Last year, California Attorney General Kamala Harris joined attorneys general across the country in declaring war against Backpage.com, a free classified website run by Village Voice Media. The officials threatened legal action if the site didn’t stop running ads for adult services, some of which have been linked to underage sex trafficking. But while Harris took a confrontational tone with Backpage – which has since balked at shutting down its adult pages – a more cooperative dynamic has emerged this year between the attorney general and online companies.
Category: Social Services
Posted inCommunity, Homelessness, Social Services
Helping the homeless at S.F. public library
A medley of people wait for the San Francisco Public Library to open in the morning. Students on a deadline. People who really need a library book. Retired folks. And people checking email. As the doors open, patrons stream into the atrium at the main branch near the Civic Center in downtown San Francisco. Some head to their favorite reading nook; others to computers to start surfing the Web.
Posted inEconomy & Business, Education, Media, Social Justice, Social Services, Transportation
Sharing skills during the holidays
With the holiday festivities swiftly approaching in a year marked by global protests over economic inequality, people in the Bay Area are turning to alternate, community-based means of exchanging goods and skills. Collectives like the Timebank help people circumvent buying gifts with money during the holidays. “The systemic way in which the economy works undermines every good that we try to do,” said Mira Luna, co-founder of the local nonprofit Bay Area Community Exchange, an organization that has been facilitating trades of talents and commodities using time rather than money as the currency. “There’s a lot of underutilized resources and a lot of needs out of there.”
Posted inFood Systems, Social Services
S.F. food providers scrambling to find money to pay for fresh goods as federal funds disappear
Because of the economic meltdown, an increasing number of San Francisco residents are finding themselves hungry and in need – and the agencies that would normally help fill those bellies are drastically cutting what they can provide. San Francisco social service agencies face another hard-hitting blow, as the San Francisco Food Bank, which supplies more than 400 local organizations with the majority of their food, is still reeling from the loss of federal funding.
Posted inHealth, Healthy SF: Who Pays?, Social Services
Medical records supporting San Francisco’s universal care add millions to official cost
Clinics scramble for money to switch to electronic health records
The San Francisco Department of Public Health says it is ahead of the curve in rolling out databases that keep tabs on tens of thousands of patients across a citywide network of clinics and hospitals. The rollout is needed not just to make a local form of “universal health care” work, but also to meet a 2014 deadline under national health reform. And the city says it spent just $3.4 million on new patient-tracking technology. Not bad for an unprecedented charity care initiative whose total budget has grown to $177 million just this past year. But while clinics and hospitals across the city are now linked up to a common intake tool that eliminates overbilling and duplicated medical appointments, that is only the first step in making the Healthy San Francisco program successful, directors of local health centers and technology experts say. A separate and much more complex piece of technology — electronic health records — is proving difficult and expensive.
Posted inLaw & Justice, Social Justice, Social Services
Former women prisoners face longer odds staying out after aid programs slashed
Rehabilitation taking backseat to punishment
By the time Sunshine Schmidt was 19, her rebellious streak led her to prison in Wisconsin for violating probation on a forgery charge. But it was just the beginning of her troubled young adulthood. As she tells it, the uncaring reaction from a criminal justice system on autopilot put her back in prison for minor violations, only driving her further into the life of small-time crime as she racked up drug and theft-related charges.
“Every time, I was released back into homelessness or an abusive partner,” she said. “I didn’t have the resources or tools to get back on my feet.”
It was only three years ago, after leaving a California prison at age 27, that Schmidt was able to pursue legitimate jobs and an education. After living in transitional housing, she became a client of Way-Pass, a City College of San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that helps female ex-prison inmates adjust to everyday life.
Posted inCity Hall, Homelessness, News, Social Services
Long-planned closure of homeless shelter sparks controversy
A homeless shelter at 150 Otis St. shut down this month, but will reopen sometime in 2012 as a homeless shelter for veterans. Swords to Plowshares, a nonprofit organization catering to homeless veterans, will run the facility. While homeless activists warn that the city will lose 59 beds, officials maintain they can fill the need because the shelters overall have about 100 vacancies a night.
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Posted inNeighborhoods, Social Services
Parents rally to save child development center
The Children’s Village Child Development Center will soon shut its doors as the San Francisco Archdiocese sold the property to a group of investors. At least 40 kids will be displaced when the center closes on August 31. Parents are trying to find ways to keep the center open, but have been unable to come to any agreement with the church or the new owners of the property.
Posted inSocial Services
Gay teen shelter closure helps span city budget gap
The Ark House, a faith-based shelter for black gay, lesbian and bisexual teens, may shut its doors March 1 if the Department of Health’s proposed cuts are approved. The program’s closure, which is expected to save the city more than $400,000 a year, is one of a handful the city hopes to enact in the middle of its fiscal year to balance the budget. The projected deficit for the year starting in July is $522.2 million.
Posted inAging, California, City Budget Watchdog, City Hall, Government & Politics, Health, HIV & AIDS, News, Social Services
State cuts set to slam San Francisco’s seniors, poor
Already reeling from a deep recession and massive cuts to staff and services in this year’s budget, San Francisco is being hammered by a new tidal wave of state cuts — estimated at $26.5 million — which could put low-income seniors and others on the brink of homelessness and hunger, many advocates say.