With California’s housing costs continuing to rise, I co-founded a podcast in summer 2017 to dig deeply into the sources of the problem. Each episode breaks down a particular aspect of the California’s housing troubles and includes an interview with a housing expert or newsmaker.
I discussed our investigation on how modern-day freeway projects are continuing to displace residents in Black and Latino neighborhoods on NPR’s weekend news show. The piece also addresses concerns that $1-trillion infrastructure law signed by President Biden in 2021 could further exacerbate these harms.
Rents across the country and especially in California have skyrocketed in recent years. I joined NBC News NOW Tonight’s Joshua Johnson to discuss why a lack of housing supply and a dearth of funding for low-income development is at the root of the problem.
I spoke at length with comedian Adam Conover about the housing affordability crisis in California and across the country for his Factually! podcast. We also discuss in depth our investigation of “crime-free housing” policies in California and how they’ve discriminated against Black and Latino renters in the state.
California’s high cost of housing is a political problem caused in part because the state Legislature cannot agree to fundamental changes to rules for how homebuilding is approved and financed. In an interview for the Randall Lewis Seminar Series at UC Riverside, I explained why so many interest groups are at odds and why the Legislature doesn’t solve the problem.