Category: Series
Posted inCalifornia, Economy & Business, Government & Politics, Labor, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Transportation, Utilities

Uber, Lyft Must Adopt Measures to Prevent Sexual Assaults, California Regulator Rules

Avatar photo by Seth Rosenfeld

Nine years after becoming the first agency in the nation to legalize ride-hailing — and after thousands of publicized sexual assaults on Uber and Lyft rides — the California Public Utilities Commission for the first time is requiring the industry to adopt comprehensive measures to prevent such attacks.

In a previously unreported vote last month, the commission issued a decision requiring that all ride-hailing firms train drivers to avoid sexual assault and harassment, adopt procedures for investigating complaints and use uniform terminology in their annual reports to the agency so it can accurately monitor them.

Posted inCalifornia, Coercive Control, Government & Politics, Law & Justice

‘I Was Not Allowed to Have My Own Thoughts’: California Courts Start Penalizing Psychological Domestic Abuse

by Viji Sundaram

While not all California judges are sympathetic to the stories of intimate partners who claim emotional abuse, and some even exhibit misogynistic conduct, others have shown an interest in using new legal tools to give the benefit of the doubt to people who say they are victims.

In a Los Angeles-area case, a judge acknowledged the evolving understanding of domestic violence to include psychological abuse, and extensively cited the state’s new coercive control law in his ruling.

Posted inCoercive Control, Government & Politics, Law & Justice, News

Expanding View of Domestic Violence Gives Survivors New Tool, but Unsympathetic Judges Remain an Obstacle

by Viji Sundaram

A California law enacted in 2021 allows domestic violence victims to claim coercive control — a broad range of behaviors including humiliation, surveillance, intimidation, gaslighting and isolation that strips an intimate partner of a sense of autonomy and personhood.

Experts in domestic violence say judicial skepticism of abuse victims, often with misogynistic overtones, has long been widespread in U.S. family court, creating dangerous hurdles to justice. The expanded conception of domestic violence on paper is of limited use if judges continue to cast a skeptical eye on testimony, usually from women, of manipulation within intimate relationships.

Posted inCalifornia, Coercive Control, Government & Politics, Law & Justice

How California’s Coercive Control Law Could Help Women Manipulated by Partners

by Viji Sundaram

Blanca suffered decades of psychological abuse from her husband, whose behaviors fall under a category of abuse sociologists and family law experts call coercive control.

Under a California law passed in 2020, the government is finally offering some acknowledgment of the harm she experienced. But the reform applies only in civil court — and can be used only in limited types of cases.

Posted inCalifornia, Economy & Business, Government & Politics, Law & Justice, Open Government, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Utilities

How California Utilities Commission Undermines the Public Records Act

Avatar photo by Seth Rosenfeld

Despite vows to become more transparent, the California Public Utilities Commission has systematically violated the public’s right to know about its handling of deadly disasters and corporate scandals, according to court records and First Amendment attorneys.

Applying century-old laws meant to fight corruption, the commission has effectively limited court enforcement of the state’s public records act. But a state appeals court on May 3 is hearing a lawsuit challenging that practice and could bring more transparency to the commission. 

Posted inGovernment & Politics, Homelessness, Housing, Left Out, News, Social Services

San Francisco Rations Housing by Scoring Homeless People’s Trauma. By Design, Most Fail to Qualify.

by Nuala Bishari

Co-published with ProPublica.

Tabitha Davis had just lost twins in childbirth and was facing homelessness. The 23-year-old had slept on friends’ floors for the first seven months of her pregnancy, before being accepted to a temporary housing program for pregnant women. But with the loss of the twins, the housing program she’d applied to live in after giving birth — intended for families — was no longer an option.

A few weeks later, Davis was informed that the score she’d been given based on her answers to San Francisco’s “coordinated entry” questionnaire wasn’t high enough to qualify for permanent supportive housing. It was a devastating blow after an already traumatizing few months.

Posted inCity Hall, Homelessness, Housing, Left Out

In San Francisco, Hundreds of Homes for the Homeless Sit Vacant

by Nuala Bishari

As of early February, the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing reported 1,633 homeless people approved for housing and awaiting their turn to move in. Yet records provided by the department show 888 vacancies in its permanent supportive housing stock as of Feb. 22. Filling those empty rooms would not just cut the waiting list by more than half. It would be enough to house roughly one in every eight homeless people in the city. The homelessness department said it cannot talk about individual cases, but officials acknowledged that at least 400 people have been waiting more than a year, far beyond the department’s professed goal of placing applicants into housing 30 to 45 days after they’re approved.

Posted inCity Hall, Elections, News, Politics, San Francisco February 2022 Election Guide

School Board Members Recalled in Special Election, Assembly Race Heads to Runoff

Avatar photo by Sylvie Sturm

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 inCity Hall, Government & Politics, Housing, News, Renters vs. Veritas

SF Tenants Set to Gain New Powers in Negotiations With Landlords

by Noah Arroyo

Tenants across San Francisco will gain new collective bargaining powers to affect conditions in their buildings, thanks to a move by lawmakers Tuesday.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved protections for tenants to form associations, akin to labor unions, that can negotiate with landlords over a wide range of concerns, including issues like construction schedules and even helping tenants pay off debts taken on to cover rents, often called “shadow debt.”

Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Government & Politics, Housing, Law & Justice, News, Renters vs. Veritas

SF Renters on Verge of Winning Collective Bargaining Rights

by Noah Arroyo

Groundbreaking tenant protections just got closer to becoming a reality in San Francisco.

City supervisors Monday gave the initial thumbs-up to legislation to protect the formation of tenant associations that, like unions, could collectively bargain with landlords. The three-person Rules Committee voted unanimously to approve the protections, which now move to the full Board of Supervisors.

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