- BHHI Director Margot Kushel, MD spoke to KQED this week, alongside Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan and Oakland interim homelessness advisor LaTonda Simmons. Give their conversation a listen here.
- Speaking of Kevin Fagan, here is a delightful podcast interview he did about his life and work with one of his colleagues at the Chronicle. Fagan, you’ll learn from the episode, has some personal experience with unsheltered living. (I would suggest that lived expertise is something more newsrooms should select for when it comes to hiring reporters for the housing and homelessness beat.) He’s also a gifted songwriter, and the episode includes a couple songs inspired by his reporting.
- The New York Times takes California to task for not “living up to [its] values” on housing.
- The number of tents in Sacramento encampments has “easily doubled” since 2019. “Despite a misconception that Sacramento’s homeless move here from elsewhere, of the 152 homeless people the researchers surveyed, 98% said they were from Sacramento.”
- A strong critique from Vox’s Jerusalem Demsas of what’s missing in the Build Back Better plan.
- Berkeley moves forward on considering two separate proposals to boost the city’s affordable housing stock: Social housing development and an affordable housing overlay.
- Home prices in the Bay Area: Still exorbitant.
- Cost pressures in the most expensive metros eventually spill over to cheaper regions. Which is Fresno is increasingly unaffordable.
- California's Department of Housing and Community Development has determined that the Santa Cruz city council acted illegally when it rejected a 140-unit residential development. (71 one of those units were to be affordable.)
- Kern County has adopted an anti-encampment ordinance.
- Finally, a study on how evictions affect cognitive development in children. “[O]ur results suggest that eviction may be a driver of educational inequity, most obviously by class but also by race.”