Workers at nonprofits like the Felton Institute are on the front lines of our region’s biggest problems, like poverty, homelessness, and addiction. Employees say the work is meaningful yet grueling, with low pay and high turnover.

For nearly 3 years now, a group of workers at Felton, one of the Bay’s oldest social service agencies, have been campaigning to unionize the organization’s nearly 500 employees. But the campaign is currently in limbo, as organizers encounter difficulties reaching their co-workers across 7 counties. The union, SEIU Local 21, has also accused managers at Felton of retaliating against workers trying to unionize, filing 10 unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

Guest: Holly J. McDede, KQED producer/reporter 

Links:

This episode was produced by Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many members of the public, COVID-19 is in the rearview mirror. People are tired. Governments have dropped things like mask and vaccine mandates. And the virus isn’t as lethal as it once was.

On the other hand, this virus is still very much a part of our lives, especially for people who are vulnerable, immunocompromised, or have long COVID.

Now, California is going to end its COVID state of emergency at the end of month. We’ll dive into what that means.

Guest: Carly Severn, KQED senior engagement editor

Links:

This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca and Jehlen Herdman, and guest hosted by Alan Montecillo, who also edited.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originally from The Bronx, New York, Dave “Davey D” Cook was there when this thing we call hip-hop was in its nascent form, before it even had a name. When he arrived in the Bay Area in the early ’80s, one of his missions as a UC Berkeley student was to lend some insight to this burgeoning culture. So he put on a few events, one of which was The Day in Hip-Hop on Oct. 24, 1984. Rightnowish host Pendarvis Harshaw looks back on that day with Davey D, and traces how far hip hop has come since — in the Bay Area and beyond.  

This episode of Rightnowish first published on Feb. 1, 2023. It’s part of That’s My Word, KQED’s year-long exploration of Bay Area hip-hop history, with new content dropping all throughout 2023.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Crisis pregnancy centers, or anti-abortion centers, are designed to look like community health clinics. But the vast majority of them don’t have a medical license, and all of them have an explicit goal: to persuade people to not have an abortion. 

There are thousands of these centers all over the country. They advertise aggressively — especially in lower-income communities of color — and are in many cases located directly next to abortion clinics. And despite California’s reputation as a sanctuary state for abortion rights, there are more crisis pregnancy centers than abortion centers in our state.

Guest: Emma Silvers, KQED digital editor/producer

This episode was produced by Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In November 2020, then-San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin filed criminal charges against former SFPD officer Christopher Samayoa. In 2017, Samayoa, who had been on the force for just 4 days, shot and killed 42-year old Keita O’Neil through a police vehicle window. 

But now, Boudin’s successor, Brooke Jenkins, has announced she plans to drop the charges, arguing that Boudin pursued the case for "political reasons and not in the interests of justice." Meanwhile, O’Neil’s aunt, April Green, says she told the DA “all that blood from killing and murders you're justifying from police are going to be on your head.” She has stated that she does not trust Jenkins to prosecute the officer who killed her nephew.

Guest: Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, KQED politics reporter

Links:

This episode was produced by Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca. Jehlen Herdman is our intern. Ericka Cruz Guevarra is the host. 

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last spring, workers at Chevron’s Richmond refinery went on strike for 10 weeks, demanding higher pay, better health benefits, and safer working conditions. When the strike ended, union leaders say that Chevron initially encouraged managers and workers to put the strike behind them.

But now, USW Local 5, the union representing Richmond refinery workers, alleges Chevron has fired at least 5 workers for their role in the strikes, a claim that Chevron denies.

Guest: Ted Goldberg, KQED supervising senior editor for news

Links:

This episode was produced by Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Here/There homeless encampment was familiar to anybody who drove between Oakland and Berkeley. The camp had its roots in the Bay Area’s Occupy movements in the early 2010s, and was founded in 2017 to highlight the problem of homelessness. It once had its own structure, rules, and a good relationship with the neighborhood.

But over the last few years, the camp changed. Its founders passed away and people moved on. And last week, the city officially closed it down.

Read the episode transcript

Guest: Supriya Yelimeli, Berkeleyside housing and homelessness reporter

Links:

This episode was produced by Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca. Jehlen Herdman is our intern. Ericka Cruz Guevarra is the host. 

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong was placed on administrative leave last month, after an external investigation into the handling of two police misconduct cases found he failed to hold officers accountable. This latest chapter comes two decades into the department’s reform efforts under the oversight of a federal court. 

Recent headlines have focused mostly on Armstrong’s suspension and his efforts to get reinstated. But as journalist and author Ali Winston puts it, this latest scandal is really a symptom of longstanding issues within OPD.  

Read the episode transcript

Guest: Ali Winston, independent journalist and co-author of the book The Riders Come Out At Night

This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca and Alan Montecillo, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sandra Castañeda was convicted for a murder she didn’t commit and was sentenced to 40 years to life. She thought she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison. 

In 2018, she got hopeful news: California dismissed her sentence and ordered her release. But instead of finding freedom, she was immediately detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being released from prison. 

Even though her crimes were dismissed in California, federal immigration authorities still consider Sandra deportable. In this months-long investigation, KQED’s Tyche Hendricks reports on the thousands of immigrants whose cases have been dismissed at the state level but whose cases are still being pursued by ICE. 

Read the episode transcript

This episode originally aired on KQED's The California Report Magazine on Jan. 27, 2023.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The mass shooting last Monday in Half Moon Bay that left 7 farmworkers dead has brought renewed attention to the living conditions of California farmworkers. State and local officials say they plan to investigate potential wage theft and safety violations at the two farms.

But more broadly, the issues that this mass shooting highlighted are not new: farmworkers across California make very low wages, struggle to afford housing, and are vulnerable to exploitation. And looming over it all is the fact that a majority are undocumented immigrants, with less power than most Americans.

Guest: Farida Jhabvala Romero, KQED labor correspondent

Links:

This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca and Alan Montecillo, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices