San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/author/noah-arroyo/)
The San Francisco Unified School District’s plans to close schools and consolidate student populations may save it some money — but officials cannot say how much money, or when.
Meanwhile the district continues to bleed funds as it faces a long-term enrollment crisis.
We bring you this story from Bay Nature, a newsroom covering the environment:
In the Richardson Bay, between Sausalito and Tiburon, anchors from the people who live on their boats are threatening vital eelgrass habitat. Even though an alternative anchor technology could prevent the damage, authorities are telling the residents to leave, potentially putting some at risk of homelessness.
Osbaldo Varilla-Aguilar and his housemates are members of a community that may have been hardest hit by COVID-19 in San Francisco: immigrants, especially those working unprotected essential jobs. While the devastating impacts on Latinx residents in the Mission District and Bayview are increasingly documented, the lingering, and sometimes extreme, symptoms of infection are much less understood.
More than 1 million California adults — and 19.4 million Americans — live with both a serious mental illness and substance use disorder. In fact, roughly half of all people with severe mental illness are thought to also have a co-occurring substance use disorder. Traditionally, treatment programs target one of these populations or the other. Progress Foundation is one of the few across the country serving people who have both — so-called dual diagnosis patients.
When enrolling for classes for the upcoming school year, some Bay Area students will find a new, unique course option that promises a deep dive into the history and contributions of African Americans across the globe.
A half dozen high schools will offer Advanced Placement African American Studies in 2024-2025. This is the first year the course will be available to all U.S. schools following a two-year pilot program.
It’s becoming commonplace in open-intake shelters and rescue facilities across the Bay Area: The number of unadopted pets is growing; animal caretakers and staff are stretched thin; and efforts by local municipalities to provide care and comfort to every animal surrendered is becoming increasingly difficult.
California animal shelters and rescue organizations – even those across the country – are experiencing an overflow crisis. The number of stray dogs taken into shelters rose 6% from 2022 statistics and 22% from 2021, according to Shelter Animals Count.
More than one month after statewide eviction protections expired on June 30, less than 4% of rent relief funds requested by San Francisco households remain unprocessed, with 55% of funds paid out.
If state lawmakers don’t act fast, tenants across California will become vulnerable to eviction next month for rent debts they accumulated during the pandemic.
Amid increasing calls for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature to avert an eviction wave, the San Francisco Public Press held a live panel discussion Wednesday about how the state got to this moment and what comes next. The Public Press spoke with Ora Prochovnick, director of litigation and policy at the Eviction Defense Collaborative, which provides free legal aid to people facing eviction, and Shanti Singh, communications and legislative director at Tenants Together, a statewide coalition of tenant-rights groups.
California will stop accepting applications for rent assistance from people facing COVID-19 hardships at the end of this month, the San Francisco mayor’s office said.
Local governments throughout the state will have to figure out how to help people still struggling to cover rent as the economy continues its climb back to pre-pandemic levels.
California could see widespread evictions next month because of government delays in getting federal funds to renters, tenant groups warn.
Tenants throughout the state will still be waiting for rent assistance by April, when their pending applications will cease to protect them from eviction for those debts, the groups said in a report Tuesday.
