Health, Housing, & Public Services News

On September 8, more than 30,000 people marched in San Francisco as part of a major international climate mobilization. The “Rise for Climate Jobs, and Justice” march filled the city’s streets just days before the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). Protesters took to the streets again on September 13th after the summit had commenced, this time shutting down the intersections and substantially disrupting the entrance into the GCAS venue.

UPDATE 9/18: Governor Brown signs AB-2178 into law.

The California Assembly and Senate have passed AB-2178, which would impose new restrictions on individuals and community groups like Food Not Bombs that share free meals. Volunteer groups feeding the poor and homeless pose little food safety risk. These grassroots groups have operated for decades and follow strong private food safety practices. They fill a critical gap that the state itself struggles to address.

The Santa Cruz City Council's "Non-Protections for Renters" proposal, as rent control advocates have described it, is scheduled for a first reading during the 2:00 p.m. session on Tuesday, September 11. The ordinance would require relocation fees for tenants who experience rent increases of 10% in one year or 15% over two years, which would still allow a 42% rent increase every five years. Yes on M: Santa Cruz for Rent Control writes: We need REAL rent control: No Rent Raises over 3% once a year, Just Cause for Eviction for all renters - and heck, the city didn't even enforce its own rent freeze so of COURSE we need a Rent Board.

Prisoners in at least 17 states are coordinating sit-ins, hunger strikes, work stoppages and commissary boycotts from August 21 until September 9 — the 47th anniversary of the Attica prison uprising. At New Folsom Prison, a hunger strike started by Heriberto Garcia on August 21 has grown. On August 25, around 500 activists turned out for a solidarity rally at San Quentin Prison.

OneFam in West Oakland is a community-based organization that includes Bikes 4 Life and the 7th Street Rev Cafe, with roots going back to the Oscar Grant movement. Over the last decade, the Black community in West Oakland has faced massive displacement as gentrifying forces steamrolled through the neighborhood. And, now, OneFam is fighting imminent eviction. Solidarity BBQs on 7th Street are happening every Saturday afternoon, starting June 9.

The state agency charged with regulating California’s pesticide industry allows manufacturers to make up their own usage rules, continues to allow a brain-damaging chemical to be used on food crops, is slow to hold applicators accountable when workers are poisoned, and routinely ignores community input in its rulemaking process. That’s according to the California Environmental Justice Alliance’s 2017 Environmental Justice Agency Assessment.

Kiilu Nyasha was loved and cherished around the world. She was a San Francisco-based journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party (BPP). Kiilu, 78, passed away on April 10. A memorial service is being organized by Kiilu’s close family and friends for Sunday, May 20. Beloved friends, family, comrades, and admirers of Kiilu are welcome to a community gathering that celebrates Kiilu’s life and principled pursuit of liberation for all oppressed peoples.

Efforts to stabilize communities in California with with much needed rent control measures and just cause eviction protections are presently occurring in ten cities throughout California, including Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Santa Ana, Sacramento, Pomona, Pasadena, National City, Long Beach, Inglewood, and Glendale. Big money is gearing up in opposition to the statewide effort to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

Justice Teams Network launched on May 2 to build power against systemic State Violence in all its forms. The Network is a statewide coalition of rapid response organizations across the state of California that will mobilize communities to respond radically to state violence. The Network will focus heavily on legislation as well as a public information campaign around the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights, the single largest obstacle to police accountability.

May 1, 2018, was a global day of action against Samsung as well as being International Workers Day. In the South Bay, Samsung protesters joined May Day demonstrators starting at Roosevelt Park in San José and marched to City Hall for a rally attended by members of local, national, and international unions, immigrant rights advocates, affordable housing activists, and Filipino justice campaigners, amongst others.

Agricultural pesticide use in California remains at a near-record high, according to data released by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. DPR's latest numbers paint a grim picture of the state’s continued reliance on vast quantities of agricultural pesticides — 209 million pounds in 2016. That’s the third highest since reporting began in 1990. The greatest burden continues to be borne by the San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast.

A broad coalition kicked off a campaign urging Governor Jerry Brown to stop the build-out of dirty fossil fuel infrastructure, keep oil and gas in the ground and take immediate action to protect those most vulnerable to climate change. If Brown doesn’t act, the groups say, the governor will lose their support for the global climate action summit that he will host five months from now in San Francisco.

On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives took to the streets to demand that their lives and safety become a priority, and that gun violence comes to an end. Northern California is marched in solidarity. The national mission statement declared: March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar. In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns. March For Our Lives believes the time is now.

Movement for Housing Justice writes: Renters and community - Come out to the city council meeting next Tuesday to defend the rent freeze! Right now the city isn't enforcing our badly needed short term freeze on rents and eviction protections. They expect renters to take landlords to court to enforce the law if our rents are increased unfairly or we are unjustly evicted. They say it's a budgeting issue but we know that this is an issue of priorities. Let's remind the city council that 60% percent of Santa Cruz is renters. Our housing rights are non negotiable!

On March 8, protesters gathered in front of Visa headquarters in Foster City. They called on the credit card company to block sales of assault weapons. Shortly after they delivered 150,000 signatures on a petition to company representatives, VISA issued a statement to the press saying “We do not believe Visa should be in the position of setting restrictions on the sale of lawful goods and services." Protestors returned to renew their demands one week later.

A sticker carrying imagery encouraging violence against houseless people and drug addicted people was recently found on a crosswalk button in downtown Santa Cruz. The sticker reads "Street Cleaner: Santa Cruz Meth Head Cleansing Project – Santa Cruz" and is marked with the hashtag #131stickers. It depicts a silhouette of a skinny person wearing a backpack, with a cigarette in their mouth, an open hand stretched out, and a “Tweaker” flag hanging out of the backpack. Laid over the image of this person are the crosshairs of a telescopic rifle sight.

On March 10, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and other housing activists kicked off the campaign in the Bay Area for the Affordable Housing Act — a proposed ballot initiative that that will give cities and counties the power to adopt rent control measures necessary to address California's housing affordability crisis by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. For the November 2018 ballot, the deadline for collection of 585,000 signatures statewide is May.

After a decline during the Great Recession, bottled water sales are back and bigger than ever — even eclipsing soda sales for the first time in 2016. But people buying bottled water might not be aware that it’s nearly 2,000 times more expensive than tap water and four times more expensive than regular-grade gasoline. In its latest report on the impacts of the bottled water industry, Food & Water Watch looks at the industry’s predatory marketing, the extraction of communities’ water resources, and the powerhouse lobbying of bottled water corporations.