Jonathan P. Bell

To help ease California’s housing crisis, Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers are turning to people’s backyards.

When the city of L.A. set out to build a bike lane along the banks of the Los Angeles River in Elysian Valley, there was a surprising obstacle.

Robert Tillman owns a coin-operated laundromat in San Francisco’s Mission District, a neighborhood at the epicenter of California’s housing crisis. Over the last 2½ years, he’s spent nearly 0,000 on plans to tear down the business to build apartments. But although the city has zoned the property for apartments, Tillman hasn’t gotten very far.

I thought I’d swing by the supermarket in my neighborhood Tuesday morning to see if I could find a woman who lives in a van that’s often anchored in the store’s parking lot.

Newly proposed rules regulating Airbnb and other vacation-rental websites in Los Angeles could set the stage for a political showdown, as the city demands the companies hand over information to track down illegal rentals.

Claudia Flores and her husband were months past due on phone and electricity bills.

Addressing decades of complaints from some of the city’s most neglected corners, Los Angeles officials on Wednesday launched a groundbreaking effort to reduce health risks from industrial and traffic pollution that have plagued neighborhoods from the harbor area to the San Fernando Valley.

Facing a potentially bruising ballot fight over real estate development next year, Los Angeles’ political leaders announced Wednesday that they will seek a sweeping update of the plans that govern the size and density of new buildings that go up in scores of neighborhoods.

On busy mornings, thousands of travelers pass through Los Angeles Union Station, rushing toward the Metro subway and pushing suitcases across polished tile floors.

Los Angeles lawmakers took a step Wednesday toward legalizing some “bootlegged” apartments, arguing that the city must spare them as it grapples with an affordable housing crisis.