Feb 12, 2025 | Housing, Politics
By Jessica Flores, Reporter
Feb 12, 2025
As day laborers go into hiding, labor experts say the workforce withdrawal could exacerbate the labor shortage and worsen the housing crisis. Shirley Pablo and Annia Lopez walked down East 12th Street in Oakland on a cold Wednesday morning, each pulling a foldable wagon filled with oranges, water bottles, granola bars, disposable face masks and “red cards” listing a person’s constitutional rights. The outreach workers approached four men chatting on the sidewalk near the intersection.
Feb 7, 2025 | Opinion, Housing
By JOHN MCCAULEY
February 7, 2025
Given recent tragic wildfires in Los Angeles and Maui, fire danger is naturally on everyone’s mind. Evacuation readiness planning was a top priority during the nine years I served on the Mill Valley City Council.
In its zeal to promote more housing, the California Legislature passed numerous laws taking away local control of housing-development decisions irrespective of fire danger. Local jurisdictions like Mill Valley must comply with new state building mandates that appear to ignore fire risk.
Feb 2, 2025 | Housing
By Christian Leonard,
Feb 2, 2025
In the Bay Area, where the typical home costs seven figures, affording a monthly mortgage payment is increasingly out of reach for many. But in a few of the region’s wealthiest ZIP codes, most buyers are avoiding those costs entirely — by buying their home in cash. That was the case for nearly two-thirds of home sales in Atherton, which has some of the most expensive homes in the country, in 2024. The percentage was up from 2019, when roughly 59% of sales in the city were made in cash, according to data from real estate company Redfin.
Jan 31, 2025 | Housing, Politics
Housing Is A Human Right
January 31, 2025
For the 2024 election, Big Real Estate raised a whopping total of $171.6 million to kill Proposition 33 and pass Proposition 34 in California. Several of the top contributors are the country’s largest corporate landlords. Through its multi-million-dollar misinformation campaigns, the real estate industry was able to keep statewide rent control restrictions intact and push through an initiative to damage AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s housing advocacy work in California.
Jan 30, 2025 | Opinion, Housing
Dario L.
January 30, 2025
For anybody that doesn’t think incompetence and misplaced priorities had a role in how bad the Palisades fire got… listen to the comments of this ex- Palisades resident at the DWP board meeting And nobody is saying that nothing would have happened if there was more water… but it surely would have made a difference in the severity.
Jan 30, 2025 | Housing, Opinion
By DOUG KELLY
January 30, 2025
If you’re a typical homeowner, your most important asset is your home; it’s your wealth. If you live in Marin, however, I am concerned that you are about to lose much of your wealth – unless voters take action. In Fairfax, there is a plan for a six-story building in the middle of town that will change the town for the worse. I think it will lower home values. In San Rafael, one plan is for a 16-story complex. If plans like these move forward, it will be the beginning of the end for our suburb. We will become something much worse than what we are today.
