Tag: Alameda County

Across California, including Alameda and San Francisco counties,  Medi-Cal is working to address maternal concerns by expanding and coordinating health services so pregnant and postpartum people receive care that is respectful, comprehensive, and easier to navigate.

Medi-Cal gives California adults — including Black families, seniors, parents, and caregivers — access to free or low-cost care designed to help people stay healthy, not just treat illness.

The numbers are staggering. We have all heard the term “petri dishes” applied to our prisons, jails and detention centers. Discover the details in this short, concise no frills layout of how Gov. Newsom has abetted the deliberate indifference towards preventable deaths and suffering of our loved ones inside prisons and innocents in the communities where our prisons are located.

We are in the midst of a global pandemic, and our communities are deeply and directly affected. We, a coalition of Bay Area organizations and inter-regional allies, are committed to working diligently to ensure that the repercussions and reverberations of COVID-19 do not lead to more harm and violence in our communities, but instead offer an opportunity to reshape our relationship to safety.

Just over a week into the “shelter in place” directive that is now statewide, COVID-19 has reached Santa Rita Jail. Alameda County confirmed on March 26 that a nurse working in one of the jail’s housing units has tested positive for the virus.

This in-custody death would be the 10th this year, and the 43rd in the last five years, a statistic that supports Santa Rita’s reputation as one of the deadliest jails in the state.

Homeless detainees are sent to filthy holding cells to sit and lie down in vomit, urine, feces, semen, on food- and dirt-stained floors. Rather than caring for the heroin addict in the infirmary, the detainees are made to tend to the addict, clean up the addict and his messes, and suffer the indignity, smell and infectious disease risks.

How is it that a social worker was caught committing perjury and yet no one has held her accountable? Where is the oversight of our child welfare system and juvenile courts? Where is the outrage that this is happening and American families are being unnecessarily destroyed in court proceedings that operate under a shroud of secrecy, in court proceedings in which criminal misconduct is covered up and the best interests of children are ignored?

Green Party candidates neither seek nor accept corporate money, so fundraising against lavishly bribed Democrats and Republicans is always a challenge. Corporations commonly pour “donations” into both Democratic and Republican coffers to make sure they own a piece of whoever’s elected. We all know it’s going to be tough for California’s three Green Congressional candidates: Laura Wells, Kenneth Mejia nd Rodolfo Cortes Barragan.

On March 27, the San Francisco Bay Area’s Stop Urban Shield Coalition claimed victory in its four-year battle to stop Urban Shield, a war games and weapons convention for cops held in Alameda County every year since 2007. I spoke to Tracy Rosenberg, executive director of Media Alliance and co-facilitator of Oakland Privacy, a citizen’s coalition that works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment. She has worked with the Stop Urban Shield Coalition since 2014.

In a major class action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court here, conditions at the Alameda County Jail at Santa Rita sound more like they come out of a Charles Dickens novel than a modern day correctional facility. At a press conference Wednesday, Jan. 31, lawyers for pregnant prisoners at Santa Rita claim their clients are being inhumanely mistreated by jail personnel, urged to have abortions and routinely denied medical attention, warm clothing, nutritious food, blankets and even fresh air.

We pour libations for Fats Domino, New Orleans musical legend, who died Oct. 24. He was 89. The Architect of Rock n’ Roll was the child of Haitian Kreyòl plantation workers and the grandson of an enslaved African. And we also pour libations for Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who made his transition Oct. 30. He was 80. Congratulations to Drs. Vera and Wade Nobles on their 50th wedding anniversary this month.

We find ourselves in a moment with a great deal at stake. Our communities are fighting to define and create sanctuary spaces, while enduring a dangerous presidential administration that has emboldened white supremacist and xenophobic action. The Trump agenda has caused increased harassment, fear and even death. In the movement for abolition of policing, imprisonment, surveillance and the entire prison industrial complex, now is our time to be bold.

To educate our entire Oakland community, I’m writing to explain why Oakland needs a smoke-free multi-unit housing policy. This is a social justice issue. Smoking and tobacco products kill more African-Americans than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drug use, homicide, suicide and other non-tobacco related cancers. We must educate our youth and communities regarding the dangers of smoking because it is an unhealthy life choice for them.

In a small victory for the Stop Urban Shield Coalition earlier today, the Budget and Finance Committee postponed voting on an item to allow San Francisco to apply for federal funding that ultimately goes toward the militarized SWAT training program and weapons expo known as Urban Shield. The program is funded by the Department of Homeland Security through the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grant.

On Oct. 11, the Justice Reinvestment Coalition of Alameda County held a march and rally calling on Alameda County to fulfill its promise to provide jobs for formerly incarcerated people. In June 2016, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors had voted unanimously (5-0) in favor of a new Re-Entry Hiring Program that aims to provide 1,400 county jobs for people impacted by the criminal justice system and youth in the school-to-prison pipeline in Alameda County.

A proposal by HUD and the Obama administration that is allegedly meant to combat segregation and break up concentrations of poverty actually threatens Section 8 renters (Housing Choice Voucher holders) – the elderly, poor and disabled – with higher rents and eviction. It has many Section 8 tenants worried about their future in the Bay Area, New York and elsewhere.

All of the ills which have aggravated possibilities for economic growth and development in urban centers throughout the nation are present in Oakland, the focus of our study. As in other core American cities, important demographic changes have ushered in significant alterations in Oakland’s stance concerning housing, employment, health, welfare and business environments of its inhabitants and the dependent populations in the Bay Area.

On Tuesday evening, Dec. 17, 2015, the Berkeley City Council voted to keep sending officers to the annual Urban Shield war games and weapons expo, even after one vocal citizen held up the expo’s best selling T-shirts and read their inscriptions: “Black Rifles Matter,” “This (barrel of a gun) is my peace symbol” and “Destruction cometh. And they shall seek peace. And there shall be none” (Ezekiel 7:25-27, King James Bible).

Urgency to end mass incarceration and the criminalization of poor people and people of color is growing. The general public’s awareness that it simply does not make sense to lock up people with substance abuse or mental health issues is setting the stage for important reforms to our justice system. With this understanding, California voters passed Proposition 47 “The Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act.”