Year: 2010

Generation Tech

By Robert Knauf and Megan Burks

In a departure from traditional philanthropic awards, the Gary and Mary West Foundation awarded $50,000 to a youth-run Web design company in City Heights for jobs—not job development alone. The grant allows DiverseCity Tech—a group of young entrepreneurs performing an e-vitalization of mom-and-pop shops in the immigrant neighborhood—to hire three paid interns who will quickly navigate the ranks to become new media professionals before they’re old enough to order a drink. The program is a project of the San Diego Futures Foundation and aims to revitalize area businesses through websites and social media, meanwhile providing a similar path to self-sufficiency for its young employees.

2010 California Parent Survey: a parent’s perspective

By Andy Krackov

Happiness and health. When it comes down to it, that’s perhaps all that most parents want for our children. It’s a simple enough goal. But we’re passionate in our efforts to guide – in some cases steer – our kids down a path leading there. Along the way, we’re bombarded with advice about how to be the perfect parent – from fellow parents, the media, parenting “experts”, teachers, our own parents, and, of course, our kids, who usually have no shortage of opinions on what we should do. And we’re often not quite sure that we’re making the right decisions.

The link between violence, coercion and unintended pregnancy

By Daniel Weintraub

A link between intimate violence and unintended pregnancy and STDs may help clinicians identify patients suffering from abuse. Dr. Elizabeth Miller, a UC Davis professor and researcher, has completed new research that shows how simple, no-cost interventions can help women escape abuse and take back control of their reproductive health.

Grassroots programs transform the corner market despite stalled legislation

By Megan Burks

In many low-income communities, nutritious foods are hard to come by and liquor, cigarettes and processed foods dominate the shelves of the local corner markets. Now state and federal initiatives are in the works to help locate more full-service grocery stories in those communities and give the smaller stores an incentive to carry more nutritious products.

A slow park in Richmond

By Heather Gilligan

Toody Maher’s charge to renovate the Elm play lot in Richmond is a testament to perseverance. The small park sits on a corner in the Iron Triangle neighborhood, a low-income area that sees much of Richmond’s street violence. The play structure is a primary-colored island surrounded by grass and sidewalks with no pedestrians. On a recent sunny fall afternoon, the yellow and blue slide, built to beckon children, stood empty, the swings hung still. The only sign of life was an ice cream truck that drove by slowly, with a song playing hopefully from its loudspeaker. Maher has fought for two years to change this small corner of a poor city’s poorest neighborhood through an organization she founded, Pogo Park. She’s learned to embrace the series of never-ending challenges involved in making a play space for the youngest residents of Richmond’s Iron Triangle.

California Still the World’s 8th Largest Economy

By Steve Levy

The California economy, while hard hit by the construction collapse and national recession, remains a world economic powerhouse. The latest numbers portray a state growing slightly faster than the nation over the past decade, driven by the high productivity tech sector. Now the state and national challenge is to mount another burst of growth driven by innovation and creativity. These are difficult challenges in today’s mood of anger and gridlock but we have responded before and must do so again.

Online community helps clinics collaborate

By Sue Dormanen

Community clinics are facing increased caseloads due to the recession and the coming expansion of access under the federal health reform law. But many operate on a shoestring, struggling to serve clients in a stressful environment. One way they can cope is through collaboration, and many do as part of an online community known as the Community Clinic Voice. The public can listen in, too.

Communities in need of doctors should promote a partnership

By Ronald Fong. M.D.

Many rural and inner city communities in California have a shortage of primary care doctors. But the state’s programs to incentivize doctors to work in underserved communities have fallen short, even with an attractive offer of student debt forgiveness. Why? One reason is that new doctors are offered jobs with big medical groups where they can practice medicine and not have to worry about running a business as they would if they were on their own. In this piece, Dr. Ronald Fong sketches out a vision where people in the community with business skills work with new doctors to create a partnership that will benefit both.

The Rise of the Contingent Workforce in California

By Michael Bernick

By most recent count, the Great Recession has resulted in a loss of more than 1.4 million payroll jobs in California. Beyond the job losses, though, the Great Recession also has brought changes in the structure of work in California. It will be some time before we recognize the full extent of these changes. But one is likely to be the continued weakening of the employer-employee structure that characterized work in California for more than four decades after World War II.

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