Civic

According to a ranking from the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, all San Francisco residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park, but residents of neighborhoods where most people identify as people of color have access to 56% less park space per capita than residents in neighborhoods that are predominantly white. Alejandra Chiesa, Bay Area program director for the Trust for Public Land, and May...

While California is set to fully reopen on June 15, the unemployment rate appears to be holding steady. Businesses are opening positions, but residents are also dropping out of the workforce entirely. And the state’s Employment Development Department, which handles unemployment claims, is still working to resolve thousands of backlogged cases and battling fraud. Emily Hoeven, who writes the daily...

Every city is special in some way to the people who call it home, but as author Gary Kamiya writes, San Francisco is a more potent touchstone than most thanks to the unique place it occupies in the American imagination. In the new anthology “The End of the Golden Gate,” writers including W. Kamau Bell, Margaret Cho and Michelle Tea reflect on a city in flux. Kamiya and writer and artist John Law t...

City College’s Board of Trustees recently voted on a plan to reduce teacher pay instead of laying teachers off, a plan that members of the teachers union had also voted on and approved. But this is only a short-term fix to one of the college’s financial problems. Alan Wong, a member of the Board of Trustees and a legislative aide to Supervisor Gordon Mar, shares his take on the bigger picture.

Aging is often obscured from movies, or portrayed in ways that perpetuate stereotypes about what aging is. The films at thetheLegacy Film Festival on Aging counter that by exploring more fully what it means to get older. The festival will showcase films about themes often associated with aging, like memory, disability and caring, but also includes stories about how people have shown and still show...

Janitors have been taking to the streets in San Francisco for weeks to advocate for better working conditions during the pandemic, even going on a three-day strike in mid-March. They’ve advocated for improvements like better ventilation in buildings, better protective gear for workers, health insurance coverage, and a wage increase. Juan Hernandez, a janitor with decades of experience who works at...

Before coronavirus cases were confirmed in San Francisco, paramedic Alfredo Banuelos and his colleagues were watching case numbers in other cities, still at a distance. Then he got his first patient. When the virus arrived in San Francisco and the city locked down and everything changed, procedures on the ambulance changed too. He reflects on how the pandemic unfolded for emergency medical respond...

"Sky Blossom" screens at CAAMFest on May 18 at 6 p.m.

San Francisco’s school district and board of education have been in the spotlight for a variety of controversies. Those include school reopening, a member of the board suing the district, an effort to recall some members, and an initiative to rename certain schools. Putting the controversies aside, two education reporters — Jill Tucker with the San Francisco Chronicle and Ida Mojadad with the San...

Under a new health order, San Franciscans no longer need to wear a mask while doing outdoor activities like walking or biking when they’re alone or with members of their household. Unvaccinated people should wear a mask if social distancing can’t be maintained. Fully vaccinated people can almost entirely forgo masks outdoors, with some specific exceptions. Dr. Susan Philip, San Francisco's health...

Listen to more of our conversations about school reopening with students, parents, teachers and the school district here .

Read Joe Eskenazi's special reports here and here .

Some students in the San Francisco Unified School District are back in classrooms — as of April 26, more than 19,000 of them. But there are tens of thousands more students in the district. The school board has resolved to give all students the option to return to in-person instruction in the fall. Gentle Blythe, deputy superintendent of strategic partnerships and communications with the district,...

On February 1, after a democratic election, the Burmese military seized control of the government and declared a year-long state of emergency. Burmese people have been protesting that takeover, and the military has cracked down with deadly use of force, killing hundreds including children. Demonstrations in solidarity have also been held around the world, including in San Francisco. Ko Ko Lay, co-...

More information about Mourning is an Act of Love here .

In 2009, BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, later claiming he had meant to use his Taser and not his gun. In April 2021, Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter shot and killed Daunte Wright — and police say this, too, was due to getting the less-lethal weapon and the gun confused. To get a better sense of how much these two shootings blamed on Taser confusion mor...

Many people are unsure how to respond when they find themselves observing a conflict, or when someone might be bothering, harassing or even about to attack another person. In response to a wave of violent attacks against Asian-Americans, two organizations have partnered to offer an adapted bystander intervention training, which has been in very high demand. Paul Ocampo, development director for As...

Members of San Francisco's Homeless Outreach Team — also known as the “HOT team” — walk neighborhood beats to offer support, information, and referrals to services for people living on the streets. During the pandemic, the resources available, particularly shelters, changed significantly. Meanwhile, our collective understanding of what would work best to contain the spread was changing too. Mark M...

A youth-led, youth-run initiative called San Francisco Communities who Help Advance the New Generation of Education — or SFCHANGE — is offering workshops to young people on topics that might not be taught in their classrooms otherwise, from organizing their finances to organizing around climate change. Adrianna Zhang, founder and executive director of operations for SFCHANGE, and Samantha Chu, an...

Redistricting, the process by which electoral districts are drawn, will happen locally as well as at the state and federal levels. San Francisco will use Census data but also, crucially, resident input, to redraw its supervisorial districts. Alison Goh, president of the League of Women Voters of San Francisco, explains how the process will work and outlines the transparency and outreach the League...

At the uprisings sparked by the killing of George Floyd last year, demonstrators all over the country were calling on their municipalities to “defund the police.” In Oakland, a Reimagining Public Safety Task Force in March approved a long list of recommendations, many of them made by the Anti Police Terror Project, an organization that has been calling for reducing police budgets in order to fund...

Under California's Proposition 22, passed last year, companies whose apps dispatch gig workers aren’t considered those workers' employers, so they are exempt from providing benefits for them like unemployment protections, minimum wage, and sick leave. The proposition did provide for a minimum earnings guarantee and some health care benefits like stipends and insurance for on-the-job injuries. Stil...

Violence against Asian-Americans has sparked discussions about the racist policies, animus and attacks that have been part of US history for a long time, from exclusionary and segregationist policies to harmful myths and stereotypes about Asian people. Author Jeff Chang has written extensively about this history, and politics and race in America, and unpacks the ways in which white supremacy influ...

Nearly 4,000 attacks on Asian-Americans — including verbal and physical assaults — were reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a national tracking project launched by a coalition of activist groups last year, as of late February 2021. Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, one of the founding partners of Stop AAPI Hate, reflects on the increase and how this violence can be add...

San Francisco based community newspaper the "Bay Area Reporter" began publishing on April 1st, 1971 chronicling the earliest days of Queer activism. On this episode we speak with the publisher and news editor about the history covered in its pages and the challenges of running a commercial newspaper amid a pandemic in the digital age.