Community
Charters vs. District: The Battle for San Francisco Public Schools
The conflict between two city schools — and activists on both sides of the issue — reflects a growing battle playing out in San Francisco and across the state.
Community
Bayview School Feeling Squeezed by New Charter
This fall, the 105 students at the district’s Malcolm X Academy began sharing space with 90 pre-kindergartners, kindergartners and first graders attending a new charter school in the same building. “It’s hard to share space,” one staff member said.
Economy & Business
Business Improvement Districts Use Public Funds to Pursue Anti-Homeless Agenda, Advocates Say
Nearly 200 California cities allow private organizations to manage key aspects of their downtown and commercial districts and to implement policies that restrict the rights of homeless people, according to a new report from the UC Berkeley School of Law.
Homelessness
Activist Weiss Focuses Her Mayoral Campaign on Housing and Homelessness
Amy Farah Weiss, founder of Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge, is an extra-long longshot to be elected the city’s 44th mayor. In her second bid for City Hall, what she is doing is putting forward a detailed and wonky set of proposals for tackling core issues — and trying to impart a sense of urgency. Fourth in a series analyzing the mayoral candidates’ records and pledges on housing and homelessness.
Arts & Culture
An Ethnic Media Beacon Goes Dark, but Its Creator Keeps Inspiring
Sandy Close has made it her life’s work to find and amplify unique voices from different ethnic communities, especially those of the young. For nearly 50 years, Pacific News Service and its successor, New America Media, practiced “journalism from the inside out” by bringing people from many cultures into the newsroom. Last fall, Close had to shutter her organization, but her legacy lives on in dozens of professional journalists who got their start with her.
Homelessness
City Rolls Out Tech Platform to Improve — and Ration — Shelter, Housing for the Homeless
San Francisco has begun rolling out a new technology platform that officials say will better help the homeless population by giving priority for shelter and housing to those with the greatest need. But the ONE System also functions as a form of rationing of scarce affordable housing.
Education
On the Move: One Hardworking Family’s Struggle to Escape Homelessness
City native Victoria Ortiz’s path to homelessness began in the East Bay more than two years ago when she was pregnant, working at a Staples and subletting a room. A housemate stopped forwarding the rent to the landlord, and everyone was evicted. This is the story of her determination to find stable housing for her family while living at a shelter in San Francisco.
Bay Area
Most Homeless Families Helped by City Rent Programs Move Out of S.F.
A San Francisco initiative to help homeless families find affordable apartments and assist them in paying the rent is sending the majority of them out of the city because of the high cost and shortage of housing.
Bay Area
Health Funding for Clinics, Kids and the Homeless in Limbo as Congress Fights
Across the country, 1,400 community clinics that care for some of the poorest people in the United States are anxiously making contingency plans for how to cope with potential funding cuts, all because Congress allowed a critical program to lapse. The impact is already being felt in San Francisco and the Bay Area.
