RICHMOND, CA - After residents of an affordable apartment community for seniors asked for help reducing a proposed rent increase, the Richmond City Council unanimously voted to send a letter asking the owners to not implement the increase.

Residents in the community of Heritage Park at Hilltop say the proposed 5% rent increase would put them at risk of being unable to afford other necessities and homelessness.

“We want the senior population at Heritage Park to be assured that their concerns are being taken seriously,” the letter, signed by Mayor Eduardo Martinez, says, “and that steps will be taken to not price out seniors who currently reside at Heritage Park.”

The rent increase, if it should go forward, would take effect Dec. 1.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Casi 20 personas se reunieron en los apartamentos Dorset Village y marcharon por todo el complejo de apartamentos y durante un descanso algunos residentes compartieron historias sobre sus difíciles condiciones de vida en una lluviosa tarde el miércoles en el vecindario de Hyde Park en Los Ángeles.

Julema Howard ha alquilado en su apartamento desde 2008 y dice que su alfombra no ha sido reemplazada a pesar de que está desgastada hasta el punto en que las puntadas quedan expuestas.

“Es realmente difícil explicar cómo vivimos aquí. Me siento como si estuviera viviendo en una celda de prisión”, dijo Howard mientras lágrimas caían por su rostro.

(Paywalled) LOS ANGELES, CA — The City Council is expected to vote Tuesday on a proposal meant to limit anticipated rent increases for properties that are subject to the city’s rent-control law.

The proposal was previously delayed during last week’s council meeting by Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, who wanted more time for his colleagues to consider the idea. The proposal was prompted by the pending Jan. 31, 2024, end of a pandemic-era rent freeze placed on rent-stabilized units.

LOS ANGELES, CA - The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on Tuesday on a proposal meant to limit anticipated rent increases for properties that are subject to the city's rent-control law.

The proposal was previously delayed during last week's council meeting by Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, who wanted more time for his colleagues to consider the idea. The proposal was prompted by the pending Jan. 31, 2024, end of a pandemic-era rent freeze placed on rent-stabilized units.

LOS ANGELES, CA — The City Council Tuesday is expected to vote on a proposal meant to limit anticipated rent increases for properties that are subject to the city's rent-control law.

The proposal was previously delayed during last week's council meeting by Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, who wanted more time for his colleagues to consider the idea. The proposal was prompted by the pending Jan. 31, 2024, end of a pandemic-era rent freeze placed on rent-stabilized units.

ANTIOCH, Calif. (KGO) -- Newly obtained police reports document use of force incidents by Antioch Police, in which senior-level officers signed off on what a federal indictment later deemed to be "excessive."

"You shouldn't feel like the police are a gang. I mean, we are supposed to be afraid of street gangs, but are afraid of the police. It makes no sense," said Nicole Arrington, a community organizer with the Alliance of Californians for Community Engagement, or ACCE.

ANTIOCH, CA — Multiple community organizers are calling for the city’s acting police chief and the president of its police officers’ union to step down amid revelations that they and other police supervisors signed off on the use of force by police officers who are now charged with federal civil rights violations.

The latest demands for the Antioch Police Department to clean house follow a Bay Area News Group report that found acting police Chief Joseph Vigil, Sgt. Rick Hoffman — the president of the Antioch Police Officers Association — and others concluded time and again that the actions of the charged officers followed department guidelines and deserved no discipline. The FBI, in a criminal indictment of three officers, found that some of the uses of force violated departmental policies — as well as people’s civil rights.

SAN PABLO, CA - The city of San Pablo is forging ahead on a plan to build a $43 million headquarters and training facility for its police department of 59 officers as residents call for the city to address housing affordability.

Despite the massive scale of the project — costing almost as much as the city expects to bring in this fiscal year — it has drawn little public input, raising questions about the level of civic engagement in the lower-income, majority Latino city of 31,000 people.