Sara Bloomberg

The California Legislature enacted the state's first anti-vagrant statutes in the mid-19th century, targeting Native Americans and Mexican-Americans. Since then, policymakers and voters have regularly acted to rid city streets of people who are homeless or indigent. This brief timeline highlights some key years and actions.

As San Francico police respond to more calls for “quality of life” volations, citations have declined sharply in recent years, and the courts have been throwing out warrants for violations, quietly decriminalizing homelessness citywide, an analysis of city records shows.

The wait time for an emergency shelter bed for homeless San Franciscans has hit a record high, as growing demand outstrips availability, city records show. Among those waiting weeks on the list recently were someone  97 years old and three people in their 80s.

David Montgomery never planned to go into software engineering and never thought he would be a trailblazer bringing campaign finance disclosures online to help hold candidates, lobbyists and committees more accountable to the public.

A Mexican tax on sugary beverages has reduced consumption since 2014, and as a result is projected to help cut rates of diabetes, improve overall health and bring other indirect cost savings, according to a study published Tuesday.

Proposition V, which would tax distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages, underplays big health and associated costs linked to those drinks. Top estimates approach $1 billion a year.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chuck “C.W.” Nevius is imploring tech companies “to get into politics, particularly grassroots politics in cities like Oakland and San Francisco.” But he misses the obvious: the tech industry is and has been deeply involved with local politics, led by Ron Conway (photo).

With two months until Election Day, more than $2 million has been amassed in the collective war chests for local candidate campaigns, 90 percent of which has been raised for six Board of Supervisors seats.

The San Francisco Public Press spent six months digging and sorting, and many hours talking with staff at the Ethics Commission for clarification on the best ways to find and distill the information on the 2015 elections.

San Franciscans will not vote for nearly three months, but big money is flowing into the fall election already. Local campaigns have spent $3.15 million, with more than half going to just six of 25 measures on the ballot.

Four hours of testimony challenges chief on Bayview shooting By Sara Bloomberg — Enough is enough. That was the rallying cry from the community last night during a San Francisco Police Commission meeting, where commissioners

With limited time and resources, San Francisco reporters said they chose not to focus on the mayor's race, instead dedicating copy to races whose outcomes were less certain — a choice that left some reporters conflicted about journalism’s watchdog mandate.

She picked up a megaphone and lambasted the greed fueling no-fault evictions in the city. Her voice cracked and tears began to well up as she yelled, decrying the time and energy it takes to fight back.

Protesters make the link between transit shuttles and evictions By Sara Bloomberg APRIL 11, 2014 — Another Google bus was blocked temporarily in the Mission today as anti-eviction protestors sought to shed light on the displacement of teachers – and in the case they focused on, a lawyer who works for Google is doing the […]

Time to go: Activists serve and eviction notice and offer services to a prominent landlord law firm. By Sara Bloomberg March 21, 2014 — A bit of street theater brought some levity to the anti-eviction movement today when a group of activists delivered an eviction notice to a prominent landlord law firm than offered financial […]

By Sara Bloomberg, KQED With the deadline for City College of San Francisco to lose its accreditation less than 10 months out, city officials are questioning its economic impact on the city. The answer appears to be at least $311 million. At a Budget and Finance Committee hearing on Wednesday, Supervisor Eric Mar called an […]

GOING BACK TO SCHOOL: BOUCHRA SIMMONS The first thing you notice about Bouchra Simmons is her hair. Her black curls are bold and larger than life, much like Simmons herself. Simmons moved to the United States from Morocco in 2008. A single mother of a nine-year-old daughter, Simmons is taking English as Second Language classes […]

Were CCSF budget decisions irresponsible, or principled resistance to the downsizing of California's community colleges?