San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/2015/08/)
By Lisa Wong Macabasco, Hyphen/New America Media
James Wong is a man of routine. Every morning, the 63-year-old resident of San Francisco’s Sunset District meets his friends for some tai-chi exercise. Then they decide where to eat lunch. It’s usually at one of three senior centers in the southwest corner of the city. There they can get a hot meal, perhaps even freshly cooked, for $2.
By Joe Rivano Barros, Mission Local
On the evening of Thursday, August 6, police officers and a Department of Public Works garbage truck dismantled and trashed a blocklong homeless encampment that residents say had existed without problems for six months. “Every single place I’ve been besides here I’ve been told to leave at least once or twice a week,” said Deanna Daly, a 30-year-old woman who has been homeless for a year and a half. “This is the only spot I’ve been in where we haven’t had to move in a few months.”
Read the complete story at Mission Local.
By Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton, Bay Nature
The hiking group was supposed to meet 20 minutes ago, but I’m sitting here on the roadside staring at a locked gate and a handful of discouraging signs. “Hazardous Fire Area,” “Bioregional Habitat Restoration Project,” “No Parking Any Time” (twice). Past the gate, a road winds up through thick green hills half hidden in fog. I’ve been waiting for weeks to get behind this gate, but that barely makes me a newcomer to the scene: Pressure on the landowner to open the area to public recreation has been mounting for decades. So far that pressure has been relieved only by docent-led hikes like the one I’m meant to be on today, but now it may have reached a breaking point.
By Sarita Hiatt, New America Media
Mai Dang has worked in nail salons for 12 years and believes that the toxic chemicals she handled caused her to develop asthma. “I realized that the products we used to make our clients beautiful were the culprits,” said Dang during the launch in San Francisco this month by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, of the Healthy Nail Salon Task Force. The task force, a project of the Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, hopes to pass legislation protecting nail salon workers’ health by regulating products, among other measures. Read the complete story at New America Media.
By Joe Rivano Barros, Mission Local
Some 100 people crowded the 16th Street BART plaza at noon Monday to support 100 percent affordable housing at the 16th Street market-rate project that became embroiled in litigation last week after the developer sued the owner for acting in bad faith. Supervisor David Campos also made an appearance to “come and hear what the community has to say.”
Read the complete story at Mission Local.
By Natalie Yemenidjian, KQED News Fix
San Francisco’s Academy of Art University, an institution that has been operating for 86 years, is the nation’s biggest private art college. But only 32 percent of its full-time students graduate in six years — compared with 59 percent for colleges nationally and as high as 90 percent for top-of-the-line art colleges like the Rhode Island School of Design. The September issue of Forbes magazine calls out the for-profit Academy of Art in two investigative reports for having low graduation rates, nondisclosure of job placements and a student body burdened with debt. Forbes also discloses that the Stephens family, which owns the college, has outstanding planning code violations for 31 of 40 buildings it owns throughout the city. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.
By Meira Gebel, Mission Local
Walking on San Carlos between 18th and 19th streets, 76-year-old Jerry Avila points to changes he has seen on the block where he has lived for more than 30 years. For most of that time little changed, he said. But in the last two years, the hodgepodge block of businesses and Victorian-esque, single-family homes with chipped paint has been transformed. “Everyone who used to live here is gone,” said Avila.
Read the complete story at Mission Local.
By Anna Challet, New America Media
In California, hundreds of thousands of kids in immigrant families are eligible for Medi-Cal but have not enrolled, according to a new study from Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. Some of them are kids who have undocumented parents, but who are themselves citizens or lawfully residing. Some of them are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program but have not applied. (The program allows some undocumented people who came to United States as children to qualify for work permits and deportation relief.) In California, if you qualify for that program, you qualify for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. Read the complete story at New America Media.
Here’s what other media outlets are saying about the Public Press’ sea level rise report:
This Map Shows What San Francisco Will Look Like After Sea Levels Rise — Mother Jones
Maps of Sea-Level Rise, Ranked from Kinda Scary to OMFG — San Francisco Magazine
Report: Rising Sea Levels Threaten $21 Billion Development Plans — KQED’s ‘Forum’
Will $21 billion worth of development around the Bay stand up to sea level rise? — KALW’s ‘Crosscurrents’
Your Call: Toxic spill in a Colorado river; the risks of building on the Bay — KALW’s ‘Your Call’
Q&A: San Francisco Public Press Reporter Kevin Stark on Sea Level Rise and Bay Area Preparations — Bay Nature
New report details sea rise threatening development at San Francisco’s edges — San Francisco Examiner
Major San Francisco Bayfront Developments Advance Despite Sea Rise Warnings — Earth Island Journal
Mapping The Projected 8 Foot Sea Level Rise In San Francisco — SFist
Map Shows San Francisco Waterfront At Risk of Severe Flooding — SF Weekly
Read our sea level rise report detailing how the Bay Area’s current waterfront building frenzy includes at least $21 billion in housing and commercial construction in low-lying areas that climate scientists say could flood by the end of the century. Order a copy of the Summer 2015 print edition or pick one up at these locations around the Bay Area. Become a member to support local public-interest journalism and receive a subscription for the next for issues of the San Francisco Public Press, plus additional member benefits.
By Susan Cohen, KQED News Fix
Rose could be anywhere from 10 to 12 years old. The stray Chihuahua showed up one day in Amanda Smulevitz’s Oakland neighborhood, and the woman eventually took the dog in. A few years later, Smulevitz adopted Lily, a soon-to-be-6-year-old of the same breed, saving her from a home where she had been mistreated. A retired and disabled mother of a special-needs son, Smulevitz has lived in Oakland for almost 50 years. But she was forced to leave her pet-friendly apartment earlier this year, when the building’s new owner refused to give her a new lease.