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Obamacare Enrollment Fairs Offer Signup Help as Deadline Looms

03.18.2014
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By KQED News Staff and Wires, KQED News Fix
With the deadline to sign up for health insurance through Medi-Cal or Covered California approaching rapidly, Bay Area residents are being offered some face-to-face assistance in getting enrolled. The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, a health care workers union with 150,000 members, is offering five free health care enrollment fairs in the Bay Area this week, starting with events in San Francisco and Hayward Tuesday. The fairs offer information and face-to-face help in signing up for free or low-cost health insurance, according to union spokesman Sean Wherley. Those who currently lack insurance are required to either sign up for Medi-Cal, for those who are eligible, or purchase insurance through the state’s health care exchange, Covered California. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix. 

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A Starting Place for Former Foster Youth

03.17.2014
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By Rachel Wong, KALW Crosscurrents
Dejon Lewis was 11 years old when child protective services arrived to take him and his twin sister away from their mother, whom he says is a drug addict. But instead of giving themselves over to the state, the two children made a run for it. Lewis says they stayed with a family friend for a while, but eventually they turned themselves in, and that is when he entered the foster care system. Since then, Lewis has bounced around a lot. “It’s hard to live when you’re just living with strangers and strangers and strangers, and no relatives.

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Small-Property Owners Feel Slighted in Tight S.F. Housing Market

03.13.2014
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By Liz Pfeffer, KALW Crosscurrents
San Francisco’s real estate prices, rents and eviction rates are at an all-time high, causing real tension between tenants and landlords. Frequently we hear from renters about the struggles of living in the city, but it is  not often that we hear from the owners of their buildings. In San Francisco, about one-third of the population consists of property owners. Those who are small-time landlords are struggling to maintain solvency in this explosive housing market. Read the complete story at KALW Crosscurrents. 
 

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First Mayoral Forum in Series Focuses on Jobs and Diversity in S.F.

03.12.2014
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By Isabel Angell, KALW Crosscurrents
African Americans are leaving San Francisco at an alarming rate. They make up just 6 percent of the population, down from more than 13 percent in 1970, and have a higher unemployment rate than whites and other minorities. Meanwhile, San Francisco has the fastest-growing income gap in the country. In a region with so much wealth and innovation, a significant part of the population is getting left behind. S.F. Mayor Ed Lee has inaugurated a series of mayoral forums to improve the city’s engagement with the minority and lower-income communities.

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Will Prison Arts Programs Be Revived in California?

03.11.2014
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By Kyung Jin Lee, KALW Crosscurrents
On a breezy summer day at San Quentin State Prison, inmate Paul Stauffer reads his writing to a live audience. “My shoulders brush the sides of the wall and bunk as I pace the nine feet of my cell, between the sink and door. A scream echoed silently from my tortured soul, as hopeless dreams of a once meaningful life, floated endlessly across my mind …” he reads. Creative self-expression is a proven force for change in prisons. Inmates in this creative writing class, and classes like it, are less likely to commit crimes when they are released.

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San Francisco’s Mid-Market Street Milestone

03.10.2014
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By Geoff Link, New America Media/Central City Extra News Report
Three years ago this month, the Twitter tax break was signed into law, and the Tenderloin’s fate was sealed. Central City Extra and New America Media are using that historic moment as a jumping-off point to examine the effects of the central city’s transformation on seniors. Twitter led the way for uncounted companies, including a slew of app makers and programming schools plus the restaurants and bars plying $14 cocktails and other businesses that follow the money. Market Street went from blight to boom in two years. After three decades in the doldrums, downtown began a westward march with City Place mall anchoring the block beyond Fifth Street. 
Read the complete story at New America Media.

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Google’s Separate-but-Equal Bus Policy Highlights S.F.’s Deepening Class Divide

03.07.2014
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Does Google feel class guilt? The Mountain View-based search giant said last week that it would donate millions to a city program that provides bus passes, gratis, to thousands of San Francisco’s working class and low-income kids. The move comes none too soon, as the income gap between regular Muni riders and those who can afford other transportation modes reached a record high. It was the same week that the Brookings Institute released a national report detailing the growing earnings divide in cities across the nation. It found that the gap between San Francisco’s rich and poor grew faster than in any other American city between 2007 and 2012.

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San Francisco to Focus on Most Dangerous Intersections for Pedestrians

03.06.2014
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By Bryan Goebel, KQED News Fix 
San Francisco transportation officials have unveiled a new round of street safety initiatives to curb pedestrian deaths and injuries by targeting the city’s most dangerous intersections for makeovers. While pedestrian advocates praised the measures, they remained concerned that the bulk of the plan lacked funding. “Any pedestrian death or serious injury is one too many,” said Mayor Ed Lee, who held a City Hall press conference to announce the recommendations of “Walk First,” a data-driven effort in which transportation officials and planners analyzed more than 2,000 vehicle collisions involving pedestrians. They found that 60 percent of pedestrian injuries and deaths occur on just 6 percent of streets, which are mostly concentrated in the Tenderloin, SoMa and North Beach. On average, they said, more than 100 pedestrians are “severely injured or killed” citywide each year, and 800 pedestrians are injured.