SFNext: Fixing Our City: Recent Episodes
San Francisco Chronicle
Like any big city, San Francisco has big problems. Rampant homelessness, an opioid epidemic, widening income equality and deep political divisions. What’s stopping the city from fixing itself? Where are the creative solutions? And what happens when one person’s solution is another’s root of the problem? Host Laura Wenus and producer Cintia Lopez are on a quest to find out, one San Francisco story at a time. SFNext: Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext project. Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod. Twitter: @sfnext Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com
Aaron Peskin, president of the Board of Supervisors, has spent the majority of the last 23 years in office in San Francisco, representing District 3. His district includes North Beach, Chinatown and the Financial District, but the role of president means he must broker compromises between his colleagues and the mayor. On complex crises like the coronavirus pandemic, fentanyl use, and homelessness, he says he also helps coordinate siloed city departments. And with so many crises at hand, Peskin says, this is no time for divisive politicking — which is why he collaborated with Mayor London Breed on legislation easing restrictions on building use downtown. “There are no moderate or progressive potholes,” he says. “There are potholes and they need to be filled.” | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Supervisor Hillary Ronen represents the Mission, the Portola and Bernal Heights, but she has been trying to tackle problems in those neighborhoods since before she was elected. Now, she’s termed out, and she says she’s conflicted about trying to address the fallout of national issues with a municipal toolkit. While San Francisco’s government has its shortcomings, she says, it’s grappling with effects of poverty and inequality around the country — from homelessness to drug dealing to the housing crunch — that are more visible than ever. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod SFNext: Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who lives in the Mid-Market area and represents downtown as well as SoMa, Mission Bay and Treasure Island, expresses some hope that the city’s economic engine is coming back to life. The former police spokesperson has experience with drug and alcohol abuse and talks about his own setbacks during the pandemic. One reason he ran for office was to represent people in recovery. Now, he has ambitious plans for the police department and its role in addressing drug dealing. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
New York City’s shelter mandate, requiring the city to offer a placement to everyone who needs it without forcing anyone to accept it, is often cited as a model. Now San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is developing a plan to offer some kind of shelter — ranging from a safe place to pitch a tent to a more permanent solution — to everyone willing to take it. While temporary shelter alone will not solve homelessness, advocates for shelter expansion see it as a crucial step. But critics worry a major investment in shelter will come at the cost of longer-term interventions. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com The homelessness department's strategic planning town hall will be held on Monday, Dec. 5 at 5 p.m. Details: https://hsh.sfgov.org/events/strategic-planning-town-hall/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There was a time when Amsterdam was sick of losing creative people to Berlin because of its vibrant and diverse round-the-clock cultural scene. Much more appealing than the “open air museum” that residents complained Amsterdam had become. So, the Dutch city tried something new, including electing a new night mayor — a liaison between night culture operators and city government who advocated for policies under which a diverse and varied nightlife scene could flourish. Mirik Milan, former night mayor who currently runs a nightlife consultancy, talks about what worked, the benefits to the city as a whole and what obstacles cities around the world face right now in revitalizing nightlife. (First published July12, 2022) | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you’ve been out of the workforce for a while, the hurdles that stand between you and a job that can provide some stability can seem never-ending. Meanwhile, San Francisco is grappling with a shortage of restaurant workers. Farming Hope guides and pays people as they learn the ropes of working in the short-staffed food industry. Whether they’re experienced cooks or have never worked in a kitchen, by the end of the program they’ll have connections that could lead to a good job and skills that will serve them in the food industry. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Portugal’s decision to decriminalize drug possession as of 2001 garnered international attention. But that move was just part of the nation’s broader public health strategy to curb the devastating effects of an opioid epidemic. At the time, on average, Portugal had an overdose death every day. Today, it’s dramatically reduced the number of overdose deaths, HIV infections associated with drug use, and problematic heroin use. Meanwhile in San Francisco, overdose deaths have exploded. Dr. João Goulão, Portugal’s national coordinator for drugs and drug addiction, explains how the country’s approach was shaped and what the results have been. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
San Francisco is under pressure to pick up the snail-like pace of new housing construction. One research paper suggests the problem is local agencies having so much discretion over the process. Officials have tried to pare down the system to speed up production, especially of affordable housing, but things are still slow. Now two warring ballot measures — only one can become law — claim they’ll kickstart development by letting certain projects skip some steps. Experts lay out how we got here and why the need to streamline persists, and reporter Noah Arroyo gives an overview of what voters will have to consider. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For a whole day, nearly 200 San Francisco residents examined the top three local problems on our collective minds: Homelessness, crime and housing. They quizzed panelists and discussed among themselves. Meanwhile, a cohort of small groups participated in a structured brainstorming exercise to address specific elements of the three overarching topics. They presented their ideas to the crowd for scrutiny: Pilot programs for housing development. Staffing police precincts like firehouses. A “supervisor exchange program.” Now the Chronicle’s SFNext team — including this podcast — will look for ways to dive deeper into these proposals and continue the conversation. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
San Francisco’s top human resources official acknowledges the need for workers and the calls for reforms to a lengthy recruitment and hiring process. The money is in the budget to fill the open jobs, but the rules that govern how that happens are enshrined in the city charter, and they exist to guard against favoritism and other corruption. Meanwhile, most city employees do not live in San Francisco. Human resources director Carol Isen, Labor Council leader Kim Tavaglione and 911 dispatcher Burt Wilson lay out the consequences of the worker shortage and what is being done about it. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For local elections in San Francisco, voters don’t just choose their favorite single candidate. They ordered them from most to least preferred. Ranked-choice voting hgas eliminated the need for runoff elections since 2004. While some politicians, including former President Donald Trump, inaccurately insist ranked-choice voting favors one party over the other or propels unpopular candidates to victory, experts say that isn’t the case. We explain how the system works and hear some benefits and critiques. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Correction: An earlier version of this episode contained an error about the ranking rules. As of Oct. 12, the episode has been updated to reflect that ranking multiple candidates first will invalidate a ballot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Simple questions in San Francisco don’t always have easy answers. But even imperfect data can offer insights and a shared set of facts for tackling problems like homelessness and crime. In compiling the SFNext Index, Chronicle data reporter Adriana Rezal and data editor Dan Kopf dig into city records, census results, survey responses and other sources to find answers to reader questions and challenge their own assumptions. What they find is often surprising. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nadia Rahman with YIMBY Action and Joseph Smooke with the Race and Equity in All Planning Coalition both agree it costs far too much to live in San Francisco and that this lack of affordability has serious consequences for the city’s diversity and equity. What they don’t see eye to eye on is the role of the market in influencing housing affordability. But when we all sat down to talk, it turned out they agree on the urgency of building affordable housing and creating a clear and detailed plan to produce it, while frontloading community input to minimize repetitive and exhausting battles about individual projects. So what would they say we should do about it? | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod
Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project
Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Poor financial health can keep people from accessing city services like affordable housing. Even if they otherwise qualify, bad credit can be an obstacle. So San Francisco has developed a program that provides anyone who lives in, works in, or gets services from the city with a financial coach free of charge. The Office of Financial Empowerment established Smart Money Coaching six years ago. Fixing Our City producer Cintia Lopez test-drives the program by talking to a Smart Money Coach about her own finances. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod
Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project
Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project has conducted a scientific poll to find out what residents really think of the city, its government and its problems. Respondents didn’t hold back on what they want solved: Homelessness, crime and affordability. They’re tired of assurances that they’re being heard. They want to see measurable improvements. In open-ended questions about who or what they see as the main obstacle to improvements, a significant number named government. Hear from residents about their concerns and a survey research expert on how reliable and meaningful these results are. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The San Francisco Police Department says it’s struggling to meet the city's law enforcement needs because it’s so short staffed. While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how many officers the SFPD has the budget to hire, the number of applications to its academy has plummeted over the years. San Francisco is not alone in facing waning interest in police careers. Recruiters and marketers say it’s a nationwide challenge. But they also say departments must modernize their approaches, streamline their application processes, and target young people with messages tailored to their generation. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project
Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Above the retail-dominated street level that visitors are familiar with, Chinatown is one of the lowest-income neighborhoods in the city, home to many seniors and recent immigrants. It's been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chinatown Media and Arts Collaborative is establishing a hub called Edge on the Square, where it plans to serve the neighborhood and visitors alike with boundary-pushing art and performances. How can an arts group transform the life of a neighborhood? Co-founder Mabel Teng shares her thoughts with host Laura Wenus. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Opening public toilets to address a public urination and defecation problem may not be revolutionary, but San Francisco’s Pit Stop program adds a crucial element: Attendants who make sure the toilets are used for their intended purpose only, clean up the surrounding area, and connect with visitors seeking relief. While resident reports of poop in the streets citywide have increased steadily over the years, data shows that in the Tenderloin, which has a high concentration of Pit Stops, reports have gone down. Neighbors we spoke with have rave reviews, but they want the toilets open longer. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Long description: Early in the pandemic, Latinos were disproportionately affected in San Francisco. When testing sites and other resources weren’t commensurately located in the heavily affected Mission District, community leaders from nonprofits came together to form the Latino Task Force. It ensures community members have access to testing, vaccines, PPE, food, and help accessing government programs. And now it’s preparing to face monkeypox too. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Before he became the director of San Francisco’s Department of Police Accountability, Paul Henderson had been a top mayoral adviser, a prosecutor and a sought-after lecturer and media guest. He says he’s been detained and arrested eight times for things he didn’t do, and that on his first day in court as an assistant D.A., the judge mistook him for a defendant and lectured him about where to sit. Now, he runs the city agency that audits police practices and issues policy recommendations, and he says the city needs honest conversation and inclusive citizen participation to meaningfully address racism. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Has Texas’ largest city found the key to ending chronic homelessness? Houston has drastically reduced the number of homeless people counted every other year, and its collaborative housing-first approach has garnered national attention. SFNext listeners and readers took notice, and told us to find out what Houston’s getting right. So we did. Two Houston homelessness leaders outline their strategy, and San Francisco’s top homelessness official responds with what could be learned and what’s already in progress. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) gave 125 people $500 a month with no strings attached, researchers found that recipients spent money the same way everyone else does: On food, gas, childcare and bills. The experiment, led by then-Mayor Michael Tubbs, drew criticism from people saying the money would disincentivize work, and that recipients would spend it on alcohol or drugs. Researchers found the opposite: The extra cash reportedly empowered people to get full-time and better paying jobs. San Francisco has launched several guaranteed income pilot programs of its own. In this episode of Fixing Our City, Tubbs and a guaranteed income recipient describe how the payments can help people reach financial stability. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext Project. Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Robert Fruchtman attends municipal hearings and meetings where the fates of housing developments or policies hang in the balance, and he takes to Twitter. He’s documenting, but he’s also offering commentary, from the succinct “lol” to more elaborate visual jokes. He volunteers his time knowing that these hearings, which often eat up hours in the middle of workdays, tend to exclude the very people who already have fewer opportunities to bend politicians’ ears. To democratize housing policy, he tells host Laura Wenus, public comment is not the answer. But until things change, he’s bringing politics to the people — one tweet at a time. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There was a time when Amsterdam was sick of losing creative people to Berlin because of its vibrant and diverse round-the-clock cultural scene. Much more appealing than the “open air museum” that residents complained Amsterdam had become. So, the Dutch city tried something new, including electing a new night mayor — a liaison between night culture operators and city government who advocated for policies under which a diverse and varied nightlife scene could flourish. Mirik Milan, former night mayor who currently runs a nightlife consultancy, talks about what worked, the benefits to the city as a whole and what obstacles cities around the world face right now in revitalizing nightlife. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Calls to improve public safety have covered a spectrum: At one end, moving funds from police to service workers. On the other, beefing up police budgets and getting more officers on the street. But for decades, departments across the country have been working on a strategy called community policing, intended to improve trust in and collaboration between residents and officers. In San Francisco, different neighborhoods have different relationships with the police force. From Chinatown, where officers were embedded in the Ping Yuen apartments, to the Mission, where a local advocate says they do what they can to not call on police, we look at what the SFPD is doing with community policing. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you get badly hurt or sick, you know where to go. What if you were in danger of losing your housing? San Francisco and Oakland are developing programs to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place, which is cheaper and easier than helping them once they're on the streets. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A 2015 apartment building fire at Mission and 22nd streets killed one person and displaced 50. Seven years later, there’s an empty lot, gathering trash and growing weeds. In the middle of a housing crisis. Why has nothing been built in the years since? The answers to that question are painfully emblematic of some of the biggest problems facing San Francisco. In this debut episode, Fixing Our City host Laura Wenus and producer-reporter Cintia Lopez begin their search for solutions. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Host Laura Wenus and producer Cintia Lopez are on a quest to find out why one of the wealthiest and best-educated cities in America, one where most people belong to the same political party and subscribe to the same basic values, has so many intractable problems. And more importantly: Can they be fixed? Join us as we find out, one San Francisco story at a time. Coming June 21 from the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext project. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod. Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at sfnext@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices