Author Archives: Public Press staff

By Craig Miller, KQED News Fix/Science Hopeful Californians are looking to the Pacific this winter for an end to California’s most punishing drought on record. The reason: what appears to be a monster El Niño in the making. The abnormally warm waters along the equator could mean a wet winter. There are no guarantees, but […]

By Rigoberto Hernandez and Lydia Chávez, Mission Local Two longtime residents and artists, as well as tenants in 18 other units, will be able to stay in rent-controlled apartments, thanks to two nonprofits buying six buildings from a landlord who decided to back away from evicting tenants and, instead, sell the buildings to the city. […]

By Susan Frey, EdSource/New America Media Congress may soon be following California’s lead in requiring states to provide data on the academic progress of all homeless and foster youth and provide additional resources to those students. A bill amending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to include homeless and foster youth as two new subgroups […]

By Laura Waxmann, Mission Local With the exit of Chocolatier Blue Parlor at a site going for $10 a square foot and the appearance of other empty storefronts, it is beginning to seem to some that Valencia Street has become unsustainable for the independent artisans that it has long attracted. Instead, the street has started […]

By Viji Sundaram, New America Media After the end of the second open enrollment period in health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, enrollment rates of Latinos and whites are not that different, according to a study released last week. Eligible Latinos (74 percent) are now enrolling at similar rates to those of whites (79 percent), […]

By Nayoon Jin, New America Media Thirty-four-year-old Katia Alvarez is convinced that all child care providers should train in the Healthy Apple Program so their young charges could benefit physically and emotionally. Launched in 31 sites as a pilot by the Children’s Council San Francisco in 2013, Healthy Apple did its citywide opening in November […]

By Jenny Manrique, Mission Local For two years, Cristina Marquez, 43, an immigrant from Mexico living in the Mission District, made numerous visits to San Francisco General Hospital, but never managed to see a doctor. “I suffered too much,” she said of those years of inexplicable nosebleeds. A lack of insurance meant she could not […]

By Lauren McNulty, Bay Nature It had been a long time since Mountain Lake was the kind of place where a western pond turtle could live happily. For decades, the Presidio’s natural freshwater lake suffered environmental insults: runoff from Highway 1, sediment pollution, invasive species, voracious released goldfish. Mountain Lake had been “a cesspool since […]

By Bryan Goebel, KQED News Fix San Francisco city officials have chosen two developers to build the first affordable housing complex in the Mission District in 10 years. What is now the city’s homeless Navigation Center at 1950 Mission St. is slated to become 165 units of rental housing for low-income and homeless families on […]

By Vinnee Tong, KQED News/The California Report Yank Sing’s location in a shiny downtown San Francisco high-rise, its dramatic ceiling-to-floor water fountain and its crisp white tablecloths set it apart from other Chinese restaurants. That’s one reason the announcement last fall seemed so jarring to patrons and the public: Hourly workers at Yank Sing were […]