ANTIOCH, CA - Nine current and former police officers in the East Bay face federal charges after a raid Thursday by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

The FBI's roundup of officers from the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments come after an 18-month investigation into an alleged criminal network.

"Today is a dark day in our city's history, as people trusted to uphold the law, allegedly breached that trust and were arrested by the FBI. As our city absorbs this tragic news, we must come together as one," Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe said in a statement. "Today's actions are the beginning of the end of a long and arduous process."

SACRAMENTO, CA - It's back to square one for the city of Sacramento, which was looking for ways to protect tenants from being harassed by their landlords.

Some council members on Tuesday took up the controversial issue concerning protecting tenants from harassing landlords. But the tenant anti-harassment ordinance, called TAHO, stopped short of leaving the law and legislation committee and going to the full city council for consideration.

Renters said they need more protection.

"They try to throw me in the street," Jesus Figueroa said. "Rent for the same apartment was $2,900 when I'm paying $1,800."

Renters shared stories with the Sacramento Law and Legislation Council Committee about their run-ins with landlords. The group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment packed the chambers.

OAKLAND, CA - The apartments were supposed to be among the city’s affordable solutions for elderly, low-income residents — some lifelong Oaklanders, others immigrants — who couldn’t afford to live elsewhere.

Now, tenants say the Northgate Terrace apartments in the city’s small Koreatown district have effectively become slums — riddled with infestations, bad security, broken water heaters and absentee property managers. They are calling on the Oakland Housing Authority to conduct regular inspections and wrangle more regular maintenance out of The Related Companies, a national company that manages the property.

SACRAMENTO, CA - Some Sacramento city council members are putting forward a suite of policy proposals designed to prevent more people in the region from becoming homeless.

“This is not a problem we can continue to ignore,” Council member Katie Valenzuela said during a press conference announcing the program Tuesday morning. “We can't continue to focus just on triaging our homelessness crisis … This is what moving upstream looks like.”

The package, which will be announced with more details next week, is called “Sacramento Forward,” and is a joint project of Valenzuela and her colleagues on city council, members Caity Maple and Mai Vang. In addition to various local legislation, it includes a 2024 ballot initiative that would create a pot of money to help fund affordable housing units and emergency support for renters.

OAKLAND, CA - After the Alameda County eviction moratorium expired, eviction cases exploded. After three years where lawsuit numbers never reached above 100 a month, there were 557 filings in May.

Now, the three cities that kept eviction bans in place longer—Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro—are sunsetting their policies too, and another spike is expected.

“The question was, are we going to get hit with a tsunami?” said Judge Victoria Kolakowski. “And we have been.”

But she said a “gigantic flood” would be a more apt metaphor. For every one case resolved in her courtroom, dozens more are being filed.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Thousands of Los Angeles residents who live in rent-controlled dwellings have accused their landlords of trying to drive them out in order to charge higher rents to new tenants.

Two years ago, the city passed a sweeping law to bar tenant harassment practices such as falsely telling renters they must move, refusing repairs, and threatening physical harm or deportation. But with the city government lacking sufficient money or staff to enforce the law, reports of such coercion are still pervasive, and the city remains in a housing crisis in which rents and homelessness continue to soar.

ANTIOCH, CA - Antioch is strengthening its tenant protections with new rules against landlord retaliation and harassment.

After hearing more than three hours of public comments and debate on the matter, the City Council voted 3-1 on Tuesday, with Councilwoman Lori Ogorchock dissenting and Councilman Mike Barbanica, a real estate agent/broker, recusing himself.

“Antioch is not the first city to propose anti-harassment protections,” proponent Ethan Silverstein, an attorney with the tenant advocate group ACCE Institute, told the council. “These protections are becoming more and more popular. Even Sacramento is considering one.”

PHILADELPHIA, PI - Lowell Faison has seen the housing affordability crisis push poor renters to the brink.

Some renters, the 75-year-old said Saturday outside of City Hall, have been forced tens of miles outside city limits in search of cheaper rents. Others, Faison said, lost their housing entirely during the fog of the pandemic.

He wasn’t talking about Philadelphia. Faison is from Charlotte, N.C., but was in Philadelphia on Saturday, joining an estimated 2,000 protesters — many of them also from out of state — to express their concern for what they see as a national crisis reaching its breaking point.

“When it comes to housing, local governments have to step up,” Faison said. “There’s no question about it.”