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Housing and Homelessness

The affordable housing crisis to grow in California. Learn about legacies of racist housing policy as well as gentrification and other causes of homelessness. Follow conversations on zoning, rent relief, city spending and housing trusts as the state grapples with this urgent issue.

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A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.
In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.
A masked woman wearing a red T-shirt sits facing away from the camera with the text on the back of her shirt visible, reading "Chinatown Community for Equitable Development" in English and other languages. She faces a woman wearing a gray pants suit and a pink shirt underneath holding a wired microphone and addressing a seated crowd in an outdoor courtyard.
Residents of the Hillside Villa community in L.A.'s Chinatown community are facing eviction as the city's plan to seize the building by eminent domain stalls.
A homeless encampment consisting of umbrellas, tarps, a shopping cart, a washing machine and other debris spills out from the sidewalk and into the street, in front of parked cars.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass launched a homeless program called Inside Safe — and although it has cleared sidewalk encampments and provided some interim housing for those who were living on the streets, it has failed to offer a more permanent solution.
A close-up of homemade posters written and painted by protestors reading "HOUSING JUSTICE FOR EVERYONE!" and "CANCEL RENT"
A new legal settlement between the state and a coalition of anti-poverty and tenant rights groups means that some California tenants will get another shot at rent relief, even though the COVID-era rental assistance program has officially ended and the state's housing department previously denied them.
One image of a person wearing a hoodie on a video call with "Democracy Now!" and another image of a demonstrator holding up a yellow sign that reads "KC Tenants: Safe Healthy Homes for All."
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A new Biden administration plan announced Wednesday aims to make rent more affordable and protect tenants' rights, as rental costs in the United States rose nearly 25% between 2019 and 2022.
A homeless man stand next to his encampment on a bridge crossing over a freeway, with a concrete ramp overhead
Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) has been appointed to chair the California state Senate’s influential health committee — a change that promises a more urgent focus on expanding mental health services and moving homeless people into housing and treatment.
Karen Bass, wearing a blue suit, raises her right hand and places her left hand on a Bible as Kamala Harris reads text of the Oath of Office for L.A. mayor
In her first official act as mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness Monday in an effort to underscore the severity of the housing crisis in the nation's second largest city.
An illustration of turquoise- and orange-colored tents across a gray striped background
Amid rising rents, L.A.'s homeless population is increasing — and the streets are getting more dangerous for the unhoused, who are victims of crime and violence, including assault and homicide.
A group of spectators in the L.A. City Council chambers protest the vote on 41.18, a law banning homeless encampments
The race to succeed termed-out Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz in Council District 5 (CD5) features Katy Young Yaroslavsky and Sam Yebri, two candidates with different backgrounds and approaches to Los Angeles' homelessness crisis.
A row of homeless encampment tents line the sidewalk and spill out onto the street, some bearing American flags.
Proposition LH is a measure on the ballot this November in order to gain voters' approval to build affordable housing. That's only because of Article 34, a.k.a. the "Public Housing Project Law" — an amendment to the California state constitution with racist underpinnings that was passed in 1950 and has yet to be repealed.
Homeless tents line the side of a freeway ramp in Downtown Los Angeles, with skyscrapers rising in the background.
Los Angeles agencies tasked with addressing homelessness failed to spend nearly $150 million in federal grants between 2015 and 2020 — and returned the funds back to HUD.
Hillside Villa community organizers gather in the rotunda of L.A. City Hall for a City Council meeting
At a May 27, 2022 meeting, the Los Angeles City Council voted in favor of evoking eminent domain in order to seize a 124-unit Chinatown apartment building, Hillside Villa, from its landlord.
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