Labor

Landed helps educators stay in the Bay Area

Everyone in the Bay Area knows the cost of housing is high, and that makes it hard for local teachers to live where they work. But Landed, Inc. is here to help. Landed, Inc. is a small San Francisco-based startup that helps Bay Area teachers afford homes. Co-founders Alex Lofton, Jonathan Asmis and Jesse Vaughn were inspired by sharing economy models, such as Uber and AirBnb, and applied this idea to the home market, Lofton said. The company works with…

Oakland offers emergency loans to those affected by Ghost Ship fire

The city and the Federal Small Business Administration (SBA) are offering low-interest loans and technical assistance to business owners, nonprofits, homeowners and tenants in the vicinity of the fire. According to Economic Development Manager Aliza Gallo, anyone can apply but must show proof that the fire negatively impacted them physically or economically.

Video rental, antiques, shoe repair: Old-fashioned shops struggle to hang on

A big red house stands in the middle of Telegraph Avenue, two blocks from the Berkeley border with Oakland. It resembles Santa’s workshop: fun, colorful and packed with a massive amount of “stuff.” The building is two stories high and even on a normal day, found objects hang all over the property. From giant drive-thru Jack in the Box signs, to headless mannequins, vintage Victorian furniture or small quirky ceramic figurines, James Cross, the owner of the Antique Centre has it all—hidden somewhere in a corner of his store.

Some Bay Area workers commute for hours for the sake of affordable rent

Cindy Wood spends her weeknights in a vacant apartment at the Pacifica Senior Living facility in Oakland Heights, a long commute away from her husband and children in Santa Rosa. She works as the executive director of the gated senior living community, and recently had to move into an apartment on the property after being hospitalized for diverticulosis, a condition that develops when small pouches form within the wall of the colon. Before the move, she was commuting more than…

Formerly incarcerated people rebound into job market

For Carmen Garcia, the end of a prison sentence was the beginning of a new set of problems.

“The biggest obstacle for me was continuing to stay in school, because the halfway house wanted me to get a job right away, a full-time job,” she said. “And I remember a case manager said to me, ‘You need to take this job, whatever job they offer you, because now you have a criminal record and you’re not going to be able to get another job. Don’t worry about education, because that’s not going to help you.’”

Sandra Johnson needs a job: Finding work after incarceration

Sandra Johnson needs a job, desperately. The formerly incarcerated 59-year-old Oakland woman is now a City College of San Francisco student, but needs to find work as well.

In June, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor of establishing a new re-entry hiring program that aims to create 1,400 county job opportunities for the formerly incarcerated.

Cannabis industry in limbo as California ends pot prohibition

With the passage of Proposition 64 on the November 8 ballot, and new statewide medical cannabis regulations about to be implemented, California state regulators get to spend the next 13 months establishing all the rules needed for a state-regulated system. And it won’t be an easy task.