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California’s Biggest Water Source Shrouded in Secrecy

07.31.2014
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By Lauren Sommer, KQED News Fix/KQED Science
There’s an “alarming lack of information” about California’s biggest reservoir, finds a major new analysis of the state’s groundwater resources. As water levels dwindle in California’s rivers and reservoirs, many farmers and water districts are relying on the state’s vast underground reservoirs instead. In drought years, groundwater provides up to 60 percent of California’s water supply, according to rough estimates by state officials. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix/KQED Science

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A New Life for Longtime Shelter for Those With AIDS

07.29.2014
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By Leslie Nguyen-Okwu, Mission Local
Before its closure in 2010, a house called “Marty’s Place” served as a private homeless shelter for those living with HIV/AIDS. Soon the longtime institution, on Treat and 25th, will open again; when it does, it will become the first permanently affordable housing cooperative for the city’s LGBTQ community living with HIV/AIDS. A Victorian built in 1895 whose muraled garage door opens out to Balmy Alley, Marty’s Place offers a particularly charming new model for affordable housing. It will be owned and managed by the tenants who inhabit it. Read the complete story at Mission Local.

Back Issues
Issue 14: Fall 2011

Issue 14: Summer 2014

07.29.2014
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This experiment with solutions journalism paired reporting with the Hack the Housing Crisis conference to explore innovative ideas for keeping rents down and adding more housing while preserving San Francisco’s diverse communities and cultures.

View Online » Read more

From the Newsroom

JOB: Bicycle delivery team for Pedal-Powered News pilot program

07.24.2014
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Seeking bicycle delivery crewmembers to distribute the San Francisco Public Press, a quarterly newspaper, to homes, offices, stores and community centers throughout San Francisco. We have an immediate need for bicycle delivery crewmembers to work one or more days from Tuesday, July 29, through Friday, Aug. 1. Ideal availability: four to eight hours per day. Delivery assignments must be completed within two days.

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In San Francisco, One Dying Forest Waits for Action

07.23.2014
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By Becca Andrews, Bay Nature
Walk a few feet into the jungle on the west side of San Francisco’s Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve, and you will come to an unusual three-headed eucalyptus tree. Its single trunk is firmly rooted, and three trees sprout tenuously from the base, limbs stretching out away from the prevailing west wind and into the tangle of brown and green that dominates this 61-acre open space area. We are standing to the left of the trunk as a group of four cyclists pause to study the Cerberus and debate their route. The apparent quirk of nature is an unexpected gift during their workout — they glance at the tree, they glance at their phones, they glance at the tree, they glance at each other, they glance at the tree. Read the complete story at Bay Nature.

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How We Rocked Our $30,000 Journalism Kickstarter Campaign (and You Can, Too)

07.23.2014
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We recently ran a crowdfunding campaign for journalism that brought in three times the amount we were asking for. Here’s how we did it. The San Francisco Public Press has a plan to increase visibility for the organization and double its San Francisco distribution network in just six months. We’re going to do it by launching a program to deliver our quarterly newspapers by bike instead of car to members, retailers and other distribution locations around the city. Of course, that will take money, so we turned to our community of readers for support.

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City College Loses Latest Appeal, Running Out of Options to Stay Open

07.22.2014
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By Isabel Angell, KQED News Fix
City College of San Francisco is mulling over one of its final options in its fight to stay open. The commission overseeing its fate rejected new evidence Monday that school administrators presented in hopes to prove it has fixed financial and managerial problems behind the threatened loss of accreditation. City College must now decide by the end of this month whether to ask the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges to grant it “restoration status.”
Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.  

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High Rents and Low Wages Trap Chinese Immigrants in SROs

07.21.2014
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By Melanie Young, KALW/New America Media
Tenants are facing a tough time in San Francisco. The city has some of the nation’s highest rents, and laws like the Ellis Act have made evictions front page news. But there are pockets of affordability, like in Chinatown, where the average rent is one-third as much as in other neighborhoods. But the neighborhood is also one of the country’s most overcrowded, and tenants claim that landlords violate health and safety codes. In response to rising rents and shoddy housing, a group of low-income, mostly elderly Chinatown renters have crossed language and cultural barriers to change to their neighborhood. 
Read the complete story at New America Media.

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A 2020 Vision: Zero Waste in San Francisco

07.17.2014
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By Adam Teitelbaum, KALW Crosscurrents
“The goal is zero waste by 2020, and we think that is an achievable goal.”
Those words from former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom  in 2009 promoted the idea of diverting all waste from landfills. It was actually an official resolution passed  in the Willie Brown administration. Now, in 2014, Mayor Ed Lee claims the city has reached 80 percent diversion. Whether or not that debatable claim is true, there is a long way to go to reach the goal. So what is it going to take to achieve zero waste by 2020?

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Lady Gaga: California Water-Conservation Cheerleader

07.16.2014
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By Dan Brekke, KQED News Fix
California’s water bureaucracy has approved penalties against the hydro-criminals among us who do things like wash sidewalks and dump too much water on our lawns. Penalties could be as much as $500 per offense. It remains to be seen how the scores and scores of water agencies that will need to enforce the new rules will actually do it, though. If San Francisco and its massive Hetch Hetchy system are any indication, our new water cops will hand out warnings before trying to impose fines. But both the state and the city are also going to try a softer, pop culture-based approach to winning over the water-wasting public.