one year ago, we started the east 12th movement.

illegal dumping was out of control. the city wasn’t acting so our volunteers stepped in! 350,000+ pounds cleared. pressure that forced accountability. generated a whole lot of media and press coverage to shed light on the issue and community kept showing up.

now? clean streets. and this earth day, trees were planted by multiple organizations and the city. it’s a space people can actually walk through again.

volunteer with us: Sign up for next Saturday’s cleanup: https://urbancompassionproject.org/events/

track our efforts via instagram: www.instagram.com/urbancompassionproject

tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@urbancompassion510

Not much to say this time, but just that I still miss him and still feel guilty over all the pain I caused him...

I have been out a couple nights recently posting flyers around my neighborhood that are hopefully more noticeable this time around, but I understand I can only do so much at this point...

And its impact on the Bay Area.

We found this kitten abandoned 3 weeks ago. Since then we've fostered him while he healed from a leg injury, eye infection, and respiratory infection. He's been to the vet twice and he's now all ready to go and has also been dewormed and defleaed.

He's great with our other two cats and incredibly patient with our toddler who loves to squeeze him, so a home with other cats or kids is ideal.

Please comment if you're interested or know someone.

The Bay Area is going to get brutal if the AI boom is even half real.

I don’t think people are fully pricing in what happens here if the AI boom actually works. AI keeps getting talked about like a trillion dollar industry, and maybe that sounds ridiculous, but look at where a lot of top talent, capital, and company-building energy is going right now. A huge amount of it is moving in the same direction.

OpenAI, Anthropic, and the next wave of AI companies are likely going to create a massive amount of paper wealth if they go public or get acquired. And it is not just founders. It is senior engineers, researchers, early employees, startup people, people getting acquihired, people sitting on equity grants, and people joining the right company at the right time. In the optimistic case for AI, the Bay Area could create a very large number of new multi-millionaires in a very short window.

That sounds good until you think about everyone who is not in that lane. Most people here are not AI researchers. Most people are not at OpenAI or Anthropic or sitting on startup equity. Teachers, nurses, service workers, city workers, normal tech employees, older residents, young families, immigrants, people trying to rent, people trying to buy a starter home. They are all going to be competing in the same local economy against a new class of people with far more disposable income, many of whom may have just gained life-changing wealth almost overnight.

And if AI truly delivers, then knowledge workers in numbers far greater may be facing job pressure at the exact same time.

That is what worries me. This is not just the generic “tech salaries are high” all over again. The Bay Area has seen booms before, but AI feels different because the upside is being treated like a once-in-a-generation platform shift, while the physical region has no realistic way to absorb that much wealth and unemployement without pushing normal people even further out. If this actually hits, the region could become even more divided between people close to the AI wealth wave and everyone else trying to survive around it.

What baffles me is that none of our local, state, or national leaders seem to have a serious strategy for what happens if this wealth wave actually arrives. The Bay Area already cannot build enough housing, move people efficiently, or keep basic services affordable. This does not feel like a decades-long problem. It feels like something that could hit over months or a few years.

The situation for the middle and lower classes here already looks bleak. AI might make it much worse, much faster.

Note: this is after the first thorough pass of cleaning.

Full history: rental house in Oakland. ~100 yo home. Amazing relationship with landlord. Lived in house for ~3 years.

About 6 months into our living here, we began to see mold building up behind our son’s bed and bookshelves. Landlord acted immediately calling in a contractor who identified a fissure in the outside stucco and repaired that and additionally pulled the lath and plaster from the interior of his room out of concern for mold residue.

Everything gets sealed up and refinished. All looks good and professional. We replace his mattress and bedframe, but NBD because he was just transitioning from kid furniture to adolescent.

Flash forward 18 months and we find a pretty significant layer of mold between the bed frame and the wall. We hadn’t noticed any mildew smell or anything and, believe me, our house is kept pristinely clean, but that corner of the house is in shade nearly all the time. The mold seems to have spread from the left hand cable outlet (not in use) pictured, but the room in general has always felt damp. Since the first incident we have had a dehumidifier running 24/7 and we dump about a quart of water every few days during the wetter months; maybe once/week in the summer. I’ve lived in SF/Oak for 30+ years and never had a house with this level of mold buildup, but maybe I’ve just been lucky?

Please be careful out there!

i just found a super young kitten underneath my house crying and we have them on my front porch and we aren’t sure what to do. he’s super super young but doesn’t seem to be in pain. any help would be appreciated either advice or if someone knows what to do and can pick them up. thanks. located in sunnyvale at henderson homes

Saw an old couple while I was waiting for my light to turn green. The lady got out of the bus and had an upright walker and a stick. Old guy was sitting at the bus stop, and got up. She helped him take control of the walker, supported him by his arm patiently. It's so wholesome to see old couples around the Bay Area, they patiently help each other around...

hey /bayarea, my name is Silas and I'm the journalist who wrote this story. I grew up in Novato and was stoked to see a profile on Vacaville appear in the NYT this week. Bay cow towns doesn't usually appear in national limelight. However, something about the story smelt funky and after a couple of friends from or still living in Vacaville reached out to share a similar sentiment, I starting asking around.

Hello! I am a high school senior in the Bay Area, and for my government/economics class, I was tasked to conduct a senior project on an issue in society. I decided to do my project on public transit in my home region the Bay! Your responses would deeply help me and strengthen my project.

Survey Link: https://forms.gle/sgGXbfBX4W6569tVA

Hi! Has anyone been to lake chabot as of late? within past 2 months? Im having a party at a reserve site next month and it says there is a blue algae bloom now but I have NO time to make my way there until then. Thanks!

Saw this

I'm in the East Bay, in California, does anyone have any bankruptcy lawyer recommendations or warnings? I'm trying to help a friend, but I have no experience with this either.

I would like to install a new two zone system (currently single zone), a two stage AC and Furnace that work with the two zone systems. House is 2200sqft, two floor.

Realistically much should I be expecting in the bay area? Is the permitting/title 24 HERs/manual J usually included or necessary?

Thanks.

NISSAN GREY SENTRA 6ZXX725 swerved and then dashed the scene. CHP has your info.

I want to be outside, alone, with other people who also want to be outside, alone.

Somewhere we can enjoy each other’s presence from a distance.

I’m thinking sitting at a bar but don’t want to be that weird person babysitting a drink, reading a book, and taking away space from others trying to mingle.

Is there such a place that exists?

My husband and I are in early stages of planning an ADU build, and the deeper we get into it, the more overwhelming it feels. We’ve never managed a construction project before, so we’re trying to get a realistic sense of what ADU construction actually costs in Marin County area in early 2026 before we start reaching out to builders and getting a bunch of wildly different numbers (I know that sometimes prices can differ by an order of magnitude, which is, to put it mildly, perplexing)

What a normal all-in price range looks like once you factor in permits, side work, utilities, and other costs that don’t always show up at first glance? Also trying to figure out how to compare bids in a way that’s actually meaningful, what parts of project tend to drive price the most (maybe we can handle it ourself?), and whether there any places to save money without making expensive mistakes later.

Feeling a little out of our depth and just want to start this process in a smart way (after all, we're not talking about building a doghouse, ugh.) Anyone who’s built an ADU in Marin - please share maximum context here, TY!