Welcome back to the Tales of Two Cities podcast! This episode is all about endings. This week, we tag along with a family in North Richmond that visits several cities just to get groceries. We check in with Warriors fans about how they feel about their team heading (back) to San Francisco. We’ll take a quick trip across the bay to visit the last days at Lucca’s Ravioli in San Francisco. Back bayside, we hear from the owner of one…
The Las Deltas Housing Project in North Richmond was built in the 1940s and 1950s, as part of the country’s low-rent housing program. Due to a lack of government funding, the Contra Costa Housing Authority was forced to close down Las Deltas and begin the process of relocating residents. Additional reporting by Barbara Harvey and Ravleen Kaur.
The Richmond City Council decided last Tuesday to start drafting two new ordinances to help low income tenants find housing in Richmond. The council was responding to a proposal put forward by Vice Mayor Melvin Willis and several groups. It will make it cheaper for tenants to apply for rental housing and also outlaw discrimination against residents using housing choice vouchers, also known as Section 8, named after section 8 of a decades old federal law that assists very low-income…
North Richmond is an unincorporated community in West Contra Costa County and is almost completely surrounded by the City of Richmond. The idea of annexation, or integration, of North Richmond into the city has been raised for decades. In 2017, it came up once more and residents are currently discussing the possibility.
Jim Rogers is one of several candidates running for Richmond City Council who has served previously. Before serving on the council from 2002 to 2014, he served as a Contra Costa County supervisor in the mid to late 90s. In 2014, Rogers helped negotiate a deal with Chevron that includes a program known as “the Richmond Promise,” through which Chevron will give a total of $35 million dollars in scholarships to every Richmond and North Richmond high school senior who…
On a night where every speaker had just 7 minutes to present themselves to the audience, Dave Schoenthal did something different. While other city council candidates rushed through their time, he turned the attention to the audience and began asking them what they think Richmond needs. “This is about them,” he said in an interview. “This is about the people in the audience out there. What do they want to have done?” Schoenthal carries himself with a contagious, easy-going attitude….
Diego Garcia’s slicked back hair and tattoos help give away the fact that his background is different than a typical political candidate’s. The 40-year Richmond resident first joined a neighborhood gang when he was just 9 years old. At 17, he was shot and nearly died. Garcia explains that according to the statistics, he shouldn’t have survived long enough to be in the position he is today. “A Latino who came from the streets and was a gang banger,…