass a housing plan by the end of this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“More and more, families are struggling to live in San Francisco, and the Family Zoning Plan will help us build the affordable homes they need to stay here,” said Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office. “The status quo isn’t working for families in this city, and we’re not going to wait around for someone else to do something about it.”\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>The lawsuit filed on Friday may not be the only legal challenge that Lurie’s rezoning plan faces. Pro-housing development advocacy groups such as YIMBY Law, the legal arm of Yes In My Backyard, have also suggested that they could file a lawsuit if the city doesn’t do enough to produce more housing in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We passed that Housing Element and it passed unanimously. So if we’re not just not meeting the spirit but not meeting the letter of the law, then we want to make sure we are holding San Francisco compliant,” said Jane Natoli, Bay Area Director of YIMBY Action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Estimates for how much housing might actually result from the zoning changes have been mixed. Due to economic constraints like building and construction costs, the Planning Department estimates that the mayor’s plan could realistically open up to 19,000 units; however, modeling from the city’s Chief Economist suggests that it could produce only around 14,600 units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the small ironies of today’s lawsuit is if they are saying we need to go back [to the zoning plan], we definitely don’t have a plan that’s compliant and are opening ourselves up to the builder’s remedy,” Natoli said, referring to a legal process through which the state allows developers to bypass local zoning rules if the city is not meeting state housing requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Friday are also exploring a 2026 ballot measure that would give voters a chance to potentially weigh in on additional changes to the new zoning plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richard Drury, the attorney representing Neighborhoods United and Small Business Forward, said that the plaintiffs have not yet decided whether they will seek preliminary relief or a resolution in the court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This plan didn’t go through the right public review process to produce more affordable housing and less damage,” Drury said. “Instead, they upzoned parts of the city and are threatening to eliminate some rent-controlled housing to build luxury condos, which is the opposite of what the plan aimed to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "After Tenderloin Apartment Fire, Rent-Controlled Tenants Fear They’re Being Pushed Out",
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"content": "\u003cp>For more than 20 years, Hugh Leeman made his home in a studio at 50 Golden Gate Ave. He said many of his neighbors in the rent-controlled building had lived there long before he did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the predawn hours of Dec. 12, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12066892/fire-tears-through-tenderloin-apartment-building-forcing-rescues-of-residents-cats\">a major blaze\u003c/a> erupted on the top floor of the six-story Beaux Arts-style building in the Tenderloin, rendering it unlivable for Leeman and about 130 others who were displaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the tenants in the 60-unit building aren’t sure where they’ll live in the coming months, as they face deadlines to apply for city assistance and a possible end to short-term paid hotel stays. Many say they haven’t received sufficient support from the property management company, Mosser Companies, or city leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been incredibly difficult,” Leeman said after a community meeting on Tuesday with the area’s supervisor and city housing officials. “You’ve got multi-generation families that have lived here for 20, 30, 40 plus years. They can’t afford to go onto the open market.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the weeks since the fire, Leeman has been able to move into a new apartment, costing him nearly $500 more a month than his rent-controlled $1,172 rate. Still, he considers himself among the fortunate ones to be able to get settled in that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Coercive at best’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the time of the fire, those who had lived for decades at 50 Golden Gate would have been paying a fraction of market rate because of the city rent ordinance’s cap on annual increases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because Mosser could stand to make significantly more money by renting the units at market rate, Leeman said he and others are concerned that the company isn’t incentivized to help the current tenants stay in their units after the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best thing in their financial interest is to have these people displaced,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, he worries his suspicion is correct. In the days directly following the fire, Leeman said Mosser offered to return renters’ security deposits, though the move would end their leases — and therefore their rent-controlled rates.[aside postID=news_12066892 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251212-Tenderloin-Apartment-Fire-01-KQED.jpg']Residents said they also received an offer from the company to rehouse them in another building while theirs was being renovated, and then return to 50 Golden Gate, but the contract included a provision that would release Mosser from any liability that could arise related to the fire in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This, on the surface, is very coercive at best,” Leeman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mosser did not respond to requests for comment from KQED, but tenants said the company had agreed to pay December’s rent and provide security at the building after reports of possible theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Tran, who lived in the building for 17 years, said she received the rehousing offer on a Friday and responded the following Monday with a list of at least six of Mosser’s other buildings in which she would be interested in living, but she struggled to get in touch with the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I emailed every day for three days, I left a voicemail every night for three days,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she did hear back, she was told only that there was no vacancy at another of Mosser’s buildings that she hadn’t included on that list. “‘Did you read my email?’” she said. “And ‘Why are you responding to me with this lack of vacancy at a building I didn’t ask to be relocated to?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tran said she’s decided not to pursue a new placement in another Mosser building, but she has heard from other residents who have said they’ve been shown single-room occupancy units without kitchens to replace their studios, even as units with kitchens appear as open on the property manager’s site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why is that not being shown to displaced tenants?” Tran asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Immediate uncertainty\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While residents have tried to get back on their feet, many have been sheltered in two hotels: Disabled and elderly residents were sent to a Motel 6 in Union Square directly after the fire, while others were placed in a Mosser Hotel in the South of Market neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tran said two weeks later, on Christmas Day, she and other residents were almost evicted from the hotels before the city’s Human Services Agency stepped in to extend their stays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some, though, that extension could come to an end Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gardenia Zuniga, who previously lived in the building and has been supporting current residents since the fire, said Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s office was working to secure extended hotel stays for tenants in 15 units who have recently been approved for the city’s short-term housing subsidy. She said four others’ applications were not approved, and others had elected not to participate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who remain in hotels while they look for longer-term housing are expected to be moved to different spots near Ocean Beach and in South San Francisco while their current hotels are booked due to the upcoming JP Morgan healthcare conference, Zuniga told KQED.[aside postID=news_12050263 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250722-ShelterFamilies-09-BL_qed.jpg']Some tenants on Tuesday expressed concerns that they didn’t qualify for relief based on their income and assets, while others said documentation they needed to complete the applications — like driver’s licenses, passports and other identification — is still inaccessible in their apartments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahmood said that the city was permitting digital documentation to ease that concern and had extended the deadline to apply for relief multiple times. Representatives from the Human Services Agency were present at the meeting on Tuesday to help residents complete individual applications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katia Padilla, the chief operating officer of the Latino Task Force, said the building’s monolingual Spanish speakers have also struggled to get sufficient translation services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she’s had to help translate for some, though Mahmood said that the Human Services Agency provided translators during the community meeting and to help with individual applications on Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents on Tuesday also expressed concerns about security at the building. During the meeting, some said that they believe property they left behind has been removed from their apartments or perhaps stolen. Leeman said people saw via Find My iPhone that their devices had been taken out of the building and accessed off-site, and photos of the building’s roof show that it has been uncovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents have been unable to retrieve their property because authorities have deemed the building unsafe to enter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahmood said his office was helping residents who are concerned about their property to file police reports, and that it is expediting repair permits needed to allow building access, including to fix a broken elevator at risk of collapsing. He expected tenants would be able to get into the building next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our focus has been security and making sure the residents get access [as soon] as possible,” he said. “The next step is making sure they’re going to start scheduling appointments for people to come into the building and get access to the resources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Next steps\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Tran is among the residents who have been approved for assistance through the city’s short-term subsidy program, which will pay the difference between her $1,275 monthly rent at 50 Golden Gate and a new unit that costs up to $2,845 a month, depending on whether she stays in the city or moves elsewhere in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That subsidy will be in effect for two years, she said, with a possible two-year extension. She’s also applied for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/learn-about-displaced-tenant-housing-preference-dthp\">Displaced Tenant Housing Preference\u003c/a> program through the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, which gives preference in the city’s affordable housing lottery system to renters forced out of their homes by fire, no-fault eviction and other reasons out of their control. But she said she’s been told that the process could take longer and isn’t a guarantee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, finding a place could prove difficult. Tran said she routinely spent 80% of her income on the studio apartment, and the subsidy goes only toward her base rent, not utilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I go anywhere that includes [additional] utilities, I have no disposable income left,” she said. “Of all the options I’ve looked at, I’m really only looking at one property at this point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For more than 20 years, Hugh Leeman made his home in a studio at 50 Golden Gate Ave. He said many of his neighbors in the rent-controlled building had lived there long before he did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the predawn hours of Dec. 12, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12066892/fire-tears-through-tenderloin-apartment-building-forcing-rescues-of-residents-cats\">a major blaze\u003c/a> erupted on the top floor of the six-story Beaux Arts-style building in the Tenderloin, rendering it unlivable for Leeman and about 130 others who were displaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the tenants in the 60-unit building aren’t sure where they’ll live in the coming months, as they face deadlines to apply for city assistance and a possible end to short-term paid hotel stays. Many say they haven’t received sufficient support from the property management company, Mosser Companies, or city leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been incredibly difficult,” Leeman said after a community meeting on Tuesday with the area’s supervisor and city housing officials. “You’ve got multi-generation families that have lived here for 20, 30, 40 plus years. They can’t afford to go onto the open market.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the weeks since the fire, Leeman has been able to move into a new apartment, costing him nearly $500 more a month than his rent-controlled $1,172 rate. Still, he considers himself among the fortunate ones to be able to get settled in that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Coercive at best’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the time of the fire, those who had lived for decades at 50 Golden Gate would have been paying a fraction of market rate because of the city rent ordinance’s cap on annual increases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because Mosser could stand to make significantly more money by renting the units at market rate, Leeman said he and others are concerned that the company isn’t incentivized to help the current tenants stay in their units after the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best thing in their financial interest is to have these people displaced,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, he worries his suspicion is correct. In the days directly following the fire, Leeman said Mosser offered to return renters’ security deposits, though the move would end their leases — and therefore their rent-controlled rates.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Residents said they also received an offer from the company to rehouse them in another building while theirs was being renovated, and then return to 50 Golden Gate, but the contract included a provision that would release Mosser from any liability that could arise related to the fire in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This, on the surface, is very coercive at best,” Leeman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mosser did not respond to requests for comment from KQED, but tenants said the company had agreed to pay December’s rent and provide security at the building after reports of possible theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Tran, who lived in the building for 17 years, said she received the rehousing offer on a Friday and responded the following Monday with a list of at least six of Mosser’s other buildings in which she would be interested in living, but she struggled to get in touch with the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I emailed every day for three days, I left a voicemail every night for three days,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she did hear back, she was told only that there was no vacancy at another of Mosser’s buildings that she hadn’t included on that list. “‘Did you read my email?’” she said. “And ‘Why are you responding to me with this lack of vacancy at a building I didn’t ask to be relocated to?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tran said she’s decided not to pursue a new placement in another Mosser building, but she has heard from other residents who have said they’ve been shown single-room occupancy units without kitchens to replace their studios, even as units with kitchens appear as open on the property manager’s site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why is that not being shown to displaced tenants?” Tran asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Immediate uncertainty\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While residents have tried to get back on their feet, many have been sheltered in two hotels: Disabled and elderly residents were sent to a Motel 6 in Union Square directly after the fire, while others were placed in a Mosser Hotel in the South of Market neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tran said two weeks later, on Christmas Day, she and other residents were almost evicted from the hotels before the city’s Human Services Agency stepped in to extend their stays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some, though, that extension could come to an end Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gardenia Zuniga, who previously lived in the building and has been supporting current residents since the fire, said Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s office was working to secure extended hotel stays for tenants in 15 units who have recently been approved for the city’s short-term housing subsidy. She said four others’ applications were not approved, and others had elected not to participate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who remain in hotels while they look for longer-term housing are expected to be moved to different spots near Ocean Beach and in South San Francisco while their current hotels are booked due to the upcoming JP Morgan healthcare conference, Zuniga told KQED.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Some tenants on Tuesday expressed concerns that they didn’t qualify for relief based on their income and assets, while others said documentation they needed to complete the applications — like driver’s licenses, passports and other identification — is still inaccessible in their apartments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahmood said that the city was permitting digital documentation to ease that concern and had extended the deadline to apply for relief multiple times. Representatives from the Human Services Agency were present at the meeting on Tuesday to help residents complete individual applications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katia Padilla, the chief operating officer of the Latino Task Force, said the building’s monolingual Spanish speakers have also struggled to get sufficient translation services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she’s had to help translate for some, though Mahmood said that the Human Services Agency provided translators during the community meeting and to help with individual applications on Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents on Tuesday also expressed concerns about security at the building. During the meeting, some said that they believe property they left behind has been removed from their apartments or perhaps stolen. Leeman said people saw via Find My iPhone that their devices had been taken out of the building and accessed off-site, and photos of the building’s roof show that it has been uncovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents have been unable to retrieve their property because authorities have deemed the building unsafe to enter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahmood said his office was helping residents who are concerned about their property to file police reports, and that it is expediting repair permits needed to allow building access, including to fix a broken elevator at risk of collapsing. He expected tenants would be able to get into the building next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our focus has been security and making sure the residents get access [as soon] as possible,” he said. “The next step is making sure they’re going to start scheduling appointments for people to come into the building and get access to the resources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Next steps\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Tran is among the residents who have been approved for assistance through the city’s short-term subsidy program, which will pay the difference between her $1,275 monthly rent at 50 Golden Gate and a new unit that costs up to $2,845 a month, depending on whether she stays in the city or moves elsewhere in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That subsidy will be in effect for two years, she said, with a possible two-year extension. She’s also applied for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sf.gov/learn-about-displaced-tenant-housing-preference-dthp\">Displaced Tenant Housing Preference\u003c/a> program through the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, which gives preference in the city’s affordable housing lottery system to renters forced out of their homes by fire, no-fault eviction and other reasons out of their control. But she said she’s been told that the process could take longer and isn’t a guarantee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, finding a place could prove difficult. Tran said she routinely spent 80% of her income on the studio apartment, and the subsidy goes only toward her base rent, not utilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I go anywhere that includes [additional] utilities, I have no disposable income left,” she said. “Of all the options I’ve looked at, I’m really only looking at one property at this point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "san-franciscos-historic-relief-cottages-built-after-the-1906-earthquake-are-hidden-in-plain-sight",
"title": "San Francisco’s Historic ‘Relief Cottages,’ Built After the 1906 Earthquake, Are Hidden in Plain Sight",
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"headTitle": "San Francisco’s Historic ‘Relief Cottages,’ Built After the 1906 Earthquake, Are Hidden in Plain Sight | 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>Jane Cryan walked into a leasing agency on Geary Boulevard in\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\"> San Francisco\u003c/a> just before closing one evening in 1982.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was looking for an apartment that could accommodate her grand piano. The flat she was inquiring about had already been rented, but the agent asked if she’d be interested in a cottage out in the Sunset District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That started everything,” Cryan said. “That, to me, is my golden moment in all my 44 years in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cottage at 1227 24th Ave. felt like her own artist retreat. She moved in and played her grand piano night and day for the first several weeks, happy to have her own space where she could do what she liked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“An elderly gentleman from across the street came over and shook his finger at me, and he said, ‘Young lady, do you know that you’re living in a couple of relief houses pasted together?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066194\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066194\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251204-EARTHQUAKECOTTAGES00174_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251204-EARTHQUAKECOTTAGES00174_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251204-EARTHQUAKECOTTAGES00174_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251204-EARTHQUAKECOTTAGES00174_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An earthquake cottage stands on 211 Mullen Ave. in San Francisco on December 4, 2025. The original shelter was built after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and some still house city residents. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cryan was confused. What did he mean by “relief houses?” She had moved from Milwaukee in the 1960s because she was enamored with the Beat Movement and had been writing letters to Jack Kerouac. When she got to San Francisco, all of 18 years old, she threw herself into writing and playing jazz piano, although she made her money as an executive assistant. She’d never heard of the history her neighbor was describing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had lived in the city all those years and never heard of the [19]06 quake or ‘the fire,’ as everybody who survived it called it,” Cryan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was curious to know everything she could about the natural disaster that devastated San Francisco at the start of the 20th century, knocking down 80% of the buildings and displacing thousands of people. She spent nights and weekends obsessively going through newspaper archives to learn all she could about these so-called “relief cottages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The history Cryan discovered\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“After the 1906 Earthquake and fire, more than a quarter of a million people are at least temporarily displaced,” said Woody LaBounty, president and CEO of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfheritage.org/\">San Francisco Heritage\u003c/a>, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving San Francisco history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who had the means left the city to stay with relatives or friends elsewhere. But many poor San Franciscans didn’t have that option. The military temporarily set up tent camps to house refugees in the short term. Women cooked meals on stoves set up in the streets, children went to school in makeshift tent classrooms and people tried to figure out what to do next.[aside postID=news_12065901 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251016-NIMITZHOUSE-38-BL-KQED.jpg']After a few months, city leaders became concerned about sanitation in the tent camps and they worried what would happen when winter rains came. They commissioned union carpenters to build small cottages out of redwood, cedar and fir to house the refugees. They painted the cottages the same green as city park benches, which became known as “park bench green.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You basically are talking about the working class,” LaBounty said. “People who don’t have property, don’t have other resources, and need to find work and find shelter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overseeing this effort was the San Francisco Relief Corporation, which also coordinated distribution of clothes, food and other aid to the refugees — many of whom the city relied upon to help rebuild the city. The 5,610 cottages were mostly set up in the city’s neighborhood parks like Jefferson Square, Precita Park (then known as Bernal Park) and Portsmouth Square. There were also a large number of cottages where Park Presidio Boulevard is now — back then, it was newly acquired parkland with nothing much around it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/places/000/1906-earthquake-cottages.htm\">cottages\u003c/a> came in several sizes. The smallest was 10×14 feet — these “Type A” shacks are the most commonly seen today, in part because they are so modular and people combined them to make larger residences. But there were also 14×18 feet and 18×24-feet-sized shacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Relief Corporation charged people a few dollars per month in rent for the cottages, but soon it started receiving pressure from Superintendent of Parks John McLaren and other city residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063864\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1950px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063864\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1950\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED.jpg 1950w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED-160x164.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED-1498x1536.jpg 1498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1950px) 100vw, 1950px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Richmond District, on San Francisco’s northwest side, was largely uninhabited sand dunes at the time of the 1906 earthquake and fires. There was a lot of open space to build refugee cottages like these at the Richmond District refugee camp between Lake and Geary streets. Some surviving earthquake cottages can still be found in the Richmond and Sunset districts. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“They wanted their parks back,” LaBounty said. “As other San Franciscans were ready to move on from the disaster, they didn’t like the idea that their parks had a community, a village of working-class people living in the middle of their parks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under pressure to move cottages out of the parks as quickly as possible, the Relief Corporation ended up returning all the rent it collected to residents when they moved their cottages out of the parks and onto land somewhere else. And just a year and a half after the earthquake and fire, most cottage camps were gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gave people who never would have dreamed, I think, of owning a home a chance to get into that American dream,” LaBounty said. “So, you get the earthquake cottage, you’re a refugee who has nothing, and now suddenly you buy a lot for 100 bucks in the sand dunes of the Richmond, you have pretty much a free house.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063862\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063862\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1545\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED-160x124.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED-1536x1187.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After several months, residents were encouraged to move their cottages out of the parks and onto a plot of land. Here, a horse gets ready to move a shack out of Precita Park. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many of the cottages ended up in the Richmond and Sunset districts of San Francisco because of that large camp along Park Presidio and the prevalence of unclaimed land on the western side of the city. Another hot spot for cottages is Bernal Heights, where people moved their cottages from Precita Park at the bottom of the hill, up onto vacant plots on the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was sort of a stigma of having an earthquake cottage for a few years because it sort of signified you were a refugee, you needed help, you were poor,” LaBounty said. “So, people often quickly tried to hide the pedigree of their houses and cover them with shingles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People built fences around their cottages, added additional rooms and generally tried to \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/1906_Earthquake_Shack_Survivors\">personalize\u003c/a> them. Many people painted over that telling park bench green color, hiding the provenance of their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcXCRZEkzx4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city moved on, too. Just nine years after the Great Earthquake and Fire, San Francisco \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/upload/PPIE-Brochure-FINAL-for-Web.pdf\">hosted\u003c/a> the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition to show the city was back and celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a spectacle that spread over much of what is now the Marina District, the Exposition drew more than 18 million visitors and boasted innovations in science, technology and art. Whole buildings were erected for the Exposition, including the Palace of Fine Arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An era of ‘shacktivism’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When Jane Cryan learned all this history and realized that her little cottage sanctuary was actually three and a half earthquake cottages connected together, she was in awe. She loved that she was living in a piece of San Francisco history, one hidden in plain sight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around the time of her research, Cryan got word from her landlord that he wanted to sell her cottage — or worse, knock it down and sell the lot.[aside postID=news_12063643 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251008-GirlintheFishbowl-01-BL.jpg']“I had to do something,” Cryan said. So, she called City Hall. “And this is exactly what I said, I said, ‘Can you connect me with somebody at City Hall who can tell me how to save a pair of cottages, very important cottages, that are under threat of demolition.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That call led her to the Landmarks Preservation office. She learned how to apply for a historic landmark designation and brought her research on the importance of the earthquake cottages to the Planning Commission. Along the way, the media caught wind of what she was doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The media came to me, and they made what I was doing one of the most important things that ever hit San Francisco,” Cryan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cryan started a \u003ca href=\"https://sfpl.org/pdf/libraries/main/sfhistory/archives-and-manuscripts/SPASFRS.pdf\">nonprofit\u003c/a> organization,\u003ca href=\"https://sfpl.org/pdf/libraries/main/sfhistory/archives-and-manuscripts/SPASFRS.pdf\"> The Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of San Francisco Refugee Shacks\u003c/a>, and made it her mission to educate people about the earthquake shacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eventually, she won historic status for her little 24th Avenue cottage, but it was a bittersweet victory. Because historic status limits what a property owner can do with a building, the planning commission also ruled that Cryan had to move out as compensation. From then on, she moved from apartment to apartment, ultimately finding herself priced out of San Francisco once she was retired. She moved back to Wisconsin, where she is originally from, in 2007 after 44 years in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She continues the fight to save earthquake cottages from afar when developers threaten them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A very San Francisco treasure hunt\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s still possible to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/earthquake-shacks-sf-map/\">find\u003c/a> earthquake cottages when walking around San Francisco. Woody LaBounty suggested looking for a shallow roof line, like a Boy Scout tent. That’s often a good indicator that a small house might be an earthquake cottage. Many other small buildings have much sharper rooflines or flat roofs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaBounty estimates that there are somewhere between \u003ca href=\"https://www.outsidelands.org/shack-list.php\">30 and 50 cottages\u003c/a> sprinkled throughout the city. But it’s hard to know because so many of them have been incorporated into larger houses or are used as sheds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063861\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063861\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1446\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED-160x116.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED-1536x1111.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An earthquake cottage being moved through the streets of San Francisco circa 1906. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Historical conservationists \u003ca href=\"https://www.outsidelands.org/kirkham_shacks.php\">successfully\u003c/a> saved several earthquake cottages from demolition over the years. Two of them are owned by the Presidio Trust and used to be open to visitors, although they have recently been moved to an out-of-the-way location. Another is in the San Francisco Zoo, part of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfzoo.org/greenies-conservation-corner/\">Greenie’s Conservation Corner\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As San Francisco continues to change, it is this visual touchstone to our past,” LaBounty said. “And not only our past, but the most significant event that happened in our past, outside of maybe the Gold Rush.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I want to talk about architecture for a moment – specifically residential architecture. In San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You expect to see stately Victorian homes with their bright colors and fancy decorative trim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s Marina style homes with their big windows and stucco facades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But sprinkled in amidst these grander homes you might spot a few tiny cottages — the original tiny homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charity Vargas:\u003c/strong> I did see two over in the sunset. There was like two close together and I thought maybe they might be them, but I’m not sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Charity Vargas, our question asker this week, has seen some of these small dwellings dotted around the Richmond and Sunset districts near her home. And she’s heard that the cottages are holdovers from the Great 1906 earthquake and fire, but wants to know more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charity Vargas: \u003c/strong>How many earthquake cottages are left and you know, are they still used and where they are?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Today on the show, we’ll dig into the history of San Francisco’s earthquake cottages. We’ll learn how critical they were in sheltering a vulnerable…but vital.. population and learn about modern efforts to save them. I’m Olivia Allen-Price and you’re listening to Bay Curious. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor message\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We set out to answer Charity’s question by searching for “earthquake shacks”…tiny homes built out of redwood and cedar after the 1906 earthquake and fire. Bay Curious editor and producer Katrina Schwartz found one high on a hill in Bernal Heights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joan Hunter: \u003c/strong>You want a little tour? Ok, this is our tiny kitchen and I believe this rectangle room is the original earthquake shack and this part is added on, but it’s kind of hard to say exactly. I’m Joan Hunter. I live in Bernal Heights, San Francisco, California in an earthquake cottage or earthquake shack, as some would like to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>I’m standing with Joan in her light filled living room…all that’s left of the original cottage. It’s a modestly sized room, but has tall ceilings and windows that look out over a sweeping view of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What started out as a one room cottage has been expanded quite a bit…it’s about 620 square feet now, still small by modern standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joan Hunter: \u003c/strong>Okay, so this is a little bedroom we have in the front and all of our rooms, this is a theme for the house, everything is small, very, very small.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/strong> Joan’s got two kids…so the house can feel like a tight squeeze at times. But she fell in love with the history of the place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joan Hunter: \u003c/strong>what I do know is that the guy who bought it, he was a little kind of like a bachelor. And he met someone who was also single and they moved together and they got married. And it was just a love story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Joan likes thinking that after they survived the worst natural disaster San Francisco has ever experienced…and been homeless for months because of it…that they finally found some tranquility here, a little piece of San Francisco to call their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music to help us transition\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>The Great 1906 Earthquake and Fire leveled 80 percent of San Francisco. The morning of April 18, 1906 Bay Area residents awoke early in the morning to a temblor they’d never forget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sounds of shaking\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kathleen Norris: \u003c/strong>Every picture on the wall is going tack, tack, tack. Everything movable in the house is keeping up that unearthly clatter. You could hear up and down the roads, earthquake. It’s an earthquake. Oh, God help us, it’s an earthquake. of course, it changed the world for all of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Kathleen Norris shared her oral history with the Bancroft Library in 1960. There was no audio recorded during the disaster, but anyone who survived it remembered the trauma of it clearly…even fifty years later. Kathleen was in Mill Valley when the earthquake hit…where the damage wasn’t too bad. But she and her brother were curious about how San Francisco had fared…so they found a boat that took them to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joan Hunter: \u003c/strong>It was something to see. The great, heavy, slow rolls of smoke that were joining hands as they went up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Kathleen describes refugees fleeing homes that had been leveled, toting their belongings in baby carriages and wheel barrows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kathleen Norris: \u003c/strong>We walked over the hot, hot rocks of Market Street. And of course, the cable car lines were twisted hairpins. And the houses were all down. There was nothing saved. Nothing was accepted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>And yet, the image that lingered in her mind…even as the smoke lay heavy over the hills… was of people getting to work to repair their city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kathleen Norris: \u003c/strong>And already there were people helping out and organizing, scraping bricks. The bricks were hot. And they were working away. Nobody felt for an instant, oh, let’s go somewhere else. Everyone knew that the city was going to come back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>As indeed it would. Just nine years after the earthquake and fire, San Francisco hosted the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition…the reason the Palace of Fine Arts was built…a spectacle that 18 million people visited by the time it closed.. Headlines trumpeted the achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Voice over reading archival newspaper headline:\u003c/em> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Big Fair is Opened. All eyes on San Francisco. President Flashes Signal\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Fair Draws Myriad; All Records For Crowds Fall\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Marvelous Exhibits From All Parts of the Earth Assembled by 42 Countries for the Hugest Conclave of Nations in History\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>It was a signal to the world that San Francisco was still \u003cem>the most important\u003c/em> city in the West…one full of invention and achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Voice over reading archival newspaper headline: \u003c/strong>Tower of Jewels Wreathed in Flames. But it’s only to thrill visitors\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Art Smith Sets Hearts Leaping: Aviator’s Loop-the-Loops at Night Traced By Trail of Smoke\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>But how did San Francisco go from the absolute devastation of 1906 to showing off the latest advances in science and art on the world stage just nine years later? This is where the earthquake cottages… or shacks as they’re affectionately called…come into the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>So after the 1906 earthquake and fire, more than a quarter of a million people are at least temporarily displaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Woody LaBounty is President and CEO of San Francisco Heritage, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving San Francisco history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>And now, the powers that be have to decide not only how to take care of all these people, but also who’s gonna rebuild the city?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Immediately after the earthquake and fire, the military stepped in and established tent camps in the city’s parks. But soon a new organization…the San Francisco Relief Corporation…was formed to distribute food, clothes and other aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>That covered many aspects of what you have to do when people are refugees, but also a specific housing effort, and that was the earthquake relief cottages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Officials were worried about sanitation in the tent camps when winter rains came. So, they decided to build 5,610 relief cottages…built with redwood, fir and cedar… to house people. They were painted “park bench green”…literally the color used on Golden Gate Park benches… and clustered in neighborhood parks like Jefferson Square, Precita Park, and Portsmouth Square. Around 17,000 people lived in them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>If you owned property or you had a property that had been destroyed in the earthquake, you rebuilt or you figured out a way to move on. But there was a vast number of people who didn’t have any other resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>These were San Francisco’s poor, folks who had lived in boarding houses or shared rooms downtown before the fire. City leaders wanted to keep these laborers with the skills to rebuild the city close by. But they didn’t plan to give away the cottages for free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>So for all of wanting to take care of the refugees, there was also a fear at the time of creeping socialism. People in power did not want to give anybody anything for nothing. So they thought it would create indigence. And so you were supposed to pay some sort of rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it worked. Shack residents paid monthly rent of a few dollars while their shacks were in the parks. But the relief corporation returned that money when a resident bought some land and moved the shack out of the park and onto their own property.That generosity was spurred by pressure to move refugees and their cottages out of the parks as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>As other San Franciscans were ready to move on from the disaster, they didn’t like the idea that their parks had a community, a village of working-class people. Living in the middle of their park. They wanted their parks back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>About a year and a half after the earthquake, in the summer of 1907, most of the shacks had been removed from the parks. Newspapers at the time described the surreal image of tiny homes on wagons moving across the city with people still in them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Voice over reading archival newspaper excerpt:\u003c/strong> It is a strange sight to see a procession of these refugee cottages moving down fashionable Van Ness Avenue or busy Fillmore Street, faces peering from the windows, and men, women and children going about their household tasks as if their little home was securely perched upon a cement foundation and surrounded by a garden and a fence.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Back in 1907, the Richmond District, a northwestern neighborhood, was mostly undeveloped sand dunes, with lots of empty land. So many shack owners moved their cottages to vacant plots there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woody says the earthquake shack program not only got the city working again…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>\u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">I\u003c/span>t also gave people who never would have dreamed, I think, of owning a home a chance to get into that American dream. So you get the earthquake cottage, you’re a refugee who has nothing, and now suddenly you buy a lot for 100 bucks in the sand dunes of the Richmond, you have pretty much a free house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Bernal Heights is another place with many earthquake cottages…people just moved their shacks from Precita Park to open land up the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And some of them are still there…like the house we toured at the beginning of this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>The one sort of key touchstone that you can tell about a cottage is the roof line. It has a very shallow pitched roof, kind of like a pup tent, like a Boy Scout tent. And then that is like your first hint because a lot of small buildings you’ll see have very steep pitched or flat roofs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Woody says many shack owners quickly made improvements to their new homes — painting, building fences, adding additional rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>There was sort of a stigma of having an earthquake cottage for a few years because it sort of signified you were a refugee, you needed help, you were poor. So people often, they quickly tried to hide sort of the pedigree of their houses and cover them with shingles quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>They wanted to hide that telling park bench green color. Most existing earthquake cottages are surrounded by modern additions. Or sometimes they’re a couple shacks placed together. That’s one reason it’s really hard to know how many still exist in San Francisco, they’re hidden. But Woody estimates between 30 and 50 earthquake cottages are dotted across the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>The cottage in the front is made up of three and a half shacks, and then there’s a free-standing mid-size shack in the backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>This is Jane Cryan. She rented one of these preserved earthquake shacks in the outer Sunset in the 1980s. Jane is best known as a “shacktivist”…fighting to preserve earthquake cottages from development. But if it weren’t for the Beat movement in the 1950s, she never would have moved here in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>The only reason I ended up in San Francisco is that Jack Kerouac, with whom I had correspondence from the time I was 16 years old told me that Milwaukee was no place for a poet. You should be in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>By day she was an executive assistant, but writing and jazz piano were her passions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>And I moved in and I played piano for about six weeks, day and night, and an elderly gentleman from across the street came over and shook his finger at me and he said, young lady, do you know that you’re living in a couple of relief houses pasted together?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Her three room cottage was actually three earthquake shacks pasted together. This was 1982 and Jane had lived in San Francisco almost 20 years. But she’d never even heard of the 1906 earthquake and fire. Her neighbor’s passing comment sparked her curiosity. She spent nights and weekends obsessively going through old newspaper archives to learn as much as she could about the disaster and the earthquake cottages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, her landlord made it known that he planned to sell her cottage…or worse demolish it and sell the lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>Take down our history. So I had to do something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Preserving these cottages — tangible pieces of such important history — became her life’s work. She took inspiration from one of the 1906 earthquake refugees she learned about in her research, a woman named Mary Kelly. Mary was an agitator, constantly questioning how the relief corporation dolled out aid and whether it was fair. She was such a pain to them they eventually evicted her from her cottage. But she refused to leave, famously saying:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Voice over portraying Mary Kelly:\u003c/strong> They can’t bluff me. I’ll stay with the house if they take it to the end of the earth.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>She rode in her cottage as men hauled it onto a wagon and trucked it away. She stayed inside as they dismantled the cottage board by board. Jane finds Mary’s tenacity — and willingness to stand up to power — endearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>She was exactly the way I was. If I saw something, I said something. And if I saw something that was not right, I said something louder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Jane started a nonprofit called The Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of San Francisco Refugee Shacks. She fought hard to get the planning commission to designate her little shack a historic landmark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And she was successful!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>Landmark number 171.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>But it was a bittersweet victory. The commission also said that Jane had to vacate the cottage in order to compensate the landlord for putting restrictions on his property. Jane bounced around from place to place after that, eventually moving back to Wisconsin, where she’s originally from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina in the tape: \u003c/strong>What do you miss most about San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>Oh, everything! Oh my god, San Francisco is the queen of the Golden West, for heaven’s sake!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Historian Woody LaBounty says there are probably more earthquake cottages than we know. They’re hiding in people’s backyards, incorporated into bigger houses or used as sheds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>They’re the last sort of most visible, tangible sign of one of the biggest things that ever happened to the city of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Increasingly these little cottages are being bought and torn down to make room for larger homes. But the ones that remain are a reminder of a refugee relief program that not only got people back on their feet, but made them homeowners. An example of San Franciscans coming together to repair and resurrect a beloved city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> That was Bay Curious editor and producer Katrina Schwartz. Special thanks this week to \u003ca href=\"https://californiarevealed.org/\">California Revealed\u003c/a>, an online database of oral histories and other archival materials. They helped us find Kathleen Norris’ oral history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Right now your membership means more than ever, give at \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our show is produced by Gabriela Glueck, Christopher Beale, Katrina Schwartz and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Have a wonderful week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "After the 1906 Earthquake and fire, San Francisco leaders built relief cottages to house the homeless. Some of those tiny dwellings can still be found thanks to historic preservation efforts.\r\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>Jane Cryan walked into a leasing agency on Geary Boulevard in\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\"> San Francisco\u003c/a> just before closing one evening in 1982.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was looking for an apartment that could accommodate her grand piano. The flat she was inquiring about had already been rented, but the agent asked if she’d be interested in a cottage out in the Sunset District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That started everything,” Cryan said. “That, to me, is my golden moment in all my 44 years in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cottage at 1227 24th Ave. felt like her own artist retreat. She moved in and played her grand piano night and day for the first several weeks, happy to have her own space where she could do what she liked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“An elderly gentleman from across the street came over and shook his finger at me, and he said, ‘Young lady, do you know that you’re living in a couple of relief houses pasted together?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066194\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066194\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251204-EARTHQUAKECOTTAGES00174_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251204-EARTHQUAKECOTTAGES00174_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251204-EARTHQUAKECOTTAGES00174_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251204-EARTHQUAKECOTTAGES00174_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An earthquake cottage stands on 211 Mullen Ave. in San Francisco on December 4, 2025. The original shelter was built after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and some still house city residents. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cryan was confused. What did he mean by “relief houses?” She had moved from Milwaukee in the 1960s because she was enamored with the Beat Movement and had been writing letters to Jack Kerouac. When she got to San Francisco, all of 18 years old, she threw herself into writing and playing jazz piano, although she made her money as an executive assistant. She’d never heard of the history her neighbor was describing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had lived in the city all those years and never heard of the [19]06 quake or ‘the fire,’ as everybody who survived it called it,” Cryan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was curious to know everything she could about the natural disaster that devastated San Francisco at the start of the 20th century, knocking down 80% of the buildings and displacing thousands of people. She spent nights and weekends obsessively going through newspaper archives to learn all she could about these so-called “relief cottages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The history Cryan discovered\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“After the 1906 Earthquake and fire, more than a quarter of a million people are at least temporarily displaced,” said Woody LaBounty, president and CEO of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfheritage.org/\">San Francisco Heritage\u003c/a>, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving San Francisco history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who had the means left the city to stay with relatives or friends elsewhere. But many poor San Franciscans didn’t have that option. The military temporarily set up tent camps to house refugees in the short term. Women cooked meals on stoves set up in the streets, children went to school in makeshift tent classrooms and people tried to figure out what to do next.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>After a few months, city leaders became concerned about sanitation in the tent camps and they worried what would happen when winter rains came. They commissioned union carpenters to build small cottages out of redwood, cedar and fir to house the refugees. They painted the cottages the same green as city park benches, which became known as “park bench green.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You basically are talking about the working class,” LaBounty said. “People who don’t have property, don’t have other resources, and need to find work and find shelter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overseeing this effort was the San Francisco Relief Corporation, which also coordinated distribution of clothes, food and other aid to the refugees — many of whom the city relied upon to help rebuild the city. The 5,610 cottages were mostly set up in the city’s neighborhood parks like Jefferson Square, Precita Park (then known as Bernal Park) and Portsmouth Square. There were also a large number of cottages where Park Presidio Boulevard is now — back then, it was newly acquired parkland with nothing much around it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/places/000/1906-earthquake-cottages.htm\">cottages\u003c/a> came in several sizes. The smallest was 10×14 feet — these “Type A” shacks are the most commonly seen today, in part because they are so modular and people combined them to make larger residences. But there were also 14×18 feet and 18×24-feet-sized shacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Relief Corporation charged people a few dollars per month in rent for the cottages, but soon it started receiving pressure from Superintendent of Parks John McLaren and other city residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063864\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1950px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063864\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1950\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED.jpg 1950w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED-160x164.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/RichmondCamp-SFPL-KQED-1498x1536.jpg 1498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1950px) 100vw, 1950px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Richmond District, on San Francisco’s northwest side, was largely uninhabited sand dunes at the time of the 1906 earthquake and fires. There was a lot of open space to build refugee cottages like these at the Richmond District refugee camp between Lake and Geary streets. Some surviving earthquake cottages can still be found in the Richmond and Sunset districts. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“They wanted their parks back,” LaBounty said. “As other San Franciscans were ready to move on from the disaster, they didn’t like the idea that their parks had a community, a village of working-class people living in the middle of their parks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under pressure to move cottages out of the parks as quickly as possible, the Relief Corporation ended up returning all the rent it collected to residents when they moved their cottages out of the parks and onto land somewhere else. And just a year and a half after the earthquake and fire, most cottage camps were gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gave people who never would have dreamed, I think, of owning a home a chance to get into that American dream,” LaBounty said. “So, you get the earthquake cottage, you’re a refugee who has nothing, and now suddenly you buy a lot for 100 bucks in the sand dunes of the Richmond, you have pretty much a free house.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063862\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063862\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1545\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED-160x124.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/PrecitaPark-SFPL-KQED-1536x1187.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After several months, residents were encouraged to move their cottages out of the parks and onto a plot of land. Here, a horse gets ready to move a shack out of Precita Park. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many of the cottages ended up in the Richmond and Sunset districts of San Francisco because of that large camp along Park Presidio and the prevalence of unclaimed land on the western side of the city. Another hot spot for cottages is Bernal Heights, where people moved their cottages from Precita Park at the bottom of the hill, up onto vacant plots on the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was sort of a stigma of having an earthquake cottage for a few years because it sort of signified you were a refugee, you needed help, you were poor,” LaBounty said. “So, people often quickly tried to hide the pedigree of their houses and cover them with shingles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People built fences around their cottages, added additional rooms and generally tried to \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/1906_Earthquake_Shack_Survivors\">personalize\u003c/a> them. Many people painted over that telling park bench green color, hiding the provenance of their homes.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/DcXCRZEkzx4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/DcXCRZEkzx4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The city moved on, too. Just nine years after the Great Earthquake and Fire, San Francisco \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/upload/PPIE-Brochure-FINAL-for-Web.pdf\">hosted\u003c/a> the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition to show the city was back and celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a spectacle that spread over much of what is now the Marina District, the Exposition drew more than 18 million visitors and boasted innovations in science, technology and art. Whole buildings were erected for the Exposition, including the Palace of Fine Arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An era of ‘shacktivism’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When Jane Cryan learned all this history and realized that her little cottage sanctuary was actually three and a half earthquake cottages connected together, she was in awe. She loved that she was living in a piece of San Francisco history, one hidden in plain sight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around the time of her research, Cryan got word from her landlord that he wanted to sell her cottage — or worse, knock it down and sell the lot.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I had to do something,” Cryan said. So, she called City Hall. “And this is exactly what I said, I said, ‘Can you connect me with somebody at City Hall who can tell me how to save a pair of cottages, very important cottages, that are under threat of demolition.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That call led her to the Landmarks Preservation office. She learned how to apply for a historic landmark designation and brought her research on the importance of the earthquake cottages to the Planning Commission. Along the way, the media caught wind of what she was doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The media came to me, and they made what I was doing one of the most important things that ever hit San Francisco,” Cryan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cryan started a \u003ca href=\"https://sfpl.org/pdf/libraries/main/sfhistory/archives-and-manuscripts/SPASFRS.pdf\">nonprofit\u003c/a> organization,\u003ca href=\"https://sfpl.org/pdf/libraries/main/sfhistory/archives-and-manuscripts/SPASFRS.pdf\"> The Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of San Francisco Refugee Shacks\u003c/a>, and made it her mission to educate people about the earthquake shacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eventually, she won historic status for her little 24th Avenue cottage, but it was a bittersweet victory. Because historic status limits what a property owner can do with a building, the planning commission also ruled that Cryan had to move out as compensation. From then on, she moved from apartment to apartment, ultimately finding herself priced out of San Francisco once she was retired. She moved back to Wisconsin, where she is originally from, in 2007 after 44 years in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She continues the fight to save earthquake cottages from afar when developers threaten them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A very San Francisco treasure hunt\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s still possible to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/earthquake-shacks-sf-map/\">find\u003c/a> earthquake cottages when walking around San Francisco. Woody LaBounty suggested looking for a shallow roof line, like a Boy Scout tent. That’s often a good indicator that a small house might be an earthquake cottage. Many other small buildings have much sharper rooflines or flat roofs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaBounty estimates that there are somewhere between \u003ca href=\"https://www.outsidelands.org/shack-list.php\">30 and 50 cottages\u003c/a> sprinkled throughout the city. But it’s hard to know because so many of them have been incorporated into larger houses or are used as sheds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063861\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063861\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1446\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED-160x116.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/Moving-Cottage-KQED-1536x1111.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An earthquake cottage being moved through the streets of San Francisco circa 1906. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Historical conservationists \u003ca href=\"https://www.outsidelands.org/kirkham_shacks.php\">successfully\u003c/a> saved several earthquake cottages from demolition over the years. Two of them are owned by the Presidio Trust and used to be open to visitors, although they have recently been moved to an out-of-the-way location. Another is in the San Francisco Zoo, part of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfzoo.org/greenies-conservation-corner/\">Greenie’s Conservation Corner\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As San Francisco continues to change, it is this visual touchstone to our past,” LaBounty said. “And not only our past, but the most significant event that happened in our past, outside of maybe the Gold Rush.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I want to talk about architecture for a moment – specifically residential architecture. In San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You expect to see stately Victorian homes with their bright colors and fancy decorative trim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s Marina style homes with their big windows and stucco facades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But sprinkled in amidst these grander homes you might spot a few tiny cottages — the original tiny homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charity Vargas:\u003c/strong> I did see two over in the sunset. There was like two close together and I thought maybe they might be them, but I’m not sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Charity Vargas, our question asker this week, has seen some of these small dwellings dotted around the Richmond and Sunset districts near her home. And she’s heard that the cottages are holdovers from the Great 1906 earthquake and fire, but wants to know more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charity Vargas: \u003c/strong>How many earthquake cottages are left and you know, are they still used and where they are?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Today on the show, we’ll dig into the history of San Francisco’s earthquake cottages. We’ll learn how critical they were in sheltering a vulnerable…but vital.. population and learn about modern efforts to save them. I’m Olivia Allen-Price and you’re listening to Bay Curious. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sponsor message\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>We set out to answer Charity’s question by searching for “earthquake shacks”…tiny homes built out of redwood and cedar after the 1906 earthquake and fire. Bay Curious editor and producer Katrina Schwartz found one high on a hill in Bernal Heights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joan Hunter: \u003c/strong>You want a little tour? Ok, this is our tiny kitchen and I believe this rectangle room is the original earthquake shack and this part is added on, but it’s kind of hard to say exactly. I’m Joan Hunter. I live in Bernal Heights, San Francisco, California in an earthquake cottage or earthquake shack, as some would like to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>I’m standing with Joan in her light filled living room…all that’s left of the original cottage. It’s a modestly sized room, but has tall ceilings and windows that look out over a sweeping view of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What started out as a one room cottage has been expanded quite a bit…it’s about 620 square feet now, still small by modern standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joan Hunter: \u003c/strong>Okay, so this is a little bedroom we have in the front and all of our rooms, this is a theme for the house, everything is small, very, very small.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz:\u003c/strong> Joan’s got two kids…so the house can feel like a tight squeeze at times. But she fell in love with the history of the place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joan Hunter: \u003c/strong>what I do know is that the guy who bought it, he was a little kind of like a bachelor. And he met someone who was also single and they moved together and they got married. And it was just a love story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Joan likes thinking that after they survived the worst natural disaster San Francisco has ever experienced…and been homeless for months because of it…that they finally found some tranquility here, a little piece of San Francisco to call their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music to help us transition\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>The Great 1906 Earthquake and Fire leveled 80 percent of San Francisco. The morning of April 18, 1906 Bay Area residents awoke early in the morning to a temblor they’d never forget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sounds of shaking\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kathleen Norris: \u003c/strong>Every picture on the wall is going tack, tack, tack. Everything movable in the house is keeping up that unearthly clatter. You could hear up and down the roads, earthquake. It’s an earthquake. Oh, God help us, it’s an earthquake. of course, it changed the world for all of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Kathleen Norris shared her oral history with the Bancroft Library in 1960. There was no audio recorded during the disaster, but anyone who survived it remembered the trauma of it clearly…even fifty years later. Kathleen was in Mill Valley when the earthquake hit…where the damage wasn’t too bad. But she and her brother were curious about how San Francisco had fared…so they found a boat that took them to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joan Hunter: \u003c/strong>It was something to see. The great, heavy, slow rolls of smoke that were joining hands as they went up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Kathleen describes refugees fleeing homes that had been leveled, toting their belongings in baby carriages and wheel barrows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kathleen Norris: \u003c/strong>We walked over the hot, hot rocks of Market Street. And of course, the cable car lines were twisted hairpins. And the houses were all down. There was nothing saved. Nothing was accepted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>And yet, the image that lingered in her mind…even as the smoke lay heavy over the hills… was of people getting to work to repair their city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kathleen Norris: \u003c/strong>And already there were people helping out and organizing, scraping bricks. The bricks were hot. And they were working away. Nobody felt for an instant, oh, let’s go somewhere else. Everyone knew that the city was going to come back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>As indeed it would. Just nine years after the earthquake and fire, San Francisco hosted the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition…the reason the Palace of Fine Arts was built…a spectacle that 18 million people visited by the time it closed.. Headlines trumpeted the achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Voice over reading archival newspaper headline:\u003c/em> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Big Fair is Opened. All eyes on San Francisco. President Flashes Signal\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Fair Draws Myriad; All Records For Crowds Fall\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Marvelous Exhibits From All Parts of the Earth Assembled by 42 Countries for the Hugest Conclave of Nations in History\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>It was a signal to the world that San Francisco was still \u003cem>the most important\u003c/em> city in the West…one full of invention and achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Voice over reading archival newspaper headline: \u003c/strong>Tower of Jewels Wreathed in Flames. But it’s only to thrill visitors\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Art Smith Sets Hearts Leaping: Aviator’s Loop-the-Loops at Night Traced By Trail of Smoke\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>But how did San Francisco go from the absolute devastation of 1906 to showing off the latest advances in science and art on the world stage just nine years later? This is where the earthquake cottages… or shacks as they’re affectionately called…come into the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>So after the 1906 earthquake and fire, more than a quarter of a million people are at least temporarily displaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Woody LaBounty is President and CEO of San Francisco Heritage, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving San Francisco history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>And now, the powers that be have to decide not only how to take care of all these people, but also who’s gonna rebuild the city?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Immediately after the earthquake and fire, the military stepped in and established tent camps in the city’s parks. But soon a new organization…the San Francisco Relief Corporation…was formed to distribute food, clothes and other aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>That covered many aspects of what you have to do when people are refugees, but also a specific housing effort, and that was the earthquake relief cottages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Officials were worried about sanitation in the tent camps when winter rains came. So, they decided to build 5,610 relief cottages…built with redwood, fir and cedar… to house people. They were painted “park bench green”…literally the color used on Golden Gate Park benches… and clustered in neighborhood parks like Jefferson Square, Precita Park, and Portsmouth Square. Around 17,000 people lived in them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>If you owned property or you had a property that had been destroyed in the earthquake, you rebuilt or you figured out a way to move on. But there was a vast number of people who didn’t have any other resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>These were San Francisco’s poor, folks who had lived in boarding houses or shared rooms downtown before the fire. City leaders wanted to keep these laborers with the skills to rebuild the city close by. But they didn’t plan to give away the cottages for free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>So for all of wanting to take care of the refugees, there was also a fear at the time of creeping socialism. People in power did not want to give anybody anything for nothing. So they thought it would create indigence. And so you were supposed to pay some sort of rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Here’s how it worked. Shack residents paid monthly rent of a few dollars while their shacks were in the parks. But the relief corporation returned that money when a resident bought some land and moved the shack out of the park and onto their own property.That generosity was spurred by pressure to move refugees and their cottages out of the parks as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>As other San Franciscans were ready to move on from the disaster, they didn’t like the idea that their parks had a community, a village of working-class people. Living in the middle of their park. They wanted their parks back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>About a year and a half after the earthquake, in the summer of 1907, most of the shacks had been removed from the parks. Newspapers at the time described the surreal image of tiny homes on wagons moving across the city with people still in them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Voice over reading archival newspaper excerpt:\u003c/strong> It is a strange sight to see a procession of these refugee cottages moving down fashionable Van Ness Avenue or busy Fillmore Street, faces peering from the windows, and men, women and children going about their household tasks as if their little home was securely perched upon a cement foundation and surrounded by a garden and a fence.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Back in 1907, the Richmond District, a northwestern neighborhood, was mostly undeveloped sand dunes, with lots of empty land. So many shack owners moved their cottages to vacant plots there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woody says the earthquake shack program not only got the city working again…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>\u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">I\u003c/span>t also gave people who never would have dreamed, I think, of owning a home a chance to get into that American dream. So you get the earthquake cottage, you’re a refugee who has nothing, and now suddenly you buy a lot for 100 bucks in the sand dunes of the Richmond, you have pretty much a free house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Bernal Heights is another place with many earthquake cottages…people just moved their shacks from Precita Park to open land up the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And some of them are still there…like the house we toured at the beginning of this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>The one sort of key touchstone that you can tell about a cottage is the roof line. It has a very shallow pitched roof, kind of like a pup tent, like a Boy Scout tent. And then that is like your first hint because a lot of small buildings you’ll see have very steep pitched or flat roofs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Woody says many shack owners quickly made improvements to their new homes — painting, building fences, adding additional rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>There was sort of a stigma of having an earthquake cottage for a few years because it sort of signified you were a refugee, you needed help, you were poor. So people often, they quickly tried to hide sort of the pedigree of their houses and cover them with shingles quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>They wanted to hide that telling park bench green color. Most existing earthquake cottages are surrounded by modern additions. Or sometimes they’re a couple shacks placed together. That’s one reason it’s really hard to know how many still exist in San Francisco, they’re hidden. But Woody estimates between 30 and 50 earthquake cottages are dotted across the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>The cottage in the front is made up of three and a half shacks, and then there’s a free-standing mid-size shack in the backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>This is Jane Cryan. She rented one of these preserved earthquake shacks in the outer Sunset in the 1980s. Jane is best known as a “shacktivist”…fighting to preserve earthquake cottages from development. But if it weren’t for the Beat movement in the 1950s, she never would have moved here in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>The only reason I ended up in San Francisco is that Jack Kerouac, with whom I had correspondence from the time I was 16 years old told me that Milwaukee was no place for a poet. You should be in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>By day she was an executive assistant, but writing and jazz piano were her passions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>And I moved in and I played piano for about six weeks, day and night, and an elderly gentleman from across the street came over and shook his finger at me and he said, young lady, do you know that you’re living in a couple of relief houses pasted together?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Her three room cottage was actually three earthquake shacks pasted together. This was 1982 and Jane had lived in San Francisco almost 20 years. But she’d never even heard of the 1906 earthquake and fire. Her neighbor’s passing comment sparked her curiosity. She spent nights and weekends obsessively going through old newspaper archives to learn as much as she could about the disaster and the earthquake cottages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, her landlord made it known that he planned to sell her cottage…or worse demolish it and sell the lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>Take down our history. So I had to do something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Preserving these cottages — tangible pieces of such important history — became her life’s work. She took inspiration from one of the 1906 earthquake refugees she learned about in her research, a woman named Mary Kelly. Mary was an agitator, constantly questioning how the relief corporation dolled out aid and whether it was fair. She was such a pain to them they eventually evicted her from her cottage. But she refused to leave, famously saying:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Voice over portraying Mary Kelly:\u003c/strong> They can’t bluff me. I’ll stay with the house if they take it to the end of the earth.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>She rode in her cottage as men hauled it onto a wagon and trucked it away. She stayed inside as they dismantled the cottage board by board. Jane finds Mary’s tenacity — and willingness to stand up to power — endearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>She was exactly the way I was. If I saw something, I said something. And if I saw something that was not right, I said something louder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Jane started a nonprofit called The Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of San Francisco Refugee Shacks. She fought hard to get the planning commission to designate her little shack a historic landmark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And she was successful!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>Landmark number 171.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>But it was a bittersweet victory. The commission also said that Jane had to vacate the cottage in order to compensate the landlord for putting restrictions on his property. Jane bounced around from place to place after that, eventually moving back to Wisconsin, where she’s originally from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina in the tape: \u003c/strong>What do you miss most about San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Cryan: \u003c/strong>Oh, everything! Oh my god, San Francisco is the queen of the Golden West, for heaven’s sake!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Music\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Historian Woody LaBounty says there are probably more earthquake cottages than we know. They’re hiding in people’s backyards, incorporated into bigger houses or used as sheds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody LaBounty: \u003c/strong>They’re the last sort of most visible, tangible sign of one of the biggest things that ever happened to the city of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/strong>Increasingly these little cottages are being bought and torn down to make room for larger homes. But the ones that remain are a reminder of a refugee relief program that not only got people back on their feet, but made them homeowners. An example of San Franciscans coming together to repair and resurrect a beloved city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> That was Bay Curious editor and producer Katrina Schwartz. Special thanks this week to \u003ca href=\"https://californiarevealed.org/\">California Revealed\u003c/a>, an online database of oral histories and other archival materials. They helped us find Kathleen Norris’ oral history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Right now your membership means more than ever, give at \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/donate\">KQED.org/donate\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our show is produced by Gabriela Glueck, Christopher Beale, Katrina Schwartz and me, Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Have a wonderful week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California Passed Big Housing Laws in 2025. What Does That Mean for Building More Homes?",
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"content": "\u003cp>The California state legislature passed a bevy of blockbuster housing bills last year. Some took aim at the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046558/california-lawmakers-approve-major-overhaul-of-landmark-environmental-law\">landmark environmental law\u003c/a>, which critics argued blocked development for years. Others aim to reshape how housing is built near \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059533/newsom-signs-ambitious-bill-to-boost-housing-density-near-public-transit\">major transit stops\u003c/a> or promise to hasten recovery after a disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As those laws go into effect this year, some housing experts say they mark a seismic shift in attitudes towards the state’s housing affordability crisis and lawmakers’ appetite for solving it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>2025 was a landmark year on the substance, but I think in many ways, more importantly, the symbolism of achieving some of these major policy changes is really significant,” said Matt Lewis, a spokesperson for California YIMBY.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many of the new laws focus on creating new housing, tenant rights advocates argue the state needs to do more to keep existing housing stock affordable. Zach Murray, the state campaign coordinator for tenants rights organization Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said they hope to gain ground for renters this year by advancing bills that stalled in committee in 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With new construction… any promise of affordability that comes from getting more units is five to ten years down the line,” he said. “We know that folks are struggling right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading for some of the 2026 laws that will impact housing construction and renters this year:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Reforms to California’s landmark environmental law\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some of the biggest laws to go into effect this year deal with the California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA. The law applies to most developments — think parks, apartments, hospitals and most everything in between — and requires developers to evaluate whether their project negatively impacts the environment, and make changes to mitigate those impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, critics argued that CEQA complicated and prolonged the development process, making building more expensive and difficult, and stalling crucial infrastructure projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12003447\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12003447\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks next to Attorney General Rob Bonta during a press conference on Sept. 4, 2024, in Sacramento. \u003ccite>(Sophie Austin/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When Gov. Gavin Newsom finalized \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046558/california-lawmakers-approve-major-overhaul-of-landmark-environmental-law\">last year’s budget\u003c/a>, he included two bills that exempted certain projects from CEQA review. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB130\">AB 130\u003c/a> exempts urban infill housing while \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB131\">SB 131\u003c/a> exempts other types of projects, including those related to high-speed rail,\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12011579/lawsuit-from-napa-neighbors-could-block-much-needed-child-care-expansion\"> childcare centers\u003c/a>, wildfire mitigation and advanced manufacturing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lewis said the two bills would have likely died in committee in previous years, but as more people, including lawmakers, feel the pinch of the state’s housing affordability crisis, controversial bills have a better chance of getting passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now Californians are getting increasingly attenuated, not just to the nature of the shortage, but the fact that, at the root, we have to build a lot more homes,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Reshaping how housing is built near transit\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The other big bill to come out of 2025 was SB 79, authored by State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. The bill was seven years in the making, with Wiener introducing three versions that all failed to win approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12039671\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12039671\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Scott Wiener speaks during a press conference in Union Square, San Francisco, on Feb. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wiener hopes the version that made it across the finish line will help solve two issues: a lack of dense housing near public transit stops and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911215/the-uncertain-future-of-bay-area-transit\">low transit ridership \u003c/a>since the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It allows apartment buildings up to seven stories tall, if they’re within a quarter mile of certain train stations. The bill also tries to encourage housing development near light rail stations and busy bus stops.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Building more teacher housing\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some laws going into effect this year aim to empower schools to quickly build housing on their land. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1021\">AB 1021\u003c/a> would make it easier for school districts and other local educational agencies to develop educator workforce housing on property they own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a similar vein, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB648\">AB 648\u003c/a> states that community colleges don’t have to comply with local zoning rules if they are building university housing on property they own.[aside postID=news_12067581 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/RefrigeratorsGetty.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Emergency rebuilding\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Following last year’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/la-fires\">Los Angeles wildfires\u003c/a>, many lawmakers introduced bills hoping to cut through red tape and hasten reconstruction after disasters. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB818\">AB 818\u003c/a> requires local agencies to approve or deny permit applications within 10 days of receipt during a local emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1007\">AB 1007\u003c/a> reduces the time agencies have to review and comment on development permit applications from 90 days to 45. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB301\">AB 301\u003c/a> deals with the postentitlement review process, which happens after a project receives approval from a local planning department. It requires agencies to determine whether a permit application is complete within 15 days of receipt and to approve projects within 30 to 60 business days, depending on size.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Renters and property owners\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While rent isn’t getting any cheaper across most of the state, renters can look forward to some new protections this year. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12067581/in-2026-all-rental-homes-in-california-will-need-to-have-these-2-things\">AB 628\u003c/a> requires landlords to provide tenants with a working refrigerator and stove and to repair or replace them if they stop working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following recent government shutdowns, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB246\">AB 246\u003c/a>, also known as the Social Security Tenant Protection Act of 2025, would protect tenants who rely on Social Security payments from eviction, if funds are frozen due action or inaction from the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068872\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068872\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-17-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-17-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-17-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-17-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mayor Daniel Lurie breaks ground alongside members of the team behind a new housing project during a groundbreaking ceremony at 750 Golden Gate Ave., in San Francisco, on June 18, 2025. The event marked the start of two affordable housing developments — one with 75 units prioritized for SFUSD and City College educators, and another at 850 Turk that will add 92 family apartments. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Tenant rights advocates have their eyes on the horizon and hope to focus efforts on passing the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034212/california-lawmakers-push-lower-rent-cap-expand-protections-property-owners-worried\">Affordable Rent Act\u003c/a> in 2026, which was introduced last year, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038224/california-bill-expand-rent-control-pulled-for-year-bay-area-lawmaker\">became a two-year bill \u003c/a>following heavy opposition from state real estate and landlord groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been involved in a lot of efforts across the state to bring attention to this,” said Zach Murray of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “This is an important tangible step the legislature can take to actually address affordability for renters across California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill would expand the 2019 Tenant Protection Act to more renters, lower the amount rent can increase each year and make those changes permanent by removing a 2030 sunset date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Property owners, however, are concerned that more regulation will mean higher costs for small landlords. Adam Pearce, president of the California Rental Housing Association, said he’s excited to see whether the laws impacting new housing construction result in more supply, but worries that more laws for landlords “make it difficult for us to operate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you make it harder [with] more mandates, it’s the smaller folks that suffer because we don’t have the big purses that can absorb this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "California lawmakers made bold moves to reform California’s landmark environmental law and dramatically change how housing is built near transit. As these laws come into effect, what changes for housing developers, property owners and renters?",
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"title": "California Passed Big Housing Laws in 2025. What Does That Mean for Building More Homes? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The California state legislature passed a bevy of blockbuster housing bills last year. Some took aim at the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046558/california-lawmakers-approve-major-overhaul-of-landmark-environmental-law\">landmark environmental law\u003c/a>, which critics argued blocked development for years. Others aim to reshape how housing is built near \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059533/newsom-signs-ambitious-bill-to-boost-housing-density-near-public-transit\">major transit stops\u003c/a> or promise to hasten recovery after a disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As those laws go into effect this year, some housing experts say they mark a seismic shift in attitudes towards the state’s housing affordability crisis and lawmakers’ appetite for solving it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>2025 was a landmark year on the substance, but I think in many ways, more importantly, the symbolism of achieving some of these major policy changes is really significant,” said Matt Lewis, a spokesperson for California YIMBY.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many of the new laws focus on creating new housing, tenant rights advocates argue the state needs to do more to keep existing housing stock affordable. Zach Murray, the state campaign coordinator for tenants rights organization Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said they hope to gain ground for renters this year by advancing bills that stalled in committee in 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With new construction… any promise of affordability that comes from getting more units is five to ten years down the line,” he said. “We know that folks are struggling right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading for some of the 2026 laws that will impact housing construction and renters this year:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Reforms to California’s landmark environmental law\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some of the biggest laws to go into effect this year deal with the California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA. The law applies to most developments — think parks, apartments, hospitals and most everything in between — and requires developers to evaluate whether their project negatively impacts the environment, and make changes to mitigate those impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, critics argued that CEQA complicated and prolonged the development process, making building more expensive and difficult, and stalling crucial infrastructure projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12003447\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12003447\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/GavinNewsomAP-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks next to Attorney General Rob Bonta during a press conference on Sept. 4, 2024, in Sacramento. \u003ccite>(Sophie Austin/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When Gov. Gavin Newsom finalized \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046558/california-lawmakers-approve-major-overhaul-of-landmark-environmental-law\">last year’s budget\u003c/a>, he included two bills that exempted certain projects from CEQA review. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB130\">AB 130\u003c/a> exempts urban infill housing while \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB131\">SB 131\u003c/a> exempts other types of projects, including those related to high-speed rail,\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12011579/lawsuit-from-napa-neighbors-could-block-much-needed-child-care-expansion\"> childcare centers\u003c/a>, wildfire mitigation and advanced manufacturing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lewis said the two bills would have likely died in committee in previous years, but as more people, including lawmakers, feel the pinch of the state’s housing affordability crisis, controversial bills have a better chance of getting passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now Californians are getting increasingly attenuated, not just to the nature of the shortage, but the fact that, at the root, we have to build a lot more homes,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Reshaping how housing is built near transit\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The other big bill to come out of 2025 was SB 79, authored by State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. The bill was seven years in the making, with Wiener introducing three versions that all failed to win approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12039671\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12039671\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250218-SFDowntown-03-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Scott Wiener speaks during a press conference in Union Square, San Francisco, on Feb. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wiener hopes the version that made it across the finish line will help solve two issues: a lack of dense housing near public transit stops and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911215/the-uncertain-future-of-bay-area-transit\">low transit ridership \u003c/a>since the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It allows apartment buildings up to seven stories tall, if they’re within a quarter mile of certain train stations. The bill also tries to encourage housing development near light rail stations and busy bus stops.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Building more teacher housing\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some laws going into effect this year aim to empower schools to quickly build housing on their land. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1021\">AB 1021\u003c/a> would make it easier for school districts and other local educational agencies to develop educator workforce housing on property they own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a similar vein, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB648\">AB 648\u003c/a> states that community colleges don’t have to comply with local zoning rules if they are building university housing on property they own.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Emergency rebuilding\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Following last year’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/la-fires\">Los Angeles wildfires\u003c/a>, many lawmakers introduced bills hoping to cut through red tape and hasten reconstruction after disasters. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB818\">AB 818\u003c/a> requires local agencies to approve or deny permit applications within 10 days of receipt during a local emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1007\">AB 1007\u003c/a> reduces the time agencies have to review and comment on development permit applications from 90 days to 45. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB301\">AB 301\u003c/a> deals with the postentitlement review process, which happens after a project receives approval from a local planning department. It requires agencies to determine whether a permit application is complete within 15 days of receipt and to approve projects within 30 to 60 business days, depending on size.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Renters and property owners\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While rent isn’t getting any cheaper across most of the state, renters can look forward to some new protections this year. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12067581/in-2026-all-rental-homes-in-california-will-need-to-have-these-2-things\">AB 628\u003c/a> requires landlords to provide tenants with a working refrigerator and stove and to repair or replace them if they stop working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following recent government shutdowns, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB246\">AB 246\u003c/a>, also known as the Social Security Tenant Protection Act of 2025, would protect tenants who rely on Social Security payments from eviction, if funds are frozen due action or inaction from the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12068872\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12068872\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-17-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-17-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-17-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/250618-NewTeacherHousing-17-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mayor Daniel Lurie breaks ground alongside members of the team behind a new housing project during a groundbreaking ceremony at 750 Golden Gate Ave., in San Francisco, on June 18, 2025. The event marked the start of two affordable housing developments — one with 75 units prioritized for SFUSD and City College educators, and another at 850 Turk that will add 92 family apartments. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Tenant rights advocates have their eyes on the horizon and hope to focus efforts on passing the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034212/california-lawmakers-push-lower-rent-cap-expand-protections-property-owners-worried\">Affordable Rent Act\u003c/a> in 2026, which was introduced last year, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038224/california-bill-expand-rent-control-pulled-for-year-bay-area-lawmaker\">became a two-year bill \u003c/a>following heavy opposition from state real estate and landlord groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been involved in a lot of efforts across the state to bring attention to this,” said Zach Murray of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “This is an important tangible step the legislature can take to actually address affordability for renters across California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill would expand the 2019 Tenant Protection Act to more renters, lower the amount rent can increase each year and make those changes permanent by removing a 2030 sunset date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Property owners, however, are concerned that more regulation will mean higher costs for small landlords. Adam Pearce, president of the California Rental Housing Association, said he’s excited to see whether the laws impacting new housing construction result in more supply, but worries that more laws for landlords “make it difficult for us to operate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you make it harder [with] more mandates, it’s the smaller folks that suffer because we don’t have the big purses that can absorb this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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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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"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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},
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"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
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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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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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]
}
},
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"error": null
},
"location": {
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}
}
