West
Residents explain why they fled the Bay Area: Homelessness was 'just getting out of hand'
Former residents report having found better quality and cost of living outside the Bay Area, where homelessness and housing prices have skyrocketed.
“It’s a challenging place to live — the most expensive metro area in the country for consumer prices and buying a home. In a recent poll of Bay Area residents, nearly half said they were considering leaving in the next few years,” the East Bay Times reported.
One family who left the Bay Area to live in Idaho said that homelessness had become a problem.
“The homeless situation in downtown Martinez was just getting out of hand,” Ken Freeze told the Times.
(Nearly half of Bay Area residents considered leaving the city due to rising costs and costs of living, according to a report.)
“Beautiful Marina Park was just littered with needles. People didn’t want to take their families down there,” he added.
MASK MANDATES RETURN FOR HEALTH CARE FACILITIES IN DEEP BLUE STATE
In 2005, Freeze and his wife bought several acres of land in Placerville, California, with plans to retire.
“But by the time retirement rolled around, the state had changed too much for them,” the Times reported.
Per the Times, “They decided to swap out the foothills of the Sierra Nevada for the foothills in Idaho, and move to Meridian, a fast-growing suburb of Boise. They’d first traveled there in August 2017 for the total solar eclipse, and were struck by the good condition of the roads and how affordable the homes were.”
But the Freezes weren’t the only ones attracted to the area.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to crack down on homelessness, cleaning up trash and threatening to strip municipalities of funding if they do not take action against the issue. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
“In the short time we’ve been here, areas that when we first moved here were just open fields are now apartment complexes and buildings,” Freeze told the East Bay Times. “I’d just like to see them pull back the reins a little bit and let the infrastructure take a breath.”
WHY TRUMP IS HEADED INTO ‘THE BELLY OF THE BEAST’: THE STRATEGY BEHIND HIS BLUE STATE STOPS
Another Bay Area couple felt the housing squeeze and saw prices elsewhere “too good to pass up.”
They found a house in Phoenix they loved and “now pay less for their mortgage than they did for their one-bedroom in San Bruno.”
As the Times reported, “It came with a pool, palm trees and a view of the mountains. ‘You can’t get all that in California anymore, unless you’re Elon Musk,’ [Jared] Troutman joked.”
A family from Oakland moved to the South due to the area feeling like a “third-world country.”
“I didn’t want to wait until everything got worse than it already was,” Mary Ezell-Wallas said.
Oakland Homeless encampment (Getty Images)
“Living in Oakland was stressful every day and night,” she said.
She explained further, “It’s so much better down here.”
Ezell Wallace, a resident of Oakland for nearly four decades, ran a beauty parlor in the 90s. She said Oakland had good shopping downtown back then.
“We could get anything we wanted real fast,” Ezell-Wallace said.
She added, “I thought Oakland was one of the greatest places there was.”
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DENVER, Colo. (May 16, 2026) – The Orlando Pride (3-5-2, 11 points) were defeated by Denver Summit FC (3-3-3, 12 points) via a 3-1 scoreline in the Club’s first-ever visit to DICK’S Sporting Goods Park on Saturday night.
Denver opened the scoring early when Eva Gaetino crashed in at the far post to finish off a corner kick in the 10th minute of play. The home side doubled its advantage in the 54th minute via a Janine Sonis penalty kick.
Orlando was reduced to 10 players in the 63rd minute after Angelina received a direct red card. Despite their numerical advantage, the visitors pulled a goal back in the 76th minute when Barbra Banda broke through on goal from Haley McCutcheon’s pass and slotted home her league-leading ninth goal of the season.
The Summit responded just a minute later as Sonis tallied her second of the night after capitalizing on a rebound inside the Pride’s box, effectively putting the game out of reach.
The Pride will complete their three-game road trip with a visit to San Diego Wave FC at Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday, May 24 (7 p.m. ET; Victory+).
Head Coach Seb Hines:
“Frustrating. I sound like a broken record right now. Disappointed with the goal that we conceded, a set piece. We struggled with the way Denver were playing out from the back, playing through the lines. We made some good adjustments at halftime. I thought we started the second half really well. The sending off changes the whole game, but I won’t talk about that. And yeah, we were just battling until the end. There were obviously some gaps that started opening. We put ourselves in a really good position at 2-1 with a lot of time left and then let ourselves down with the third goal. We’ll analyze it and move on. We’ve been on the road now for about a week. It’s not gone our way—we’ve got to bounce back, show some resilience and come out stronger against San Diego.”
The Pride will complete their three-game road trip with a visit to San Diego Wave FC at Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday, May 24 (7 p.m. ET; Victory+).
Seattle, WA
Where to watch San Diego Padres vs Seattle Mariners: TV channel, start time, streaming for May 17
What to know about MLB’s ABS robot umpire strike zone system
MLB launches ABS challenge system as players test robot umpire calls in a groundbreaking season.
Baseball is back and finding what channel your favorite team is playing on has become a little bit more confusing since MLB announced plans to produce and distribute broadcasts for nearly a third of the league.
We’re here to help. Here’s everything you need to know Sunday as the San Diego Padres visit the Seattle Mariners.
See USA TODAY’s sortable MLB schedule to filter by team or division.
What time is San Diego Padres vs Seattle Mariners?
First pitch between the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres is scheduled for 7:20 p.m. (ET) on Sunday, May 17.
How to watch San Diego Padres vs Seattle Mariners on Sunday
All times Eastern and accurate as of Sunday, May 17, 2026, at 6:32 a.m.
- Matchup: SD at SEA
- Date: Sunday, May 17
- Time: 7:20 p.m. (ET)
- Venue: T-Mobile Park
- Location: Seattle, Washington
- TV: Peacock
- Streaming: MLB.TV on Fubo
Watch MLB all season long with Fubo
MLB regional blackout restrictions apply
MLB scores, results
MLB scores for May 17 games are available on usatoday.com . Here’s how to access today’s results:
See scores, results for all of today’s games.
Why this matters
Located in neighborhoods across the county, community gardens seek to provide resources and educational opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds.
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Tucked into neighborhoods, schoolyards and park edges, community gardens have woven themselves into the fabric of San Diego.
Many are established in food deserts – areas that lack access to affordable and nutritious food. For predominantly low-income and racially diverse communities, a local garden plot can be the difference between having fresh produce or none at all.
Beyond the food, community gardens have become gathering places where social bonds across generations and languages form and environmental education can flourish. From elementary school students to senior citizens, people of all ages are able to tend to plants or participate in community activities hosted onsite.
San Diego County has more than 80 community gardens, according to the Master Gardener Association of San Diego County. Most of them are managed by churches, nonprofits or local volunteers.
However, funding may be running short. The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act led the county to cancel contracts related to CalFresh Healthy Living in October 2025, as previously reported by inewsource. Community gardens were one of the lifestyle programs impacted by these cuts.
Nonprofit leaders have also sounded the alarm about federal cuts causing funding instability that could impact their community programs.
But there are still ways for the community to get involved. Here’s a map maintained by the Master Gardener Association that shows dozens of gardens around the county.
inewsource asked Heather Holland, president of the Master Gardener Association of San Diego County, and Julia Rauner Guerrero, the organization’s community garden chair, to talk about the basics of community gardens.
Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Community gardens vary based on who owns the land but most gardens are spaces where renters of the garden beds have access during set hours. Most gardens have events or times where they open their doors to the public.
Community gardens are spaces where the public can garden or learn about gardening together. There are a few categories of community gardens that could be grouped this way:
- Gardens that include beds or spaces that can be rented for growing.
- Gardens that grow food that is donated to others.
- Gardens that act as learning spaces so the public can learn how to garden together.
- Semi-public spaces where someone from an area (as in a resident of an HOA) can garden in a space.
Most of San Diego’s community gardens fall into one of those categories and often include several of these characteristics. On our community garden map we’ve focused on gardens with individual or shared/cooperative plots, some of which also incorporate education and/or food sharing with the community.
No, generally there isn’t any registration with the county and the cities operate under different rules. Community gardens located on public land have different approaches dictated by their city. For example, in the city of San Diego nonprofit groups can apply to the city to use parks and recreation land for a community garden.
Community gardens are operated by a mix of persons depending on who is running the site. In most cases it is a church, a nonprofit or a group of volunteers who manage the space. A few San Diego cities such as Imperial Beach, Carlsbad and La Mesa oversee their gardens and in other cases the County of San Diego directly operates the community gardens on their property.
Volunteer at your nearby community garden to get a feel for the garden, the people and the management.
Type of Content
Explainer: Provides context or background, definition and detail on a specific topic.
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