Angelina Peña moved into a trailer in a vacant parking lot in North Richmond nine months ago. “Unfortunately, hardship happened,” she said, offering a quick explanation of the predicament that took her away from her children and to the encampment where her sister was living. Peña landed a job with Safe Organized Spaces, an advocacy group that donated the trailer she lives in alongside about 100 other residents at the Castro Street encampment. Named after its entrance at the intersection…
Cinthia Hernandez was on the verge of dropping out of high school when she joined Richmond’s YouthWORKS in 2008. She credits the job program with much of her later success — an internship with the California Attorney General’s Office, a bachelor’s degree in social welfare from UC Berkeley, and her current position of program assistant for the project that helped shape her. “The summer youth employment program was able to open so many doors for me,” Hernandez said. Over the…
Richmond has launched a bike-sharing program with Bolt that will enable people to rent bikes at six stations across the city, with more to come in August.