Housing
In the two decades Flor Castro has lived in Richmond, she’s seen many things change. One thing that has remained relatively stable is the $1,500 rent for the three-bedroom apartment she shares with her husband and two children, thanks to the city’s rent control laws. “I’m very grateful to God for everything I have because there are other families that need not just one job, but two jobs,” Castro said in Spanish. “So, up until now, that’s not my situation,…
“Knock knock, is anybody home? It’s SOS,” says Leyla Williams as she approaches one of the many hidden makeshift houses along Wildcat Creek. “Does anyone need services?” she asks, scaling the homemade stairs that lead to the tents and tarpaulin shelters. “I don’t think anyone is home.” This was the second stop of the day for the team at of Safe Organized Spaces Richmond, a nonprofit service provider for unhoused people. Their first stop was the extensive encampment where tents…
If you’re a California homeowner, it may be time to take a look at your insurance policy. After seven major insurance companies have restricted their business dealings in the state, policy holders are footing an exceedingly expensive bill. At Richmond’s Atchison Village, residents found that out the hard way. “Six weeks ago, we just thought we were going to redo our insurance,” said Ronald Kane, president of the Atchison Village Mutual Homes Corp. board. But when the time came to…
Richmond has a question for residents: What do they want built on unused city-owned land? RichmondLand, a community land trust, and city staff are working to gather community input on the public land policy. “Affordable housing is really needed, but parks like this and different spaces for people to get together are also important,” said Leonardo Santana, a 20-year Richmond resident, who talked to Richmond Confidential at a Halloween Land event on Oct, 28 at Unity Park. The park, at…
A high-density housing development of more than 700 homes, nearly half of them deemed affordable, is in the works in El Cerrito on land owned by BART. The city received a $20 million state grant in October to propel the progress it has made on the San Pablo Avenue Specific Plan, which was adopted in 2014 to meet community housing needs. The plan, updated in 2019, would put houses on land by the El Cerrito Plaza BART station that is…
Elsa Stevens was so stressed about an impending rent increase at her senior housing complex in Richmond that she debated whether she should get a costly CT scan that her doctor had recommended. She did go through with the scan, which eased one worry. But the rent increase at Heritage Park at Hilltop, which offers affordable senior housing, has upset her holidays. “For Christmas, their present is a 5% rent increase,” said Stevens, who has lived at Heritage Park with…
It will be quite some time before any new homes are built in Keller Beach. Since January 2022, property owners in the small Point Richmond neighborhood have been barred from obtaining building permits, owing to a city moratorium on new connections to the Keller Beach Sanitary Sewer, which stretches for just over a mile along the area’s coastline. City officials tagged the line in November 2021, according to records, because of “severe internal corrosion” and sand deposits in portions of…
Twenty years ago, the Hilltop Mall was the place to be in Richmond. It was a bustling shopping area full of life, and around this time of the year, it would have been extra busy with holiday shoppers. Today, the mall is vacant and isolated, stores are empty and dark, with only Walmart open. But Hilltop’s owner says the site has a promising future providing three things Richmond needs: employment opportunities, retail space and mixed-use housing. Prologis, an industrial real…
Across the country, fears of a wave of evictions emerged when pandemic-era moratoriums and rent relief programs ended. In Richmond, those fears materialized. A little over a year after most pandemic-related protections were lifted for area renters, Contra Costa Superior Court data indicates that eviction cases have spiked in Richmond. The City Council officially lifted the local moratorium in April, but a large number of tenants have been eligible for removal from their homes since July 2022. According to the…