Health, Housing, & Public Services News

Activists assembled in Alta Plaza Park, San Francisco's billionaire epicenter, on November 15 for a rally and march to demand, "housing, healthcare, and food for all," from the ultra-wealthy. During the rally, Socialists and Communists set up literature tables, and people distributed kits containing a whistle and ICE reporting instructions. The first stop on the march was David Sacks' mansion, then it was on to Larry Ellison's.

Pesticides continue to be pervasive in the air throughout California’s agricultural regions, according to the 2023 Air Monitoring Network Report released in September by the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR). Weekly samples collected at DPR’s four air monitors detected 19 different pesticides at trace or quantifiable levels and 8 pesticides at quantifiable levels, with 80% of samples including at least one pesticide detection.

The SF Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on the University of California, San Francisco to reinstate professor of medicine Dr. Rupa Marya and publicly affirm that it will safeguard academic freedom and free speech. Dr. Marya was terminated from UCSF in May 2025, which came after her medical privileges were suspended in September 2024 over social media posts in which she criticized Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Big Oil won a major victory on September 13 when the California Legislature passed Governor Gavin Newsom’s bill, S.B. 237, as part of a controversial “climate” package that greenlights tens of thousands of new oil and gas drilling permits in Kern County over the next decade with no further environmental review. The bill passed as a last minute “gut and amend” measure at the end of the legislative session, truncating public participation.

On August 25, Aleyda Rodriguez was grabbed by ICE agents in East Palo Alto as she, her husband, and their child were leaving to go to work and school. She fainted when agents pulled her out of her car and carried her away. She was brought to Stanford Hospital, kept under watch of armed guards, and five days later discharged to DHS while in a catatonic state. Shortly after, hospital workers and community members staged a protest.

As the California Legislature returned to session after summer recess, climate activists organized multiple events at the state Capitol. On August 18, demonstrators unfurled large banners in the Capitol rotunda proclaiming “Newson Stand Up To Big Oil." On August 20, advocates representing a coalition of 140 organizations held a press conference on the Capitol lawn to call attention to oil industry-backed bills moving through the session this year.

On August 19, Santa Cruz County Supervisors introduced an ordinance that would streamline the destruction of RVs and other vehicles that are deemed illegally parked or abandoned on public streets, even if they are inhabited. Santa Cruz Homeless Union President Alicia Kuhl and other advocates warned the Board that the ordinance could increase street-level homelessness. The proposal was continued to a future date.

In recognition of the 90th birthday of the Social Security Act, on August 14, workers who administrate benefits through the Act gathered at the U.S. Federal Building in San Francisco to protest the DOGE staff cuts and Trump administration’s move towards privatization. The workers said that staff cuts have resulted in their having to serve more people than ever while “experiencing one of the lowest staffing levels in 60 years.”

On July 30, San Francisco's Two Embarcadero Center building reverberated with the din of clanging pots and pans as protesters marched through the halls of the bottom floor and called out the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG) for its complicity in the Palestinian genocide. They drew an image of a starving child and "bloody" hand prints on the ground in front of the building, driving home the point. A return demonstration at BCG was held on August 9.

On July 25, the Northern California office of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla in San Francisco was the scene of a large and exceptionally noisy protest as hundreds of activists armed with pots and pans called attention to the ongoing genocide and the starving of the people in Gaza. After a rally and chalking of the sidewalk outside the building, protesters marched to join an ongoing action at the offices of BlackRock.