Coming this week: Issue No. 5

The San Francisco Public Press remains a unique offering. Call us a story of “old-school entrepreneurialism.” With every print edition we get sharper and more adept at producing a publication chock-filled with important local stories and serious, in-depth reporting — and not one paid ad.
We’re incredibly excited to announce the impending arrival of our Winter 2011 print edition (Issue No. 5). It’s hitting the streets this week. You can find copies at your local bookstore for just $1 (find locations). If you’re a member — or become one — expect your copy in the mail soon.
This four-color broadsheet features several original stories, including a special section that tackles the Healthy San Francisco program, the city’s unique attempt at local “universal” health care. We found that the quality of the care is great, but there is a high hidden cost in the form of reliance on federal grants and an overstretched network of community clinics that are facing a flood of new patients. The story touches on the national health care debate as many local and state governments attempt to provide their own universal care systems. We are rolling the health care stories on the web this week and will publish the stories listed below as we deliver, mail and hawk the paper in the city.
What else can you expect? We examine an initiative called “restorative justice” being pioneered in San Francisco that tries to get students diverted from suspension and expulsion. By diverting offenders to peer courts where they are confronted by their victims and own up to their misdeeds, the San Francisco Unified School District has reduced suspensions and expulsions to among the lowest levels in the Bay Area. Other school districts are following San Francisco’s lead.
The paper also features a report on the San Francisco Police Department’s efforts to combat human trafficking, and how experts say street arrests of prostitutes conducted over the summer may actually have frustrated their ability to help victims.
And we have a great story on efforts to relax restrictions on “payday” loans, and why some of the biggest banks, including San Francisco’s own Wells Fargo, have invested in an industry that offers short-term loans to low-income people at interest once considered “usurious” by the state of California. Some state legislators are nonetheless working to allow these profitable storefront businesses to lend even more money at annual interest rates of 400 percent, or more.
Buy a copy at any one of 50 Bay Area locations. We will be making deliveries throughout the day and will update the page as copies arrive at each location.
If you’d like a copy hot off the press, stop by our office at 965 Mission St., Suite 220, after 8 a.m. this Wednesday.
Thanks!
The Editors