. >> reporter: it took more than two decades, but david hanie can finally call this house his home.r years. his landlord -- rented for years. his landlord was caltrans, but on the most part he was on his own. part of the problem, property management was never the plan. the plan for caltrans was a bypass through hayward and alameda county. in the '60s caltrans was so sure that freeway would happen it started buying up property, 465 parcels to the tune of about $20 million. opposition stopped that project before it even started and in that limbo came renters like hanie. >> it started out a short time rental because they were going to put the freeway through. then every year it was one more year, one more year. >> reporter: when the battle ended, the project was dead, but the houses remained and now caltrans is unloading those houses one by one. back in october 2 investigates filed a california public records act request to get a better idea where the project stands now and we have finally gotten those numbers. what took so long? caltrans says back in the '60s record keeping consisted

now is produced by mike burke, renee feltz, aaron mate, nermeen shaikh, steve martinez, sam alcoff, hanyrobby karran, deena guzder, amy littlefield, cassandra lizaire, messiah rhodes and charina nadura. mike di fillippo and miguel nogueira are our engineers. special thanks to becca staley, julie crosby, hugh gran, jessica lee, john wallach and vesta goodarz. and to our camera crew, jon randolph, kieran meadows and carlo de jesus. i am amy goodman with juan gonzalez. happy new year. ♪