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Finding a Place to Call Home in California
Despite an investment of over $20 billion in recent years to combat homelessness, California still faces a critical challenge with alarmingly high numbers of people living on the streets and in their vehicles. Jessica Castillo-Tapia, a graduating senior at UC Santa Barbara, understands the harsh realities of housing insecurity from her own life experiences. Raised […]
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Big Data is Helping Firefighters Battle Wildfires
Wildfire activity in the United States is rapidly changing. Many of these changes are felt throughout the West as weather conditions become hotter and drier due to climate change. California continues to experience drought conditions throughout most of the state despite the recent rains. The ongoing drought has led to a dramatic increase in wildfires. […]
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Criminal Justice Reform in California
For decades California’s incarceration rate mirrored that of the nation, increasing five-fold between the early 1970s and the mid-2000s. Since 2010 California has slowly turned away from mass incarceration through a series of criminal justice reforms, including changing criminal sentencing and law enforcement practices to reduce prison populations. What has California done right in this […]
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Managing California’s Financial Future
California is the worlds fifth-largest economy. That makes State Treasurer Fiona Ma’s job quite complex. Her office handles everything from financing housing development to collecting cannabis sales tax. Recently, she sat down with Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, to discuss the financial challenges the state is facing. […]
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Combating Climate Change in California
California has made huge strides in combating climate change, but there is still a long way to go. Back in 2006, state lawmakers passed AB 32, also known as the Global Warming Solutions Act. It set a goal of getting greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels or lower by 2020. The state managed to […]
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Looking Toward 2020 with Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
Willie Brown has spent his life in public service. He served over 30 years in the California State Assembly – 15 of those years as Speaker – before becoming the first African American mayor of San Francisco. For the past 10 years, he’s been writing a column for the San Francisco Chronicle on politics, movies, […]