Even as other California cities saw rents plummet during the pandemic, Fresno stood out. Since 2017, the state’s fifth largest city has seen rents spike by 39%. New apartments are renting for prices similar to those in large coastal cities, and the average home now sells for $331,000. So how...
Contractor’s Deal on California Rent Relief Gets More Lucrative
Despite an initial slow rollout of rent relief money, the state of California is extending and more than doubling its deal with the outside contractor it hired to get the money to tenants and landlords. The contract with Horne LLP, a Mississippi-based accounting firm that specializes in disaster relief, jumped...
Students With Disabilities Across California Stuck in Limbo
The school year at Duarte Unified School District, 20 miles east of Los Angeles, started a month ago, but Brady, Ellie and Jack Fitzgibbons have yet to receive any instruction from their teachers. The 13-year-old triplets are on the autism spectrum, and their mother, Julie Fitzgibbons, didn’t feel safe sending...
What’s the Role of Unions in the 21st Century?
Unions have historically formed to ensure fair wages, benefits and better working conditions for their members. They negotiate with businesses and governments on behalf of employees, who either work a particular type of job or in a particular industry. They’re a powerful force in California politics, pushing for a statewide...
Who’s Dying in California from COVID-19?
It’s been longer than a year and a half since COVID-19 first arrived in California, and the demographics of who is dying from the virus are changing. So far, 67,628 people have died in California during the pandemic, more than in any other state. In recent months, those who are...
Why California’s Congressional Delegation Must Lead on Infrastructure Bill
With the House of Representatives back in session, we are pleased that one of the first items on its agenda will be consideration of the bipartisan infrastructure bill approved by the Senate last month. We hope our congressional representatives used their summer break to experience firsthand the desperate situation all...
Valley Sex Trafficking Victims Struggle to Find Jobs. Will This Bill Help?
When Arien Garcia first escaped from life as a victim of human sex trafficking, she struggled to find a job anywhere in Fresno. Her nonviolent criminal record always pushed her job applications to the bottom of the pile. She said she applied to “every McDonald’s and Taco Bell in Fresno...
Polling Error: How One Survey Changed Newsom Recall Campaign
The panic started to set in for California Democrats in the last week of July. First, there was a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll on July 27, which showed that likely voters were just about evenly split on whether or not Gov. Gavin Newsom deserves to keep his...
Bill to Decertify Police for Serious Misconduct Clears Legislature
California built up over decades some of the strongest legal protections for law enforcement officers in the country. It’s why a Danville police officer accused of wrongfully shooting a man in 2018 was able to stay on the streets, only to kill again earlier this year. And it’s why officers...
That Student in Your College Class Could Be a Scam Bot
On the first day of spring term this year, an aeronautics professor came to administrator Laura Hope to share something suspicious: Most of the students in his virtual class weren’t participating at all. Hope, the head of instruction at Chaffey College, a community college in Southern California’s Inland Empire, dove...