Quesada Kids Community Fruit Stand
The Quesada Kids Community Fruit Stand was the talk of Third Street over the weekend. Quesada Gardens Initiative co-founder Shane King organized half a dozen youngsters to harvest his backyard plum tree and sell the fruit at the tip of the Quesada Garden by the Bank of America. The fruit sold out in about an hour, the kids made more money than they expected, passers-by LOVED the idea and everyone wants more of the same.
California Hotel tenants fight for their human right to housing
“The California Hotel is just the first building,” said Robbie Clark, an organizer with Just Cause Oakland, who led the chants and rallying cry with tenants and supporters Monday. “There will more than likely be others. We have to come together as a community and prevent the displacement of residents.”
‘State of Black San Francisco’ conference raises questions
Findings of the 2008 State of Black San Francisco public conference predicted our present: "a combination of violence, economics and lack of Black leadership has contributed to a situation that could soon turn SF into a city with only a handful of very rich and very poor African Americans."
California Hotel is raided by City of Oakland
Oakland's California Hotel residents have organized and taken over management and maintenance since building was abandoned by property manager John Stewart Co.
500 very low income tenants face eviction from Oakland’s California Hotel
The Oakland Housing Authority is planning to sell off or demolish most of its public housing in the near future, and nonprofits have been involved in mixed income housing developments at public housing sites that have displaced poor public housing tenants in Oakland.
Big victory for California Hotel tenants
“The tenants prevailed. There was no one from Oakland Community Housing appearing in court today to oppose the tenants’ needs or Judge Richard Keller’s ruling. This is a big victory for the people.”
Federal class action against City of Antioch documents police targeting of African American tenants
ACLU finds the City of Antioch and its police department are engaged in a concerted campaign of intimidation, harassment and discrimination against African Americans who receive federally funded Section 8 housing rent assistance.
32 Cali groups ask Federal Reserve to do more to prevent foreclosures
As the foreclosure crisis worsens, the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed) is proposing rules to restrict abusive mortgage lending practices. While this is a good step, 32 California groups assert that not enough is being done to help working families and their neighborhoods, encouraging stronger rules to protect families from being sold loans they cannot afford.
Subprime mortgage crisis causing greatest loss of African-American wealth in modern U.S. history
The subprime mortgage crisis will cause African-Americans to experience wealth losses of between $71 billion and $122 billion over its duration.
SF Health Dept. waited six weeks to notify community of Lennar’s huge toxic exceedence...
“It is ‘normal,’ he said, for a child to have nosebleeds and asthma.”
SF Public Utilities Commission cancels power plant contract
The City should no longer consider “an investment of this size” in fossil fuel-burning power.
Update on the San Francisco 8
“The same people who tried to kill me in 1973 are the same people who are here today, in 2005, trying to destroy me.”
Congressmembers Frank and Waters call for halt on public housing demolition
‘Over 60 percent of public housing units
demolished or disposed never come back online,’ they tell HUD
by Matthew Cardinale
Atlanta (APN) – U.S. Reps. Barney
Frank, D-Mass., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif., have written a letter to the...
Katrina housing crisis still hinders recovery, report says
Three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered the homes of hundreds thousands of Louisianans, too many residents are still unable to afford to rebuild their homes or find an affordable place to rent.
Outrage as Inglewood police officer murders another Black man
“Kevin Wicks was shot unnecessarily and there is a crisis [of confidence] in the Inglewood Police Department. They need to be held more accountable and there needs to be a sense of urgency.”
All of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard must be cleaned to residential standards
The United States Navy has spent over $600 million trying to clean up the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Most of the money was wasted - more then $300 million by International Technologies - with little supervision by the United States Navy Base Closure Team in past years.
The sinking Titanic
Like a colossal ship navigating through the uncharted ocean of financial uncertainty, the Miami homebuilder Lennar Corp. is a “sinking Titanic.”
Lennar asks feds for help
With San Francisco having climbed deeper into bed with Lennar thanks to Prop. G's passage, the bad news coming from Wall Street and beyond can't exactly be music to Mayor Gavin Newsom's ears.
Proposition F: A fight for the heart and soul of San Francisco
Lennar has used its multi-million dollar profits to buy off community groups, pay community residents as “consultants” and sell a set of wolf tickets that would have shamed even the wolf himself.