Author Archives: Public Press staff

Produced by KQED News and The California Report Proposition 41 allows the state to sell $600 million in bonds to fund affordable rental housing for low-income and homeless veterans. The existing CalVet Home Loans program was created in the 1920s to help veterans buy a home, mobile home or farm. While it has been effective […]

By Holly Kernan, KALW Crosscurrents San Francisco is the only city in California where the voters choose their public defender. Since 2002, the city has elected Jeff Adachi. He comes from a long line of public defenders who have been fighting to give equal representation to those caught up in the criminal justice system. Every […]

By Daniel Hirsch, Mission Local As construction workers swiftly make real the towering edifices of Vida Condos at Mission and 22nd—and the units in the luxury development steadily sell for $1,000 a square foot—a plot of land granted to the city by Vida’s developer for affordable housing sits at Shotwell and Cesar Chavez with nary […]

By Rachel Wong, KALW Crosscurrents Around 20 students are standing in a circle in a big open office space. There are both men and women, mostly in their 20s or 30s. One by one, they give an update on their projects, using terms like “blocker” and “refactor.” They refer to this particular meeting as a […]

By Jen Chien, KALW Crosscurrents Like many people who see a pretty rose in bloom, Annette Smith likes to take in the sight and scent of it. But when she bends her head to inhale this particular rose’s fragrance, her enjoyment comes with a deeper meaning – she remembers where this rosebush came from, and […]

By Sean Greene, Bay Nature They are basically just small rocks out in the San Francisco Bay, stuck to bigger rocks that anchor them in place for their entire lives. The tides come and go, and they just sit there, unmoving and sometimes opening and closing their shells. If you are not looking closely, you […]

By Todd Whitney, KALW Crosscurrents KALW’s Todd Whitney researched what it really costs to live in the Bay Area. He and Ben Trefny sat down to check out the results. Whitney: “So we’re talking nearly $33 an hour. Or you can think of it this way: That’s two adults earning nearly $17 an hour.”  Listen […]

By Daniel Hirsch, Mission Local The Mission’s status as a global tourism destination has never been more acutely felt—when one walks down any of the Mission’s increasingly famous mural alleys, French, Japanese, German, Korean, Swedish and the ubiquitous snap of cameras can all be heard. As the number of tourists increases, so have the companies […]

By Andra Cernavskis, Mission Local A few years ago, it did not look like Michelle Nguyen, 17, would make it through high school. After a successful middle school career, Nguyen ended up at Lowell, the city’s most competitive public high school. It was here that her life began to unravel when problems at home began […]

By Scott Detrow, KQED News Fix Few politicians — especially Democrats — eye an extra $2.5 billion as suspiciously as Gov. Jerry Brown. That is the amount California revenue estimates have increased since Brown introduced his initial budget in January. But as Brown rolled out his revised $156 billion spending plan Tuesday, he spent the […]