Growing up in Boyle Heights, Fernando Almanzar dabbled in tagging and considered joining a crew or a gang before turning away from that lifestyle. Today he is an intern at the Boyle Heights Technology Youth Center, where he is learning the skill of video production. He is a success story for the Los Angeles Youth Opportunity Movement, which offers grant-funded academic programs and job training for residents age 14 to 21 who meet poverty guidelines and are authorized to work.
Bill Monning is the new chairman of the state Assembly’s Health Committee. His wife, Dr. Dana Kent, is a doctor in Monterey County who has spent her life serving the poor. Dr. Kent is careful to point out that she does not advise Monning on health policy. But as Monning ponders the federal health reform that will roll out soon with a major assist from the state and his committee, the lawmaker says he will naturally call upon all he has learned through their 32-year partnership.
Forbes Magazine recently ranked Stockton as the second most miserable city in America. HealthyCal contributor Tony Wilson files this video report taking a look at how the city fell so far so fast. A big reason: Stockton rode the housing boom to the top, then fell badly when the market collapsed.
For hospital administrator Roland Pickens, Healthy San Francisco offers more than universal health care and coverage for the city’s uninsured. The three-year-old city program also is inspiring new approaches to streamlining medical care. Pickens, chief operating officer of San Francisco General Hospital, said the city health care program has led to innovations that include evening and weekend clinics, better care of patients with chronic conditions, electronic referrals that speed up the appointment process and a teleconferencing system that has doubled the availability of interpreters.
Every spring around this time, thousands of graduating medical school students get matched with residency positions at hospitals and clinics across the country, the final stage in their training to become doctors practicing on their own. This year’s match game carried some good news: 91.4 percent of the openings for family medicine residencies were filled by the graduates, the highest percentage ever. But there was a catch: the percentage of positions filled went up in part because the number of positions available went down, the result of several family medicine residency programs closing within the last decade.
I liked this student the first time I met him. He was rowdy, he cursed, he broke rules with wild abandon, he was a pain in the neck for a lot of the teachers…He hated school… He told me that he thought he would grow up to be just like his brothers. Everyone else seemed to agree with him. His brothers are all in prison for gang-related activities.
He was soon locked up in his room for misbehavior. Instead of behaving so he could return to the classroom, he refused to do any work, and continued to tag his papers with gang writing. I was told this was typical for this student. I knew that he could work hard, he just wasn’t motivated. On a whim, I wrote him a letter in his cell.
The Nibbi Brothers construction company is a big supporter of San Francisco’s nearly universal health care program, even though it includes a mandate on employers to provide benefits to their workers. Bib Nibbi, the company’s president, says the law levels the playing field with companies that bid against him and win by slashing their labor costs. The city, he says, should avoid a “race to the bottom.”
Residents of City Heights in San Diego often deal with mold and vermin infestations in rental housing, but a bureaucratic rats’ nest prevents them from getting any action. The city does not enforce parts of the state code dealing with these issues, and the county enforces codes only in areas not served by cities. The could step in but is taking a go-slow approach. The result: a runaround, and no help for tenants.
Boyle Heights has weathered its share of threats over the years, from proposed prisons and hazardous waste plants to criminal gangs. Now residents of the historic East LA neighborhood are feeling the pressure of city-backed development that is displacing low-income housing. Community groups are using a lull in construction caused by the down economy to organize so that residents have a voice when the city pushes again to gentrify the community.
Ten years after the state passed a law allowing the creation of pesticide buffer zones around public schools, not one such zone has been adopted by the state’s county agricultural commissioners. Students remain at risk.