Posts Tagged: housing
Opinion
OPINION: They say the real estate agent’s mantra is “location, location, location.” And when it comes to crafting smart housing policy, location is key, as well. As California legislators consider more than 130 bills designed to tackle the state’s housing crisis, they should consider ways to encourage infill housing — compact housing in already urbanized land near transit, jobs, and services.
News
California’s job and economic growth has outpaced much of the nation in recent years. That growth, however, has not eliminated one of the state’s biggest challenges: poverty. This week, State Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes called poverty California’s No. 1 priority during a forum of legislative leaders in Sacramento.
Opinion
OPINION: By 2030, California’s over-65 population is expected to be 87 percent higher than it was in 2012 – an increase of more than four million people. According to a 2014 AARP survey, nearly 90 percent of senior households say they would like to stay in their current residences and communities for as long as possible.
Opinion
OPINION: We generally think it a big success when public policy successfully fixes a serious problem. Right now, smart California policies are effectively tackling three major issues at once: housing, traffic, and climate change. Anyone not living under a rock knows that California faces an unprecedented crisis in housing affordability.
News
Federal officials warned for years of “poor supervision” at a Southern California jail where three inmates — all charged with violent felonies — recently escaped, documents obtained by The Marshall Project show. The men’s elaborate route to freedom seemed made for the movies: They cut through layers of metal and navigated plumbing tunnels to reach the roof. They then rappelled down four stories with makeshift ropes, perhaps strung together from bedsheets or jail clothing.
Opinion
OPINION: The same day Governor Jerry Brown delivered his proposed state budget, Barbara Brown died of exposure on a skid row street during an El Niño storm. More than the coincidence of a common last name links the two. As a literal storm killed this unfortunate woman, Gov. Brown once again ignored California’s worsening housing crisis, instead calling on the state to squirrel away $2 billion on top of required state reserves in order to save for an economic “rainy day.”
News
California’s economy is on the mend and revenues are fat, but Gov. Brown offered some words of gloom as he unveiled a $171 billion budget blueprint for the fiscal year beginning July 1. “If you’re a betting person, you can easily conclude that deficits are more likely than surpluses,” Brown said Thursday as he presented his 2016-17 budget to the Legislature.
News
For decades, people living in California paid more for shelter than those in most of the rest of the country. But during the 1970s, “the gap started to widen. Between 1970 and 1980, California home prices went from 30 percent above U.S. levels to more than 80 percent higher,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported. Today, the average California home costs $440,000, or two-and-half-times the average price tag of $180,000 for a home across the country.
News
Two years after Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature dismantled California’s $5 billion-a-year redevelopment program, Brown wants to bring some elements back — but he’s offering less money, a different name and a change in local voters’ approval. The crux of Brown’s plan is to expand the reach of the rarely-used, little-known Infrastructure Finance Districts. The districts, or IFDs, have taxing authority and are created with voter approval. They function on property tax dollars and focus on highways, transit and sewer projects, libraries, parks and child care centers.
News
California won a two-year extension to meet a federal court order to cut its prison population, but a three-judge panel made clear Monday that it has doubts about the state’s handling of prison overcrowding. A three-judge federal panel accepted Gov. Jerry Brown’s new plan to reduce the population, but reprimanded the state for its delay in finding what they described as a “durable” solution to the prison crisis. The state has put inmates in out-of-state prisons and private custody.
View towards Guadalupe Freeway from Communications Hill, San Jose. (Photo: Sundry Photography, via Shutterstock)
