A Chinatown organization won a legal victory for birthright citizenship a century ago. Now the community is once again embracing its legacy of fighting for immigrant rights.
Category: Politics
Posted inBay Area, Elections, Politics
Bay Area Protests to Fill Streets as Trump Takes Office
Bay Area groups are staging protests this weekend to denounce President-elect Donald Trump’s right-wing policies and what organizers identify as rising fascism.
The demonstrations aim to highlight a range of issues, including Trump’s plans to implement mass deportations and other anti-immigrant policies.
Read the story for event times and locations.
Posted inCommunity, Elections, Homelessness, Housing, Neighborhoods, Politics
Politics Didn’t Matter to Him When He Was Homeless. Now He Organizes His Neighbors.
Solomon Bukenya, a formerly unhoused San Franciscan, has never lost hope for long — surviving a genocide in Rwanda, the loss of his leg, addiction and homelessness. Though he had no interest in civic engagement for years, today he’s on a mission to make sure his community’s voices are heard. Even after a tumultuous election, he remains undeterred.
Posted inCity Hall, Community, Homelessness, Politics
Homeless Outreach Declines With Street Team’s Shifting Priorities, Staffing Woes
Street outreach by San Francisco’s premier team for helping people living on the streets has fallen for years and could continue dropping.
Years-long staffing woes and shifting work priorities have driven the decline, leaving the team less time for their core mission: building trust with unhoused people and helping them access social services and housing. Homelessness advocates approved of the team’s new efforts to bring people indoors, but worried that officials’ political motives might be influencing these changes.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Homelessness, Immigration, Politics
SF to Offer Some Homeless Migrant Families Temporary Hotel Stays, as the Rest Languish
Faced with an influx of unhoused migrant families into San Francisco, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will offer between 100 and 150 households temporary stays in hotels in the next year. That will likely fall short of addressing the full need.
Migrant families have joined service providers and faith-based advocates in a push for a policy response to the mounting crisis, including increasing access to temporary housing and providing greater transparency about where families are on the waitlist for shelter. City officials discussed potential solutions at a Monday hearing of the Board of Supervisors.
Posted inCity Hall, Elections, Housing, Politics, Transportation
SF Residents’ Concerns Were All Over Ballot. What Did Voters Say?
San Francisco residents revealed their top local concerns in a recent Public Press poll. They were given the chance to weigh in on some of those matters during this November’s election.
Posted inCity Hall, Elections, News, Politics, San Francisco February 2022 Election Guide
School Board Members Recalled in Special Election, Assembly Race Heads to Runoff
An overwhelming percentage of San Francisco voters decided to expel three San Francisco Unified School District board commissioners in the city’s first recall vote in nearly 40 years. Preliminary results for the Feb. 15 special election show that more than 70% of voters cast ballots to oust school board President Gabriela López and members Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Housing, Politics
How Build Back Better Bill’s Failure Could Hurt SF’s Most Vulnerable
San Francisco could lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars for affordable housing rental aid and construction with the expected collapse of the Build Back Better social spending and infrastructure bill.
The programs included in the legislation would have allowed San Francisco to offer more subsidies to low-income tenants, repair poor living conditions in public housing and encourage the construction of more affordable housing.
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Community, Government & Politics, Politics
Organizing Around Hong Kong Democracy Protests From Afar
Demonstrators in Hong Kong have been demanding more democratic freedoms, as well as an inquiry into police use of force and the release of detained protesters. As millions have taken to the streets and participated in other actions, clashes between police and protesters have turned violent. Here in the Bay Area, people from Hong Kong have been paying close attention, organizing solidarity actions and strategizing about how to stay involved from afar.
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Bay Area, Politics, Technology
Social Media Content Moderation Is Not Neutral, USF Researcher Says
“Unless you are building this specifically with the marginalized and vulnerable groups, it’s hard to build any system like this that does anything but further oppress people who are already under the thumb of various other structures and various other bureaucracies and powers,” said research fellow Ali Alkhatib.