In Santa Clara County today, there are 14,600 families at imminent risk of homelessness when the eviction moratorium expires Jan. 31. Before COVID-19, there were 58,000 families in Silicon Valley living on $15,000 to $35,000 a year, barely making ends meet in one of the most expensive rental markets in the nation. At Healing Grove...

In recent months the debate surrounding gun control has exited the public arena, eclipsed by a host of new issues: coronavirus and Black Lives Matter have drawn our attention, and with good reason. Eager to mitigate the public health nightmare of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical officials have presented the world with an effective method of...

Important recent news stories about hospitals during the COVID-19 crisis highlight the inadequacy of our fractured health system during the pandemic and the need for a comprehensive, equitable, high quality system which is less expensive and covers all residents. San José Spotlight reported that San Jose-based Valley Medical Center Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the...

The fires that burned millions of acres across California this year, largely due to climate change, have made it clear Californians need a senator who is a constant environmental stalwart championing legislation that will save California from burning. Angered during the fire crisis in California and by lack of urgency from federal officials to take...

As September’s orange skies and record-shattering wildfires made vivid, we’re in a climate crisis. The impacts are hitting low-income communities and communities of color first and worst and threaten the viability of civilized life on Earth. The majority of Americans (72 percent of voters in a recent Fox poll) are concerned about this crisis and...

In response Michael Eckhart’s column about Second Street Studios, as a fellow veteran I am grateful for Mike’s service and to be of service to him and all our residents at Second Street Studios. Mike and all of our residents have a voice, and we want to hear and learn how to better serve as...

It brings me great pain and disappointment to once again address the inappropriate behavior of the Silicon Valley Organization (SVO). After the blatantly racist attack ad, which served to perpetuate fear of African Americans and low-income families, the NAACP had hoped to see the SVO “do the right thing.” However, their idea of the right...

The Silicon Valley Organization money was not poured out purely for racism. The SVO money poured out to buy political power among specific candidates. The SVO money poured out to defeat specific candidates that champion the oppressed — because the oppressors are desperate to maintain power. Hit piece after hit piece has been funded by...

As a special educator for 40 years and a grandmother of a child with dyslexia, I am struggling with the navigation of school in the age of coronavirus. In March, when California schools sent students home to learn virtually, a shockwave of panic was set into motion for families of children with special needs. While distance...

An astounding 51% of Latinx college students are considering not returning to college or shifting to part-time status while 37% already have stopped taking college classes altogether. These are the heartbreaking decisions that Latinx college students — in California alone — are making this fall due to the pandemic’s devastating and disproportionate impact on them...