Health, Housing, & Public Services News

On January 13, demonstrators rallied outside the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco to protest the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Investors Conference which brought together capitalists from around the world who profit from denying health care. They delivered the message that "health care is for people, not for profit" and also connected the genocide of Palestinians to the healthcare system.

The UCSC Campus Mobile Crisis Team (CMCT) is the first of its kind on a University of California campus. The CMCT provides an empathetic, non-police response to emergency calls regarding mental health crises on campus. Following a series of police killings in the U.S., including the choking death of George Floyd in May, 2020, worldwide protests called for the expansion of non-police crisis teams for community safety.

A coalition has filed a lawsuit challenging the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner’s repeat rubberstamping of applications to use highly toxic and legally restricted pesticides, including chloropicrin and 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D), near three schools in the Pajaro Valley of Monterey County. The young students suffer some of the highest exposure to fumigants in the state.

On January 20, thousands traveled to San Francisco to protest the continued availability of abortion. Lacking local support, the Catholic Church hires dozens of busses to transport their flock for the Walk for Life annually. As in previous years, their event this year attracted members of hate groups, with some giving nazi salutes. Counter-protesters assembled in front the San Francisco Public Library to confront marchers as they passed.

In response to anti-government protests after police murdered a seventeen-year-old boy of Algerian descent, the French government has taken a number of repressive anti-democratic actions. Several hundred protesters were tried, convicted, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms within just forty-eight hours. One teenager with no prior record was sent to prison for a year and a month for allegedly throwing an empty soda can at a group of police.

San Francisco's is one of the biggest Pride parades in the world, but as it has grown larger so have criticisms that it has become too corporate. While this year was an opportunity to push back against a wave of homophobia and anti-trans hate across the US, as usual corporate floats abounded at the main event along Market Street. The real spirit of resistance was in the smaller People's March held at the same time in the Tenderloin district.

In a pseudonymous communiqué published on Indybay on May 21, "some vandals" write: Under the cover of night, with the Frisco fog as our accomplice, a crew of friends vandalized over 10 of the right-wing, pro-police “Fentalyfe” street poster installations.... These disturbing posters are part of a $300k campaign, by reactionary group Together SF, that is shaming drug and Narcan users, and calling for the racist criminalization of poor people.

On May 8, the Catholic Diocese of Oakland announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Northern District of California, as a direct result of facing over 330 child sexual abuse lawsuits. Similarly, the Diocese of Santa Rosa filed for bankruptcy protection two months ago. SNAP writes: Everything about this bankruptcy strikes us as wrong. It is all about keeping money and secrets.

Though technically legal, over seventy percent of the French people feel that the way President Macron pushed through legislation raising the retirement age was a violation of their democratic rights. He relied on Article 49.3, which allows legislation to pass without voting. Even though the Constitutional Assembly claimed the increase was legitimate, working people continue to reject the "reform." Huge demonstrations have wracked the country.