San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/category/neighborhoods/)
Berkeley is accelerating plans to more humanely deal with homelessness in the wake of a San Francisco Public Press report on a chaotic encampment raid in October, and city staffers say they will start collaborating with unhoused people and homeless advocates when planning to clean or clear large encampments.
Several city departments are changing procedures in response to complaints from those living in encampments and their advocates, and from residential and commercial neighbors.
Residents of San Francisco’s Treasure Island suffered half a dozen power outages in the three months after electrical upgrades were completed this July. That’s just the latest episode in what’s been an ongoing problem for the island.
The nation’s largest public interest law firm is battling the San Francisco city attorney’s office over its plan to block 28 alleged drug dealers from setting foot in a 50-block area of the Tenderloin. Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California filed a response to the City Attorney’s appeal of a May 2021 ruling that blocked the proposed injunctions. It’s the latest legal step in what’s becoming a drawn-out fight over drug dealing and the rights of people to move freely through San Francisco, and it could have far-reaching implications.
Low vaccination rates in several pockets of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood could help explain persistently high cases of COVID-19 in San Francisco’s southeast, recently released data indicates.
Environmental activists are about to launch an air-monitoring project to track pollution linked to high rates of asthma and other health conditions in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. The results could play an important role in demonstrating the environmental harm residents suffer.
San Francisco has not prioritized neighborhoods with little recently built affordable housing when deciding which projects to fund, a public audit released this week found.
About 90% of affordable housing added in the last decade has gone to just four eastern and central neighborhoods.
The site in an old McDonald’s parking lot at the edge of Golden Gate Park opened in May 2020 with 40 spots, becoming the city’s second sanctioned tent camp.
On June 16 it shuts down. The question now is where to move site residents, many of whom have called the Haight neighborhood home for decades and don’t want to leave.
Redistricting, the process by which electoral districts are drawn, will happen locally as well as at the state and federal levels. San Francisco will use census and resident input to redraw its supervisorial districts, a process that begins this year and will likely carry on into 2022. Alison Goh, president of the League of Women Voters of San Francisco, explained to “Civic” how the process will work and outlined the transparency and outreach the League wants to see from the city.
The end of 2020 saw several local publications change hands, with real estate and hospitality magnate Clint Reilly acquiring the San Francisco Examiner and SF Weekly and Street Media acquiring the Marina Times. The San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper is undergoing its own transition, but rather than simply changing hands it is going to a cooperative ownership model.
Nearly four dozen groups announced Wednesday their opposition to San Francisco’s efforts to combat rampant drug dealing in the Tenderloin by using injunctions to increase penalties for dealers.
On Wednesday morning, a coalition of 45 organizations, including the public defender’s office, homeless advocates, immigration rights groups, drug policy organizations and youth-based nonprofits, held a press conference to express their opposition to the strategy. In a Dec. 3 letter to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, they said the injunctions are “draconian and wasteful,” and do little to address concerns around drug dealing and overdoses.
On several streets in the Mission, you can spot sticky notes in the windows of some homes. They’re blank, but they’re sending a message: The residents would like to signal their interest in participating in a neighborhood effort to address crime, trash and visible homelessness in the neighborhood. Nuala Bishari reported on the initiative for the San Francisco Public Press. She talked with “Civic” about what she found and how she learned it.
