San Jose State University sophomore Bahati Burgess calls an old classroom at Grace Baptist Church his home. After being priced out of the dorms last year, the 19-year-old Oakland native became one of thousands of San Jose students experiencing homelessness while trying to earn their degrees. The downtown university has an alarmingly high number of...
Housing
Housing
Santa Clara County to overhaul its foster care system after critical report
After being shuffled from one foster home to another, Dontae Lartigue found himself homeless and without a job at 19 years old. Nearly a decade later Lartigue is at the center of a massive effort to overhaul the county’s foster care system — just weeks after a new report found Santa Clara County is failing...
Activists plan a San Jose community land trust for affordable housing
Fed up with astronomical rents that are squeezing out families, San Jose housing advocates are taking matters into their own hands. A trio of community groups have teamed up to form the first-ever community land trust in San Jose — an innovative strategy that would allow them to buy scarce land as a community and...
San José flood victims prepare for court battle
Hundreds of families are bracing for an upcoming court battle with the city of San José, Santa Clara County and Santa Clara Valley Water District, nearly two years after their homes were destroyed and lives upended...