By Jeremy Raff, KQED News Fix The din of excited chatter grew as the crush of UC San Francisco medical students put on their white coats and distributed picket signs saying “black lives matter” Wednesday, instructing one another to tag their tweets and Instagram photos #WhiteCoats4BlackLives. But at 10 minutes past noon, when the group […]
Yearly Archives: 2014
Posted inNews
S.F. Chorus Frogs Nearly Disappeared. People Helped Them Return. Then Frogs Got Noisy.
By Carmen Taylor, Bay Nature The classic “ribbit” that Hollywood used for decades for nighttime frog noises comes from a diminutive, 2-inch West Coast native called the Pacific chorus frog. If you are in San Francisco and want to hear them, though, you are mostly restricted to the movies these days: The city’s expansion in […]
Posted inHomelessness and Mental Health, News
Thoughts on Homelessness From San Francisco Civic Leaders
Part of a special report on homelessness and mental health in San Francisco, in the fall 2014 print edition. Stories rolling out online throughout the fall.
San Francisco has struggled for more than 10 years to solve the problem of chronicl homelessness. While the current consensus endorses the principle of “housing first” — stabilizing people by getting them off the streets and into basic housing — there is little agreement about the optimal policies to pursue. We asked eight civic leaders for their ideas about how to improve the living situations of the thousands of people currently living on the streets and in shelters.
Posted inCity Hall
Dropped Domestic Violence Charge for 49er Ray McDonald Is Standard Fare in Bay Area
Football players have recently made the news for allegedly assaulting their romantic partners. But both inside and out of sports, this type of crime often goes unpunished because victims refuse to cooperate — a problem that San Francisco City Hall continues to grapple with.
Posted inNews
Guidelines Proposed on How BART Police Should Interact With Transgender People
By Bryan Goebel, KQED News Fix A BART police advisory board is considering a new policy that would establish a directive for how the department’s 200 officers should interact with transgender people. The proposed policy, hailed as a great first step by transgender advocates, was to be considered Monday by BART’s Citizen Review Board, which […]
Posted inCity Hall, Health, Homelessness, Homelessness and Mental Health
Schizophrenia Diagnosis Puts People First in Line for Benefits
Homeless people with schizophrenia face abnormally high hurdles to obtaining their Supplemental Security Income benefits. But one government program has sliced their wait times to mere days, rather than months. Part of a special report on homelessness and mental health in San Francisco, in the fall 2014 print edition. Stories rolling out online throughout the fall.
Posted inNews
California’s Drought: Is It Global Warming?
By Craig Miller, KQED Science/KQED News Fix Federal climate scientists say that California’s drought, now in its fourth year, is not likely the product of human-induced global warming. A new report, based on seven models that ran 160 “reenactments” of the last three years, concludes that “perhaps about two-thirds of the precipitation deficits” of the […]
Posted inHealth, Homelessness, Homelessness and Mental Health
How Homelessness Can Compromise Mental Health
Studies show insecure housing can aggravate existing psychological problems, or even create new ones. Obtaining housing has been shown to improve mental health. Part of a special report on homelessness and mental health in San Francisco, in the fall 2014 print edition. Stories rolling out online throughout the fall.
Posted inNews
Some Bay Area Immigrants Suffer Fallout of Ebola Epidemic
By Andrew Stelzer, KQED News Fix Two days before Thanksgiving, a hair-braiding salon in Berkeley is packed. But stylist Emma Kouassi says that has not been the case recently. “Since they started talking about Ebola a lot in the media,” she says, her business has dropped off. She attributes that to one fact: She’s from […]
Posted inNews
Youth Shelter in San Francisco’s NoPa Becomes 24-Hour Operation
By Katrina Schwartz, KQED News Fix Homelessness is still a big problem in San Francisco. At last count in January 2013, there were 7,350 sheltered and unsheltered homeless people in San Francisco, including about 914 youths. Anyone who lives in or visits the city sees panhandlers downtown, destitute people in doorways and young people hanging […]