Foreground Foreground Radio

A quarter of the nation’s homeless live in California. That's three times the national average. California, with all its wealth, also has the highest poverty rate in the country, and ranks 49th for housing units per resident.

Against this backdrop, a controversial housing law called the Ellis Act lets California landlords evict rent-controlled tenants if they remove their property from the rental market altogether. I went to one of these buildings to learn how this law fits into California’s housing crisis. This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between PRX and the USC Annenberg School of Journalism in Los Angeles.

This short radio piece was created for Annenberg Media at USC. Stay tuned for some big updates, including accounts from park rangers at the Manzanar internment camp, and an exclusive with USC’s last living Nisei student.

Rodrigo Ontaneda is the founder of reforestation project Maquipucuna. He invited us to his 15,000 acre reserve in the Ecuadorian cloud forest, where he introduced us to communities he’s helped steer away from logging and towards more sustainable ways to use their land. He also discussed some of his largest obstacles, many of which stem from the current and former Ecuadorian governments.

Reforesting Ecuador was made in partnership with The Between Worlds Project.

Jordan Bush is a street performer who plays the banjo at the Santa Monica Farmers market. This episode details my attachment to his music, and follows Jordan as unlikely rivalry forces his disappearance.

This episode was reported and produced by me, Evan Jacoby, and co-hosted with Kahve Azarnoush.