Health, Housing, & Public Services News

For the 5th year running, the Anti Police-Terror Project called Bay Area residents into the streets for the People’s March to Reclaim Martin Luther King Jr’s Radical Legacy. In Oakland, events ran from 8am to 8pm. San Francisco marched in honor of MLK and several labor unions spoke out against outsourcing and privatization. Fresno and Santa Cruz also marched. Other events were held in cities across Northern California.

Qilombo members have been locked out of the community center they've maintained for over four years. Landlords attempted to push Qilombo out almost as long as they've been there, with the current corporate landlord refusing to renew their lease since 2016. Qilombo resisted displacement until Alameda County Sheriff's deputies showed up without warning and padlocked the building on January 9.

UPDATE Jan 25: Hours after staffing shortages forced LaGuardia Airport to cancel all incoming flights, Trump agreed to end the shutdown for 3 weeks.

As a result of Trump's government shutdown 70,000 to 85,000 low-income households already face possible higher rents or eviction. By the end of January, the shutdown will affect another 30,000 to 40,000 low-income households. If the shutdown continues past February millions of public housing and Section 8 renters will be placed at risk of higher rents or eviction because HUD does not have any funding to cover those programs in March.

A video captured on December 21 shows UCPD officer Sean Aranas violently assaulting someone hanging out in People's Park. Aranas pulls him up and throws him to the ground. UC Berkeley has long wanted to develop the park and deny public use. The university has been whittling away at the foliage and, on the morning of December 28, forty-one trees were destroyed. The unannounced predawn timing was apparently calculated to avoid protests. A vigil was held on December 29 in response.

Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, celebrated from December 26 to January 1, that reclaims what was lost during the African holocaust, the sense of an African connection. In California's Central Valley, Kwanzaa takes on special significance in the long standing African American farming community's journey to reestablish agriculture as the foundation of culture in the farm to fork capital of America.

Headquartered in Oakland, Kaiser Permanente is the state’s largest health care provider. For five days, over 100 Kaiser clinics and hospitals were affected by strike activities as mental health care employees called for the provider to step up levels of staffing. Approximately 4,000 psychologists, therapists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and addiction medicine specialists went on strike at Kaiser facilities throughout California.

Robert Norse writes: "On Saturday morning, I saw several police officers and a deputy examine what appeared to be a dead body behind a yellow "crime scene" tape at the edge of a culvert adjoining Highway 17 near the Plymouth/Highway 17 stoplight. I notice there was no mention of this in the Sentinel. It's quite possible the man died from hypothermia. The closure of the River St. campground as well as all the parks aggravates the situation for those outside."

California anxiously awaited the first winter rains, seeking reprieve from the notoriously destructive "fire season" of 2018. In the Northern California Camp Fire, 88 people are reported dead and hundreds remain missing. The fire destroyed virtually the entire town of Paradise. Firefighter radio transmissions suggest that PG&E could be to blame. In Southern California, the massive Woolsey Fire started on the grounds of Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the site of a partial nuclear meltdown, and area residents are concerned about contaminates. With heavy rains finally beginning on November 21, the wildfires are now either mostly contained or fully extinguished, and the hazardous air quality the fires created throughout the state has been cleared.

UPDATE 11/8: While millions of ballots remain uncounted in California, it appears Prop 10 was defeated.

Grassroots activists have been campaigning hard for the Affordable Housing Act, a ballot initiative to repeal California’s Costa Hawkins state law and return control of rental housing law to local jurisdictions. Several localities have promised to act rapidly should Proposition 10 pass. But real estate interests have spent over $70 million to defeat Prop 10. Should it not pass on November 6, housing rights activists remain committed to pushing for rent control and other tenant protections locally and statewide in the future. Nationwide, a new movement has been inspired by California's efforts.

On October 19, the United Nations Special Rapporteur to the Right to Adequate Housing, Lelani Farha, released her new report documenting the “global scandal” of homeless encampments. In January of 2017, Farha spent time in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California to meet with unhoused residents and housed advocates and described the conditions as "cruel and inhuman." The only U.S. cities explicitly called out for violations in the UN’s report on global homelessness are San Francisco and Oakland.

The River Street campground in Santa Cruz is slated for dispersal at the end of November, breaking promises from city staff that it would last through the winter until April. The only option the city is offering in its place is a small night-time only shelter. Massive new fences were raised around San Lorenzo Park, Grant Street Park, and the downtown post office. In anticipation of the River Street campground closure, homeless activists are organizing to establish a community survival campground on Thursday, November 15.

The opposition to Measure M has now raised over three quarters of a million dollars, which is being used to spread fear and misinformation about rent control. While most of this money comes from out of the area, real estate interests like the National Association of Realtors and the California Apartment Association, local landlords in Santa Cruz are also part of the problem. In response, community members in support of tenants rights continue to demonstrate at the properties of slumlords, including a rally on October 11 at a building owned by Harry Dong.

Co-founders of Take Back Santa Cruz (TBSC) Analicia and Dexter Cube opened up for a candid, "on the fly" interview on September 12. Dexter answered questions about his past and his multiple brushes with the law, including being fined tens of thousands of dollars by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and losing his licence for defrauding financial clients. Analicia Cube, the self-described President of TBSC, questioned the "mental balance" of Measure M rent control supporters in Santa Cruz, and was defiant that TBSC was not involved with the Santa Mierda hate blog.