Civic

The Fight for Safe Consumption Sites: San Francisco and the Overdose Crisis Part 5

As overdose fatalities reach two to three deaths a day in San Francisco, demands for supervised consumption sites are getting more urgent. But city leaders are increasingly reluctant. And health officials who once campaigned for them are now conspicuously silent. We investigate San Francisco’s long fight for safe consumption sites and what changed. And we visit an overdose prevention center in New York City that’s having a real impact on the neighborhood and people’s lives. 

The War on Drugs Revisited: San Francisco and the Overdose Crisis

Some San Francisco city officials are advocating jail for unhoused people who use drugs and murder charges for people who sell drugs. Critics say their approach mirrors the abysmal failure of the 50-year-old war on drugs. In the fourth episode of our series on San Francisco and the overdose crisis, we take a historical look at the justice system’s approach to drugs, its racial inequities, what has changed, and what may be making a comeback.

San Francisco and the Overdose Crisis Part 3

*Content Warning: Explicit language and a description of an overdose experience.* 

San Francisco city officials have decided that arresting unhoused people for using drugs is the way to get them into treatment programs. Critics say jails are no place to get clean. And besides, forcing people into rehab doesn’t work. Based on the rate of treatment refusal by those arrested, the critics have a point. In the third episode of our series on San Francisco and the overdose crisis, we take a historical look at policing drug use and the massive hurdles that are getting in the way.

Civic Presents: San Francisco and the Overdose Crisis Part 2

While San Francisco is on track to break records for the highest number of fatal overdoses in one year, health experts say the city is failing when it comes to one surefire way to save lives: housing. San Francisco’s history has made housing a huge challenge. In this second episode of our series, we take a historical look at the city’s homelessness crisis, how it worsens addiction and drug-related fatalities, and how the city is responding.

Civic Presents: San Francisco and the Overdose Crisis

San Francisco is experiencing its worst rate of drug-related fatalities ever, and as city officials impose increasingly punitive measures against people who use and sell drugs, the problem only seems to be getting worse. In this first episode of our series on San Francisco’s overdose crisis, we take a historical look at opioid addiction, and we assess the damage of stigma on the city’s most vulnerable residents.

Seven months after being violently removed from their grandmother’s Santa Cruz home and taken to reunification therapy, Maya and Sebastian take to social media to announce that they have escaped. We touch base with Maya and get an update on the push for reforms.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline provides confidential assistance to anyone affected by domestic violence through a live chat and a free 24-hour hotline at 800-799-7233.

San Francisco is considering reparations for Black San Franciscans. To understand why advocates are pushing for reparations in the city, we dive deep into the history of redlining, urban renewal, and other discriminatory housing policies, as well as their impact on two historically Black neighborhoods: the Fillmore and Bayview Hunters Point. The final plan, created by the African American Reparations Advisory Committee, outlines recommendations to address mass incarceration, the war on drugs, disparities in health and education and more. The plan is due June 30th to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors. Go to sfpublicpress.org for the companion piece with a link to the draft plan.

The extreme winter storms put San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management to the test. Early in the storm cycle, the department faced challenges communicating with people experiencing homelessness. Internal confusion over the forecast delayed the opening of its Emergency Operations Center until a major storm was under way. In at least one instance, flood barriers were deployed too late to prevent homes and businesses from being inundated.

Content Warning: Audio of children in distress, discussions of child sexual abuse and child abuse, & swearing

When a family court rules that a child was brainwashed into lying about parental abuse, judges routinely order the child into programs called reunification camps. The goal is to make the child recant abuse claims and embrace the parent they allege harmed them. The process involves forcibly removing the child from their preferred parent’s home and transporting them to a reunification camp in another city or out of state. It’s a process that’s caused trauma to an untold number of kids. They then go through four days of “deprogramming therapy” at a cost of $25,000 to $40,000, with parents footing the bill. A viral video showing two teens being violently removed from their Santa Cruz home for transport to a reunification camp has now spurred protests and politicians’ calls to ban the practice. We dive into what drives reunification camps, their impact on children, and the horrific story of one survivor who is now fighting to shut them down.

Family court judges routinely grant full custody to a parent after a child alleges they’re abusing them. That’s because they believe the other parent brainwashed their kids into lying about the abuse. The judge’s decision is often influenced by a pseudo psychological theory dreamt up 40 years ago by one guy who created a cottage industry out of defending child abusers. That cottage industry has now become a booming business for many family court lawyers. One lawyer we talked to said that in every single one of his cases, the court decided the child was lying about being abused. A ton of those kids are all grown up and say they weren’t lying, and were handed over to their abusers. We talked to one who is now fighting against these harmful family court decisions.