Citizen petition claims more than 800,000 signatures for anti-trafficking ballot measure

Barbara Grady, SF Public Press — Mar 16 2012 - 7:00pm

A nearly three-year effort to put a strong anti-human-trafficking law before voters succeeded this week, organizers said, when they counted 873,000 signatures on their petition to put the proposed Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act on the November state ballot. The citizen-led campaign to strengthen criminal penalties against people who traffic teenagers, children and immigrant laborers on the streets of California cities, and over the Internet, has been working on the issue since 2009, when some Fremont residents started a grassroots organizing effort.

City's health plan risks reverting to safety net for poor

Angela Hart, SF Public Press — Mar 15 2012 - 8:26am

Local, state officials must develop new models for care by 2014

This story appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

San Francisco’s experiment in universal health care, which grew over the last five years to cover an estimated 85 percent of the city’s uninsured, may need to partly return to its origin as a network of safety net clinics and hospitals for the poor as national reforms syphon off middle-class patients. Healthy San Francisco provides medical services to more than 50,000 city residents. But the program could take a financial blow within the next two years as cities and counties adapt to national health reform.

Muni riders speak out at town hall meeting

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Mar 14 2012 - 4:22pm

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which oversees public transportation in the city, faces a $53 million budget deficit for the next two years. At a meeting in the San Francisco Public Library Wednesday evening, the agency was showing off its budget plan and was getting public feedback. We follow it via Storify.

Understanding the Bay Area's human trafficking problem: KPFA News interviews reporter Jason Winshell

Michael Stoll, SF Public Press — Mar 14 2012 - 1:21pm

The Public Press’ latest print edition cover story, on California’s uncoordinated attack on the problem of human trafficking, has been picked up in a variety of media since the publication of the special team reporting project in the Spring 2012 edition: “Force, Fraud Coercion: Human Trafficking in the Bay Area.” The project was produced in collaboration with New America Media and El Tecolote, San Francisco’s bilingual newspaper. Last week Public Press reporter Jason Winshell was interviewed on KPFA Radio by producer Anthony Fest. Winshell’s lead story showed that four years after a high-profile state task force issued a study, many of its recommendations for better laws, funding and coordination among agencies have yet to materialize.

Some San Francisco firms using legal loophole to skimp on health care cost

Barbara Grady, SF Public Press — Mar 12 2012 - 2:11pm

A version of this story appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

It’s no wonder there is a hue and cry about an uneven playing field among businesses as they comply with San Francisco’s Health Care Security Ordinance. The law requires most employers to provide health care benefits to workers who put in at least eight hours a week. But an analysis of compliance reports submitted by 15 randomly selected employers to the city’s Labor Standards Enforcement Office finds that they spent wildly different amounts on health benefits per employee in 2010, the most recent year reported.

Healthy San Francisco: snapshot of universal care

Lisa Aliferis, KQED — Mar 1 2012 - 6:23pm

It’s been almost five years since San Francisco launched its innovative, universal health plan — Healthy San Francisco — and last night a panel of public health experts and care providers gathered at the Tenderloin’s Glide Foundation to provide a snapshot of how the program is faring. The panel was co-sponsored by the San Francisco Public Press (which produced a team reporting project on Healthy San Francisco in the Winter print edition and online), Glide and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

Weak state law, lack of police savvy frustrate attorneys who prosecute traffickers

Dhyana Levey, SF Public Press — Feb 29 2012 - 2:51pm

This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

While California prosecutors mostly agree that the state’s human trafficking laws need strengthening, they also suggest that failure to recognize the crime itself remains a greater impediment in the fight. State law is still relatively new. Assembly Bill 22 of 2005 created penalties specifically for human traffickers. But some attorneys say it has not been much help. 

State labor agencies slow to coordinate with law enforcement on trafficking cases

Alejandra Cuéllar, El Tecolote / SF Public Press — Feb 27 2012 - 11:42am

This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

Despite a strongly worded recommendation from a California-wide task force four years ago urging labor standards officials to look for signs of human trafficking, state and local investigators say there has so far been little coordination or direct follow-up with law enforcement or organizations supporting victims. The task force, which was disbanded in 2007 but is reconvening throughout this spring, outlined the need to identify and rescue victims — as opposed to deporting them in the course of routine labor enforcement sweeps.

California voter initiative would strengthen penalties for traffickers

Leigh Cuen, SF Public Press — Feb 24 2012 - 1:17pm

This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

A California group dedicated to stopping human trafficking is hoping to take its fight directly to voters this fall. In January, the nonprofit advocacy group California Against Slavery began circulating petitions to get a measure on the November 2012 ballot to strengthen the state’s human trafficking laws. The measure is called the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act, and the campaign has mobilized hundreds of people around the state to collect the 800,000 valid signatures required for the measure to make the ballot.

City's transit agency faces $53 million deficit for next two years

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Feb 22 2012 - 11:41am

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is looking for new revenue sources to balance its budget for the next two years.Despite cuts in overtime and management reductions, the transit agency still faces a looming budget deficit of $19.6 million for the 2012-2013 fiscal year and $33.6 million for the 2013-2014 fiscal year.

Human trafficking is a growing global scourge

Andrew Lam, New America Media / SF Public Press — Feb 22 2012 - 11:28am

This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

Slavery is alive and well in the 21st century. There are more people enslaved today than at any other time in history. The U.S. State Department says that estimates of those enslaved through human trafficking ranges from 4 million to 27 million.

U.S. visas help trafficking victims, if applicants can vault legal hurdles

Ambika Kandasamy, SF Public Press — Feb 21 2012 - 11:58am

Chance for permanent residency, access to federal benefits hinge on cooperating with law enforcement

This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

A special visa created 12 years ago to save thousands of victims of human trafficking and curb international human trafficking has been vastly underutilized. Attorneys for rescued victims seeking residency protection say law enforcement agencies are often unwilling or slow to “certify” victims’ claims of having been brought to the U.S. to work by force, fraud or coercion. Legal experts and social service providers in high-trafficking regions, including the San Francisco Bay Area, suggest that victims are placed in a dangerous dilemma: Promising to cooperate with an investigation could possibly help their visa cases, but it could also expose them and their families back home to retaliation.

Agency gets state funding to build homeless shelter in Bayview

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — Feb 17 2012 - 2:49pm

The San Francisco Human Services Agency has won a state grant to refurbish a building next to the United Council of Homeless Services, a community-based organization, that could offer overnight shelter to 100 people a night by early next year.

How an infamous Berkeley human trafficking case fueled reform

Viji Sundaram, New America Media / SF Public Press — Feb 16 2012 - 10:43am

Advocates for increased prison terms say 10-year-old sex trafficking case changed conversation

This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press. (Read in Spanish at La Opiñon/Impremedia. Leer en español en La Opiñon/Impremedia.)

Lakireddy Balireddy shocked the Bay Area a decade ago when investigators discovered how the Berkeley landlord transported young women and girls from India for sex. He served eight years in prison. His case still inspires reformers who want to put human traffickers away for longer.This year’s campaign to get tougher anti-trafficking laws on the November ballot as a voter initiative is the latest attempt to deal with what proponents call the unfinished business of legal reform.

Bay Area agencies improvise tactics to battle trafficking

Jason Winshell, SF Public Press — Feb 15 2012 - 12:47pm

With little guidance from state leaders, local police, nonprofits fight for scarce funding

This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

Across California, local agencies have been left to scramble for limited resources and improvise strategies to fight human trafficking, a problem whose scope has yet to be defined with reliable numbers. A high-profile state task force studying California’s human trafficking problem made 46 recommendations in October 2007 but set up no mechanism to monitor progress. Attorney General Kamala Harris has begun picking up the pieces this year. But without clear guidance from the state, nine regional task forces sprung up to devise their own solutions. Their efforts have been supported mostly by federal grants. But as the funding rules become more stringent, the groups at times have been pitted against each other for resources.

Counties ready to handle state's juvenile offenders, study says

Michael Montgomery, California Watch — Feb 9 2012 - 5:03pm

County governments have invested nearly a half-billion dollars over the past 15 years to modernize juvenile lockups and now have the capacity to absorb offenders currently housed in the state’s youth prisons, if those facilities are closed, a new study contends. The report by the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice offers fresh data in support of Gov. Jerry Brown’s renewed push to shutter the state’s three remaining youth prisons as part of a historic realignment of California’s criminal justice system.

Bike theft on the rise at BART stations

Agustin Armendariz and Mihir Zaveri, California Watch — Feb 8 2012 - 4:14pm

Jay Fraser knows what it's like to lock a bicycle at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station and return to an empty rack. Fraser is a research analyst for the Administrative Office of the Courts in San Francisco and has commuted by bike for 20 years, 10 of them in the Bay Area. He had a bike stolen at the Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre BART station and a seat stolen at the Walnut Creek station. Like Fraser, hundreds of other commuters have parked a bike at a BART stop and returned to find it gone or stripped of parts.

Same-sex marriage takes the day as court calls Prop. 8 unconstitutional

Kristine Magnuson, SF Public Press — Feb 7 2012 - 11:20pm
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Same-sex marriage proponents celebrated an important victory Tuesday in San Francisco following the 9th Circuit Court’s ruling that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional. Backers of Proposition 8 were expected to appeal, either by asking for a review by a full panelof the court or by appealing directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

State funding ends for California libraries

Holly McDede, KALW News — Feb 6 2012 - 7:15pm

The bad news is that state funding for California libraries has been completely eliminated. There’s not really any good news about that, except that it was expected. This past July, state library funding was sliced in half, and there was a trigger amendment attached to the budget that would eliminate state funding for public libraries at midyear if the state's revenue projections were not met. Needless to say, they weren’t.

Taxi officials studying taxi app, passenger feedback

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Feb 6 2012 - 5:47pm

Finding a cab in the city may soon get easier for San Francisco residents and visitors to the city. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation, which oversees taxi services in the city, is working on developing an application to help make it easier for people to find a cab.