There is an increasingly popular story being told about homelessness: We’ve tried everything. We’ve spent billions of dollars. Nothing works. It’s an understandable conclusion. Anyone who lives in Santa Clara County can see that homelessness remains painfully visible. Our latest count found 10,711 people experiencing homelessness on a single night. And for every household we...
Li: Baby Boomers changed how we live — it’s time to change how we age
Baby Boomers have spent their lives challenging the status quo. They reshaped our workplaces, families, culture and expectations for how we live. Now, as this generation ages, we face a question we have spent far less time considering: Have we built a system that allows people to grow older the way they actually want to?...
Iton: Draconian federal policies are changing the physiology of Silicon Valley’s most vulnerable
Cancer is on the rise in young people in the Bay Area. Data from the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry shows that the rates of cancer in people under the age of 50 in the Bay Area has been on the upswing since 2018, increasing about 12% between 2018 and 2023. This alarming trend mirrors...
Op-ed: The fight for the future of work is here
Every Labor Day, we remember the fights that built the modern workplace: the eight-hour day, the weekend, the right to organize. This year, we’re writing the next chapter: to establish workers’ rights to shape how emerging technology, including artificial intelligence, gets deployed on the job. Technology has always been part of work. At its best,...
Mallon: Building momentum toward a better future for public transit
Every morning, my day starts the same way. My alarm goes off, I get ready for work, walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus to work. It’s a routine I’ve repeated thousands of times over the years, even as my destination has changed. Some mornings the bus is nearly empty. Other mornings,...
Urbanowski: Reclaiming creativity
There is a story we often tell ourselves in the arts nonprofit world, a series of assumptions and false truths that we live by: There is not enough money to go around. We’re lucky just to be in the room. National nonprofit guru Vu Le (keynote speaker at the SVCREATES 2026 Town Hall) often talks...
Niestroj: We need smarter AI data center development
AI data center backlash is growing, fueled by community concerns about local grids, electricity prices, water use and the environment. Meanwhile, AI technology is being integrated into every industry imaginable, which drives more AI data center demand. According to one recent real estate investment report, “nearly 100 gigawatts of new data centers will be added between 2026 and 2030,...
Jayadev: Santa Clara County shouldn’t invest billions of dollars in its jail facilities
In the midst of an unprecedented budget crisis which has caused devastating cuts in healthcare, housing, education and employment needs, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is considering investing billions of public dollars into the worst possible response to a community in need — incarceration. The proposal from the County Executive’s Office to be...
Op-ed: Public transit is a public health solution
For anyone navigating Silicon Valley, traffic can seem like just a backdrop to daily life. It’s easy to accept long lines of cars on Highway 101 during rush hours, idling buses at crowded stops and students waiting beside busy intersections as part of the price we pay for living here. But that normalization masks a...
Herman: A layoff shouldn’t uproot a Silicon Valley family
For a Silicon Valley worker on an H-1B visa, losing a job can threaten far more than a paycheck. It can place a family’s ability to remain in the United States at risk, even when that family has spent years building a life here. That is why a newly proposed federal rule deserves the Bay...