The Alameda County Board of Supervisors has approved an ordinance that is expected to curb homelessness in the county, according to racial justice and human rights groups.

The Wilma Chan Fair Chance Housing ordinance passed Dec. 20 with the support of four out of five supervisors. The ordinance prohibits public and private property owners from using a criminal background check when evaluating an applicant for rental housing in unincorporated parts of the county.

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Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.