Housing
These days Clara Realageno sleeps in her car. In the morning she packs up her things — a pillow, blankets, a suitcase and some toiletries — and drops them off at a friend’s house so they don’t get stolen while she’s at work. It’s been five months since Realageno’s landlord evicted her by changing the locks to her studio in Richmond. With nowhere else to go, Realageno now spends most nights in her backseat. In September, Realageno sued her former…
Reggie Wiggins opened the door to his stepmother’s recreational vehicle in a Richmond encampment in the early hours of Oct. 8 and felt a wave of heat. Wiggins, who had been staying with his stepmother in an RV at a homeless encampment by the Richmond Parkway, saw a car and an RV on fire nearby. “Everything was up in flames,” Wiggins, 30, said. “Ash flying up everywhere. It was a scary moment.” This site, often called the Castro Encampment because…
Advocates worked Tuesday to weatherproof recreational vehicles at an encampment in Richmond in preparation for heavy rainfall this week. Two Bay Area advocacy organizations — NeighborAid and Safe Organized Spaces! Richmond — spent the afternoon at Castro and Hensley streets, sealing cracks to protect as many of the nearly 30 parked vehicles there as they could. Richmond City Council has debated how to better serve the many people living in vehicles. In January 2020, 1,750 people in Richmond were without…
Richmond renters may again face eviction for not paying their rent after California’s eviction moratorium, which was designed to protect renters who lost work during the COVID-19 pandemic, expired Thursday night. Richmond has its own eviction moratorium. But it turns out that doesn’t protect tenants who miss future rent payments, because of a legal complexity regarding when it passed. That means that, beginning Friday, Richmond landlords can once again take tenants to court over missed rent payments. The city’s moratorium…
Development on Point Molate has been a contentious issue in Richmond for more than a decade. (File photo)
Richmond City Council on Tuesday bowed to pressure from residents in the Hilltop area, selecting the Civic Center instead of the larger mall lot for a safe parking pilot program.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Richmond City Council is expected to revisit a plan it favored earlier this month to establish a pilot safe parking program at Hilltop Mall for people without housing.
It was a warm day in August when Gloria Schroeder received a panicked call from her roommate that they were being evicted. She had barely arrived for work after dropping off her 8-month-old daughter, Davina, at daycare. The 22-year-old relied on public transport to get everywhere. Once she got closer to the house, she saw police outside. They told her she had five minutes to pack what she could and leave. If she didn’t, they would arrest her. Panic and…
Despite approved housing plan, the fight over Point Molate rages on.