Civic

Members of San Francisco's Street Crisis Response Team show up to situations when someone is experiencing a mental health or substance-related crisis, as an alternative to police response, which can escalate such situations. Dr. Angelica Almeida with the Department of Public Health, Chief Simon Pang from the fire department, clinician Shari Lachin and peer counselor Miguel Levya talk about how the team engages with people in distress and why the work is so important to them even if there sometimes aren’t enough resources to meet the need.

With droughts expected to continue and worsen in coming years, water managers are exploring conservation approaches. Laura Feinstein, sustainability and resilience policy director at the urban think tank SPUR, explains the difficult choice between attempting to create separate drinking and nonpotable water systems, or developing robust wastewater recycling systems, and how more efficient water management has also led to improved energy efficiency and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

With vaccination rates on the rise and lockdown restrictions lifting, audiences are returning to indoor venues. For community cinemas like the Roxie Theater, reopening is emotional. The Roxie’s executive director Lex Sloan says limited seating for recent screenings sold out quickly, filling her with hope that cinephiles are eager to return in person. Sloan also reflects on the upcoming coming Frameline film festival and improvements being made to the theater.

Commuters are slowly returning to BART after ridership fell to around ten percent of pre-pandemic levels for several months. Now the transit agency is ratcheting up service, with plans to return to the pre-pandemic schedule by August 30th. We discover how the agency has survived the pandemic and what lies ahead with BART Media Relations Manager Jim Allison.

Demonstrators in Hong Kong have been demanding more democratic freedoms, as well as an inquiry into police use of force and the release of detained protestors. As millions have taken to the streets and participated in other actions, clashes between police and protestors have gotten violent. Here in the Bay Area, Hong Kongers have been paying close attention, organizing solidarity actions and strategizing about how to stay involved from afar. Ken and Claire from the Northern California Hong Kong Club share their experiences watching the protests unfold and organizing locally.

California is back in a drought, and in many parts of the state the drought is extreme. San Francisco’s residential water use is among the lowest among large cities in California, says Steven Ritchie, assistant general manager for water for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. He explains where the city gets its water from and how it's used, and why San Francisco is fighting state restrictions on the use of Tuolumne River water.

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 Maya Rodgers, senior project manager at the SF Parks Alliance, talk about the health benefits of parks and the significance of inequities in parks access.

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 WhatMatters newsletter for the nonprofit newsroom CalMatters, returns with an update on what's happening at EDD.

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 talk about gentrification, rents and the message newcomers often hear that San Francisco peaked just before their arrival.

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.