August 2016

From 1999 to 2013, California’s Academic Performance Index boiled down everything about the state’s K-12 public schools to a single number between 200 and 1,000. That type of accountability is going away, to be replaced by a more nuanced system that is under construction. In the old model, the desirability of neighborhoods or even whole communities hinged in part on their school’s API score. Careers were made or lost based on how far a school or district was from the magic 800 target number.

California takes a historic step forward this month as it moves to enact restrictions on the use of solitary confinement in state and local facilities for youth — curbing a manifest violation of human rights and protecting its youth from the trauma of isolated confinement. With the passage of Senate Bill 1143 , California will join the federal prison system and several other U.S. states in limiting solitary confinement for youth under 18. [For more of this story, written by Maureen Washburn,...

California’s public universities are starting to embrace a program that helps transition people from prison to campus. A program at San Francisco State University has quietly been helping former prisoners earn college degrees for decades. Now, it’s gaining wider attention as schools around the state begin to look for ways to help formerly incarcerated men and women gain access to higher education. In 1967, John Irwin, who had been incarcerated before becoming a sociology professor at SF...

Racing from her last class of the day at Cal State Long Beach, Shellv Candler had about an hour to get to Wilmington. Her mother was trying to save her a bed at the Doors of Hope Women’s Shelter, but curfew was 6:45 sharp. The college student’s commute by bus and train was stressful. But she and her mother had been through worse. The foreclosure of the family home. Evictions. Relatives who could give them shelter for only so long. Some nights, with nowhere to go, they’d ridden the bus until...

Nearly every day, a person staying at the Torres Shelter manages to beat homelessness and turn his or her life around. Now, the shelter has a new, in a long line of the most recent success stories, one of many that prove anyone can get back on their feet. This story proves how one woman used kindness and perseverance to move out of the shelter, and found a place to live Marjorie Totten didn't expect to find herself homeless. At 68 years old, she says she had to escape a domestic violence...

For the past nine years, Linda Orozco has been looking for the impossible in all the wrong places. Tuesday morning, she may have finally found what she’s been looking for. Since 2007, Orozco has sought help for her son, now 36, afflicted with the twin demons of schizophrenia and methamphetamine addiction. For the past three years, her son has been living on the streets. Orozco estimates he’s been arrested 20 times and committed to the county’s Psychiatric Health Facility ( PHF ) at least six...

Sonoma County does not adequately monitor the use of psychotropic drugs among local foster youth, raising the possibility the county may be inappropriately medicating children or over-prescribing the mind-altering medications, according to a report released Tuesday by the California Auditor’s Office. County officials, however, strongly questioned some of the findings and insisted state auditors reviewed only limited documentation of the care foster youth received. The state did not review...

The City Attorney’s Office and various city and county partners are launching a program to house and rehabilitate people who repeatedly commit misdemeanor crimes such as public drunkenness or trespassing downtown. The offenders often are homeless people who commit quality-of-life crimes, meaning offenses such as disorderly conduct, public drunkenness and trespassing. City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said the SMART initiative — the acronym stands for San Diego Misdemeanant At-Risk Track — is an...

Orange County is set to get its first emergency medical centers dedicated to treating people who suffer sudden psychiatric episodes, addressing a void that critics say long has burdened local hospitals and left mentally ill patients with inadequate treatment. County supervisors voted Tuesday to accept a nearly $3.1 million competitive state grant that will help pay for building renovations and program start-up costs for the expanded care at two undetermined locations. Supervisor Andrew Do...

Where in California has the gap between rich and poor grown most since the Great Recession? The Bay Area, home of your Zuckerbergs and Steyers and some of the most expensive zip codes in the country, seems like a logical answer. Over the past decade, what other part of California has minted as many members of the “1 percent” as Silicon Valley? But according to research from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California , income inequality in the Bay Area has worsened only marginally,...

From the organizers of the 2016 ACEs Conference , San Francisco, CA, October 19th -21st, 2016. Please consider submitting your project today! We know building connections and learning across fields is the best way to advance practices that support children. That’s why we’re very excited to invite you to submit your work to the 2016 Conference on Adverse Childhood Experiences Project Showcase . We’re looking to highlight research, programs, tools or other initiatives that: Highlight the role...

Last year, as anyone looking for an apartment knows, we saw huge rent increases, with double-digit jumps throughout much of the Bay Area. But 2016 is a different story, with an average rent growth of only 3.7 percent projected for the San Francisco metro area this year, according to research from AppFolio . The property management software company found that all of the action has moved east, and not just to the Oakland metro area, which at 4.2 percent has the highest projected rent growth in...