Ben Affleck Eddie Murphy, Hailee Steinfeld & Rashida Jones
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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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Alaska agreed to settle with the Interior Department on Monday over a Biden-era plan aimed at restricting drilling and leasing, a deal that could expand the state’s oil and gas development.
The state and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority in consolidated cases agreed to drop the suit if Interior offered a written admission that its approval of the Biden-era plan was flawed and violated the 2017 Tax Act.
The 2024 plan included restrictions such as protecting more than 1 million acres of coastal plains. According to the proposed agreement, that move eliminated interest in a Jan. 6, 2025 …
PAGE, ARIZ., – A suspect has been arrested after two people were found shot to death inside a home near the Arizona-Utah border.
What we know:
On July 5 at 11:30 p.m., the Page Police and Fire Communications Center responded to a report that two people had been shot near Elm and El Camino.
Once at the home, officers found a man and a woman with gunshot wounds. They were pronounced dead at the scene.
“The suspect was unknown and not on scene when officers arrived,” police said.
Dig deeper:
Police secured the home and obtained a search warrant. Investigators then began processing the crime scene.
“Evidence collected provided investigators with a person of interest who may have been present when the shootings occurred,” police said. “Investigators located the person of interest and interviewed him but did not initially charge him with any crimes related to the double homicide investigation.”
The next day, the person of interest was arrested and booked into jail. He’s accused of two counts of first-degree murder.
What we don’t know:
No identities were released. Police didn’t release any details on what led up to the shooting.
Local perspective:
Police “do not believe there is any remaining threat to the community, as the alleged suspect and the weapon allegedly used have been seized by law enforcement.”
What you can do:
If anyone has information related to the investigation, they advise contacting Detective Terry TerEick at ttereick@pageaz.gov.
Map of the cross streets where the shooting occurred:
The Source: Information for this article was gathered from the Page Police Department’s Facebook page.
Gavin Newsom is taking a victory lap today on the first anniversary of California’s film and TV tax credits program being jacked up to $750 million, and the potential presidential contender has Disney, a Shrek prequel, and Ben Affleck along for the ride.
Along with an untitled Pixar project, the Argo Oscar winner’s upcoming Gingerbread Men, the Hailee Steinfeld and Rashida Jones-starring animated Hexed from the House of Mouse and DreamWorks’ Eddie Murphy-led Donkey were among 41 films that received $187 million in incentives today.
The Pixar flick was awarded the most in credits with $26.7 million in what has become a very helpful program for animation the past 365 days. Not that ‘toons don’t pay off. The four animated features are estimated to inject $711 million into the Golden State’s economy. That breaks down to about “$145 million in qualified wages, employing over 1,900 cast and crew members” for the home of Hollywood, according to the California Film Commission.
“We received the approval letter informing us that Gingerbread Men was accepted into the California Film and Television Tax Credit Program,” Affleck said of the indie from his and pal Matt Damon‘s Artists Equity.“ Gingerbread Men got $7 million from the state.
“Under the program, we have been able to make the films Argo, Unstoppable, and Accountant 2,” Affleck added. “Our upcoming film, Gingerbread Men, will be filmed in Los Angeles, California – close to our company office and the best and most experienced cast and crew, vendors, and service providers. Let’s continue to keep the California film industry alive with the help of the California Film and Television Tax Credit Program!”
Take a look at the full list of conditionally approved awards here:
Overall, the bean counters in Sacramento anticipate the 41 projects will generate $1.1 billon “in direct production spending in California” and “$145 million in qualified wages, employing over 1,900 cast and crew.”
That figure factors nicely into some very big numbers that Governor Newsom heralded Tuesday.
Specifically, $6.6 billion has been created for the state’s economy over the past year out of 170 credited projects. While that sum sounds (and is) impressive, the figure that may get the town truly jazzed is the “nearly 35,000 cast and crew jobs across California” the Governor’s team says have come out of the last year since the program allotment leapt up.
To that, including the awarded big screeners revealed today, Gov. Newsom sure sounded like he was prepping a stump speech for the Heartland on the California miracle, so to speak.
“California has long set the standard for entertainment production, creating good-paying jobs and showcasing the creativity and innovation that define the Golden State,” the governor asserted. “The first year of the expanded tax credit program is already delivering results — generating billions in economic activity, creating opportunities for businesses and the workforce, and bringing more productions home to California.”
Maybe the biggest praise came from Burbank.
“Governor Newsom, and the legislative leaders who have worked to strengthen opportunities for production here as we continue to invest in California’s world-class creative workforce,” said Alan Bergman, Disney Entertainment Studios chairman Tuesday.
Reading the tea leaves-ish, does that mean we’ll see some Marvel movies coming over from the tax incentive rich UK soon?
Just askin’.
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