• An estimate of Americans living in New Zealand has more than doubled since 2022, from 1,479 to 4,264.
• Four former Californians relocated to New Zealand for safety and a calm atmosphere.
• “In LA there was a lot of tension. Here it just felt like it was a more relaxed attitude,” one said.

Garvey Daniels first moved to Auckland, New Zealand, in 1996 for a job at a newly opened casino.

“I fell madly in love with the country and started the immigration process within two days,” Daniels, 55, told Insider.

He moved back to his home base of Irvine, California, in 2003 but always hoped to return to New Zealand. In June 2022, he got his chance. 

Daniels — now joined by his wife and two children, 14 and 13 — put almost everything his family owned in California into a storage unit. They brought two suitcases each to Auckland, New Zealand, for a one-year trial run. A year later, they’ve decided to stay for longer.

“It’s a magical country,” Daniels said. “There’s something about it. When I landed, I just felt this calm, like, ‘I’m home.'”

A photo taken from Daniels’ front porch. Garvey Daniels

Daniels and his family are a few of the growing number of Americans trading life in the US for life down under. Provisional migrant arrivals from the US to New Zealand jumped from 1,479 in 2022 to 4,264 in 2023, according to a dataset provided by Stats NZ, New Zealand’s official data agency.

Overall, New Zealand’s population has increased steadily for decades and has an estimated population of 5.2 million as of March 2023, according to Stats NZ. The island country to the east of Australia has a surface area similar to Colorado, but fewer people than Colorado’s 5.8 million.

Others following the same path as Daniels have found safety, friendliness, and natural beauty in New Zealand. Four Americans who moved to New Zealand told Insider their reasons for departing the US.

New Zealand’s beauty made him want to come back, but the safety made him stay

New Zealand had been in the back of Daniels’ mind since leaving in 2003, but it took some convincing to get his family on board.

“I knew I wanted to come back, but my wife and my kids had never stepped foot in New Zealand — they knew nothing about it except my stories,” Daniels said. “It was a little bit more of a challenge for them to say yes, but they love the idea of the adventure and trying something new.”

Daniels enjoying a nearby beach with his family. Garvey Daniels

Daniels and his family decided to stay at least until his kids finish high school. The initial reason for returning to New Zealand was simply Daniels’ admiration for the country, but since he’s now there with his family, he’s discovered other reasons to love New Zealand, like its safety.

“My kids just get to go and have an education,” he said. “They can walk to the dairy with their friends and if they decide they want to  go eat ice cream on the beach and they’re not home right away, I don’t go into a mad panic.”

“It doesn’t seem to be as fraught with the kind of anxiety that you have back in, for us, California,” Daniels said.

A Los Angeles resident visited for 20 years before making his move more permanent 

Jon Kroll lived in Los Angeles for 35 years and visited New Zealand on and off for 20 years as a break from the congestion of Los Angeles. He didn’t make the move full-time until December 2022, when he came with his partner. 

“We just liked the vibe, we liked the people, we liked the environment, and we felt like we could breathe here,” Kroll told Insider. “In LA there was a lot of tension. There’s traffic and everyone’s always working. Here it just felt like it was a more relaxed attitude.”

Kroll visited New Zealand for vacations for 20 years. WellingtonNZ

Kroll, who’s in his 60s, moved to Wellington — the capital of New Zealand at the southern end of the North Island, nearly 400 miles from Auckland — into a 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom home. He downsized from his four-bedroom home in Los Angeles.

Kroll owns his home. The average cost of a home in Wellington was 1.02 million New Zealand dollars in July, or $607,338, according to CoreLogic NZ. 

New Zealand is often regarded for its scenic landscapes, and Kroll takes full advantage of that.

“You can go 10 minutes in any direction and there’s an amazing hike to go on with my dogs,” he said. “There’s so much natural beauty everywhere.”

Kroll also pointed out that the charm expands beyond the landscape, to the Kiwis — or locals.

“Just last week I bought a bookcase and was trying to load it into my car and this stranger said, ‘Do you need a hand?,'” Kroll said. “He helped me load this bookcase in, and I’ve never had anything like that happen before. It was just such a cool thing.”

He added, “And that’s just normal. I think it’s an overwhelming feeling that people help each other here, and I think that’s really nice.”

The slower pace in rural New Zealand helped this tech worker enjoy more time with family

Heather Gadonniex left the San Francisco Bay Area and went on what was supposed to be a quick vacation to New Zealand in March 2020. Accompanied by her husband, who is originally from New Zealand, and 1-year-old son, they ended up hunkering down with family for the duration of the pandemic-related lockdowns. 

“We had a suitcase full of clothes and a suitcase full of wine. We trade wine back and forth, being from Northern California,” Gadonniex told Insider. “Six months turned into eight months, and we were still there.”

Gadonniex, 42, settled in Matakana, New Zealand, a small town about 42 miles outside of Auckland, and lives in an intergenerational home with her husband, now two children, and her father-in-law.

Gadonniex moved to Matakana, New Zealand during the start of the pandemic in 2020. Heather Gadonniex

Matakana is more rural than Oakland, where she lived before moving, and while Gadonniex does miss the innovation and hustle and bustle in the Bay Area, she’s enjoyed the change of pace.

“We live a very different existence,” she said. “It’s really an idyllic place. We’re five minutes from the beaches, it’s really safe, my kids go to a school down the road that’s surrounded by cows.”

Gadonniex is an executive at a venture-capital firm in Auckland and still enjoys the fast pace of the tech industry, but now enjoys the balance between work and time with family that New Zealand has allowed her to practice.

“The ability to have more balance is something that I don’t think I realized how much I needed, but now that I have it, I think I’d be pretty hard pressed to give that up,” she said. “I just don’t know how I would’ve done that in San Francisco.”

Wellington, New Zealand, provides the small-town feel his family was looking for

Native Wyomingite Ryan Rogers departed for New Zealand more than a decade ago for work. 

Rogers, 43, mulled over cities like London, San Francisco, and Vancouver, but ended up picking the furthest option.

“At the time I didn’t honestly know a great deal about New Zealand, but it just seemed to me like it was this interesting place that was different from all the others,” Rogers told Insider. 

Rogers worked in the film industry — specifically special effects — and explained that New Zealand was an attractive market in that space at the time.

Rogers moved to New Zealand more than a decade ago. WellingtonNZ

Rogers has grown to love the small-town feel that Wellington, which had a population of 202,737 in 2018, the most recent Census estimate, is able to offer.

“I do miss some of the nightlife in Los Angeles — nightlife in Los Angeles is just off the charts, so it’s hard to compare to that — but my favorite thing here by far is that it’s a great place to raise a family.”

Rogers has two children, one that was born in the US and the other that was born in New Zealand. Raising his family in Wellington has been a great experience for him because the community is tightly knit, and he knows everybody.

“I know all of my neighbors, and it feels like how things were in the ’80s when I was growing up in a small town in Wyoming,” he said. “It just has that small-town vibe yet it is a big city.”

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Despite its reputation as a sanctuary for queer people, San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community is grappling with unequal access to services for the transgender community — particularly for trans men, who use city health services far less than trans women.

The lack of services is no secret: The Department of Public Health’s most recent Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity report concluded that LGBTQ+ individuals often went underserved, despite programs geared towards the queer community across the city. 

City data reveals an apparent disparity in service utilization between transgender men and women. Although their numbers are roughly equal, trans men in San Francisco are less likely to seek city medical services compared to trans women. The report shows that trans men access primary and specialized healthcare services, as well as city hospitals, like San Francisco General and Laguna Honda, less frequently.

This report, covering 2019 to 2020, predates Covid-19 but advocates assert that the lingering inequalities persist to this day.

“I’ve been to several doctors that are supposed to be gender-affirming and providing trans services, but when I get into the clinic, I’m being deadnamed and disrespected,” said Xavier Davenport, a transgender man and founder of Pyramid Kings – an organization primarily serving Black transgender or intersex masculine individuals. 

“Some trans men have babies, periods and need access to Plan B, nobody thinks about these things,” said Davenport who added that some doctors will tell trans-men to take a pill and do a PrEP system that isn’t designed for their bodies, referencing the HIV prophylactic. 

Percentages of patients by gender identity accessing DPH services. Taken from the city’s 2020-2021 Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity report.

So widespread is the ignorance, the report concludes, that LGBTQ “people may deliberately avoid care settings” and “Transgender people have an added burden.” 

While the transgender community in the city is relatively small — estimated at less than 2,000 people, with slightly more transwomen than men — the 2022 point-in-time homeless count revealed that trans people were about 18 times more likely than the general population to experience homelessness.

“Services are not one-size-fits-all,” said Honey Mahogany, a trans woman who cofounded the city’s Transgender District and placed second last year in the District 6 supervisor’s race. 

According to Mahogany and others, the lack of transgender services can be traced to the historical emphasis on catering primarily to white, gay men within LGBTQ+ services.

“All four queer representatives of San Francisco are white, gay men. There are no lesbians, no trans folks, and no people of color. That speaks clearly for LGBT services in the community,” Mahogany said. 

The medical system needs to be better, Davenport added. At present, “You don’t feel like you belong, and you don’t want to be there and get the help you need.” 

Housing challenges

Julia Arroyo, co-executive director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center, recalled the housing struggles of Banko Brown, a homeless, Black transgender man who was shot and killed on April 27, 2023, by a Walgreens security guard. “One of the things Banko said early on was that ‘I don’t feel safe in a lot of places. People try to put me into cis female, or male housing. I don’t feel safe in any of them.”

Davenport said that Brown’s situation was not unique, adding that many homeless transmasculine folks choose not to access shelters because “they know they won’t receive the necessary support.” Instead, many — Brown included — seek unstable housing arrangements with others.

Even the LGBTQ+ services that cater to one group can be heavily skewed toward making one gender more comfortable. 
Eli Berry St. John, the communications director at the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project, said that existing housing programs for Black feminine-presenting transgender or intersex folks have evolved to include trans-men.

Still, Berry St. John said, masculine-presenting trans individuals entering the space come in “with an understanding that the space was initially catered toward women.”

But even with some specialized services, advocates say there are too-few shelters that exclusively cater to transgender individuals.

Limited eligibility

For some city services, eligibility criteria can exacerbate hardship for trans individuals.

Kazani Kalani Finao, co-founder of the Banko coalition, cites Transitional Age Youth Housing services as one such example.

Transitional housing specifically aids young adults moving from public systems like foster care. While these services can sometimes be extended beyond 18 to 24-year-olds up to age 27, problems arise when individuals age out of the program. 

“These people are left with having to start back at zero,” Kalani Finao described. For trans individuals, such restrictions in program eligibility can especially exacerbate the cycles of housing instability and homelessness, despite the interventions provided by the programs.

Such implicit qualifications many times also complicate access for trans and intersex individuals who prefer to keep their transgender identity private — as access is often conditional on visibility. 

Difficulty accessing services for Black, masculine-presenting trans folk

City services can be particularly challenging to access for Black, masculine-presenting trans or intersex individuals who are often underrepresented and struggle with limited support. 

Kalani Finao said: “I don’t believe trans-masculine folks, particularly those who are Black and Brown, are prioritized or seen as well.”

Leaders agreed that societal conceptions of masculinity factor into the lack of services and spaces for Black, masculine-presenting trans folks. 

“Many people have an ‘Oh, you’re a man, be tough’ attitude,” said Davenport.

Associations of masculinity with toughness and a lack of expressed emotional vulnerability and struggle, said Berry St. John, can lead to “this assumption that there’s not as much need for services for Black trans men, but that’s not true. There’s a big need for reproductive services, mental health services, addressing high rates of mental and physical illness.”

More awareness — and funding — needed

Arroyo said that the city would benefit from redesigning systems and existing programs to provide appropriate, specific, and inclusive support for masculine trans individuals. This involves creating more tailored services, more transitional and long-term housing, as well as “more access to housing based on their own self-determination.”

Additionally, Arroyo said, the city could invest in more long-term universal-based income programs for transgender individuals to provide more economic and housing stability and autonomy.

Mahogany, for her part, agreed, saying a lack of funding causes “programs to be stretched too thin, providers to be unable to see as many clients as they should, long waitlists, and a reduction in the quality of care provided.”

Both Mahogany and Berry St. John emphasized that non-trans individuals need not wait for the city to better its services: They pointed to organizations like Showing Up for Racial Justice, which partners with trans organizations and involves white people in racial justice fights, as one example of a group of individuals using racial and economic privilege to advocate for others.

“It’s important to take the time to invest in these organizations that are doing the work and listen to what they have to say,” said Mahogany. 

Adds Berry St. John: “It starts small, it starts at home, starts with talking to your family. Organize your home, your mom, your cousins, your uncle. Get your people together. That’s how people can show up.”

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Queen’s chimney sweep reveals how ‘incredibly knowledgeable’ monarch always spoke to people who worked for her about their jobs and made them feel ‘very important’

By Chris Matthews For Mailonline

Published: 08:05 GMT, 19 September 2022 | updated: 10:00 GMT, 19 September 2022

The Queen’s chimney sweeps have revealed how the monarch would make them feel ‘important’ when they worked in her homes including Buckingham Palace.

Kevin Giddings, 61, and his team from Milborrow Chimney Sweeps have looked after the chimneys and fires at royal homes including Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, St James’ Palace and Kensington Palace since 2002.

Speaking to The Argus, his wife Katie recalled how the ‘knowledgeable’ late monarch spoke to her husband about his work and made everyone around her ‘feel important’.

Kevin Giddings (pictured) has looked after chimneys at royal homes including Buckingham Palace for more than 20 years

Mr Giddings was given a royal warrant in 2002 by Her Majesty The Queen, who passed away peacefully at Balmoral Castle in Scotland aged 96, on September 8

The chimney sweep was presented to the Queen six times and also met the then-Prince Charles and the late Duke of Edinburgh.

He also bumped into Her Majesty when he was cleaning her palaces and his wife Katie revealed the Queen made him feel important through a series of small gestures.

‘On one occasion there was a function, we were at Buckingham Palace and the Queen indicated to my husband and said, “It’s my chimney sweep”,’ she told The Argus.

‘She was an incredibly knowledgeable lady who even spoke to the chimney sweep about his work and made him feel very important.’

The Giddings family thinks King Charles III will be an excellent monarch and wished him all the best. Pictured: Charles III in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace today

She added that her husband was ‘honoured and thrilled’ that the late monarch recognized him.

Buckingham Palace has around 300 chimneys and although they are not all used, cleaning is needed to ensure proper ventilation.

Hampton Court Palace’s kitchen chimney is one of the toughest to sweep because of its sheer size, which means sweeps have to climb up the inside the shaft.

The chimney at the former residence of Henry VIII is often exceptionally sooty, and is 48 feet high and more than 20 across.

In 2002, the business was given a royal warrant by the Queen. Whether or not Mr Giddings and his team retain the warrant will be up to King Charles III.

Katie added the family thinks King Charles III will be an excellent monarch and wished him all the best for his reign.

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By Kevin Dotson, CNN

San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler told reporters ahead of his team’s Friday game against the Cincinnati Reds that he intends to forgo the pregame US national anthem moving forward.

Speaking in the dugout of the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Ohio, Kapler said, “I don’t plan on coming out for the anthem going forward until I feel better about the direction of our country.”

The 2021 National League Manager of the Year’s comments were accompanied by a written statement on his website sharing his thoughts after 19 children and two adults were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, by a lone, 18-year-old gunman.

In a blog post, Kapler questioned whether the country’s leadership is committed to representing its people’s best interests and whether the United States is truly “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Live Updates: 21 killed in Texas school massacre

“We weren’t given bravery, and we aren’t free. The police on the scene put a mother in handcuffs as she begged them to go in and save her children. They blocked parents trying to organize to charge in to stop the shooter, including a father who learned his daughter was murdered while he argued with the cops. We aren’t free when politicians decide that the lobbyist and gun industries are more important than our children’s freedom to go to school without needing bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills,” Kapler wrote.

Later, Kapler wrote about his disillusionment with what he called “the lack of delivery of the promise of what our national anthem represents.”

“I am not okay with the state of this country. I wish I hadn’t let my discomfort compromise my integrity. I wish that I could have demonstrated what I learned from my dad, that when you’re dissatisfied with your country, you let it be known through protest. The home of the brave should encourage this.”

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr made an impassioned plea to take stronger action against gun violence in the United States.

Kerr refused to speak about basketball ahead of Game 4 of the Warriors’ series against the Dallas Mavericks, instead raising his voice as he railed against gun violence in the wake of Tuesday’s shooting.

“In the last 10 days, we’ve had elderly Black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, we’ve had Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California, now we have children murdered at school,” Kerr told reporters at the start of the press conference.

“When are we going to do something? I’m tired. I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there… I’m tired of the moments of silence. Enough.”

The CNN Wire
& © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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Coronavirus cases are dropping and the state’s unemployment rate is on the decline, but most California voters still say the Golden State is headed in the wrong direction, with high gasoline prices, low housing affordability and persistent homelessness cited as the biggest challenges.

In a new survey on some of the most prominent economic topics, nearly 6 in 10 voters said the state is on the wrong track and more than 70% rated high gasoline prices as a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem. The survey of registered voters by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

“Californians are giving a negative rating of the direction of the state,” said Mark Di Camillo, director of the Berkeley Institute’s poll. “That coincides with how voters are viewing their personal financial situation.”

In response to the pain at the pump, voters said they are likely to cut back on driving.

Few, however, said they expected to switch to public transit. Only 25% said they were likely to take buses or trains more often.

By contrast, 7 in 10 said they were likely to drive less around town or cancel vacations or weekend road trips because of the high prices.

The pain of high gasoline prices, which last month reached a statewide average of $5.73 a gallon — up $1.79 from a year ago, is felt most keenly by lower-income Californians, Black and Latino residents and those under 30, according to the survey.

Among California voters earning less than $40,000 a year, 81% said gasoline prices were a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem. At the other end of the income scale, 57% of those earning more than $200,000 said the prices were not a serious problem.

Gasoline prices were described as a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem by 79% of Black voters, 85% of Latino voters and 75% of voters under 30, according to the survey.

Lorena Mendez, an airline catering company worker at Los Angeles International Airport, struggles weekly deciding how to fill her tank and buy groceries, among other household expenses. She bought a house in Bakersfield because housing is more affordable there, but her commute to LAX is two hours in each direction. On some days, rather than driving home she stays with her mother, who lives closer to her job, to save on gas.

“Everything has gotten more expensive, gas and groceries,” she said in Spanish. “It’s hard to figure out which bill to pay first.”

Until recently, Mendez said, she earned about $22 an hour, but her bosses have cut her pay to about $18 an hour. She hopes to work extra hours to make up for the pay cut.

“I was barely able to pay my bills, and now with everything getting more expensive, it’s a struggle,” she said.

For many workers like Mendez who have long commutes, public transit is not a viable option. The poll asked voters who said they were not likely to take transit more often to choose up to two main reasons. Among the most common responses were that buses or trains were not convenient either to their destinations (45%) or their homes (35%), that transit takes longer than driving (39%) or that service isn’t frequent enough (20% ).

A significant number said they don’t feel safe waiting for or riding on a bus or train (34%) or that they worry about catching COVID-19 or some other illness (16%). Safety concerns were more common in Los Angeles and Orange counties than in the San Francisco Bay Area or San Diego. Few voters — 3% statewide — said transit costs too much.

In 2016, Los Angeles County voters showed just how frustrated they were with traffic. They approved a half-cent sales tax that will pump out $120 billion over four decades to further build out a massive rail system that can carry commuters from the foothills to the sea and to make highway improvements.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has already spent $9.2 billion in the last 10 years on transit projects, including a yet-to-open light rail line running from the Mid-City area to the South Bay, a regional connector line and an extension of a line that connects the Westside to downtown LA The agency projects it will spend an additional $30 billion on rail in the coming decade and will over the next few decades double the length of its interconnected rail system in the hope that it will lure more commuters across the region .

Academics said voter reluctance about riding transit in response to gas prices was not surprising.

“While gas prices have gone up, most roads and parking continue to be free and plentiful, incentivizing their use,” said Jacob Lawrence Wasserman, research project manager at UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies. “And, with transit not given the priority and service to get Angelenos to many destinations reliably, many are left stomaching higher gas prices instead.”

At the same time, by 56% to 35%, voters supported the state’s effort to build a high-speed rail system between Los Angeles and San Francisco that is already expected to be more than three times the original cost estimated when voters approved funding in 2008

Registered Democrats favored the project 73% to 18%, but Republicans opposed it 66% to 25%. Nonpartisan voters supported the project 55% to 35%.

The glum attitude about the state’s direction was shared, to varying degrees, by California voters of nearly every age group, ethnicity and political stripe. Just over half of Democrats said the state is headed in the wrong direction, and 93% of Republicans agreed with that gloomy assessment.

Only 21% of voters said they were financially better off than they were a year ago, 42% said they were worse off and 34% said there had been no change.

The survey showed voters are pessimistic about the future: Only 21% predicted they will be better off financially in a year, 30% said they would be worse off, and 44% expected no change in their financial situation.

The poll found that voters now rank the coronavirus near the bottom of a list of 15 challenges facing the state, far behind problems such as housing affordability, homelessness, crime, gas prices and climate change.

Over the past week, the state has averaged 2,824 new coronavirus cases, a decrease of 29.9% compared with two weeks ago. The country also seems to be rebounding from the financial blow of the pandemic: The nation’s unemployment rate has dropped to 3.6%, down from a high of 14.7% in April 2020. In California, the unemployment rate is 5.4%, down from 16.1% in May 2020.

But unemployment rates don’t always tell the full story, said Henry Gascon, program and policy development director at the United Ways of California. His group released a study that concluded that as many as 3.5 million households in California — or 33%— are struggling to meet basic needs, including 1.1 million households in Los Angeles County. The problem, he said, is that many workers are employed seasonally in the manufacturing or retail industries.

“It’s not how many people are employed; it’s how well people are employed,” Gascon said.

The high costs of housing, child care and healthcare are also big factors in why so many Californians with full-time jobs are unable to make ends meet, he said.

Rising costs have hurt President Biden politically, even in heavily Democratic California. The poll found that 60% of state voters said they disapproved of the job Biden is doing dealing with inflation, which reached 8.5% in March. Increases in the prices of gasoline, housing and food were the largest contributors to inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The newest poll did not ask voters to weigh in on the job performance of Gov. Gavin Newsom, but the previous Institute of Governmental Studies survey, in February, found that 48% of the state’s voters approved of the governor’s performance overall, and 47% disapproved. That was a significant drop in support from a survey in September 2020, when Newsom received a 64% approval rating from the state’s voters.

The Institute of Governmental Studies poll surveyed 8,676 California registered voters March 29 to April 5. The poll was administered online in English and Spanish. The estimated sampling error is plus or minus 2 percentage points. Full question wording and topline results are available on the institute’s website.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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In answer to the Chronicle reader survey on housing: What I hear from many of my neighbors when it comes to adding “affordable” housing in our Portola neighborhood is fear … fear of the other. The “other” being a recently homeless family or a family of color.

I’m in support of building more housing in San Francisco. And especially housing that service people who work here can afford.

How can we do that? The time is now to answer that question. I hope to see new apartment buildings in the Portola before the end of the decade.

Keith Ferris, San Francisco

Neighbors matter most

I consider myself strongly pro-housing. I don’t see a way to increase housing affordability in the Bay Area without increasing the supply (in San Francisco and in surrounding communities). This may include both luxury and below-market housing; I don’t think we will build enough just by relying on the city/state.

As far as neighborhood character is concerned, the most important thing to me is walkability and general liveliness of the streets. I don’t consider building architecture to be nearly as important — a neighborhood is its people, and that should include diversity of income, race, family structure, etc.

I would rather live next to an ugly new building that families can afford than all expensive Victorians that house only the wealthy or retired people who bought their places 40 years ago.

Gretchen Ehrenkaufer, San Francisco

We need a healthy mix

I am a 21-year San Francisco resident, having migrated here from the East Coast. My husband and I own a flat in a two-unit condo building in the Inner Richmond, on a block that includes single-family, two-unit and multi-unit buildings. Our block is a prime example of how housing of all different types can work well together to form a vibrant and cohesive neighborhood.

Without more luxury housing, people in the market for high-end housing will just buy more lower-end housing — displacing people who otherwise could afford it — and spend hundreds of thousands fixing it up. We see that every day in our neighborhood. And the people selling their property take the considerable profits and move out of San Francisco permanently. This is sad and unfortunate.

“Neighborhood Character” is people. I believe we are at our best in neighborhoods where people of different backgrounds — financial, ethnic, cultural, racial — can live and learn from each other.

I consider myself “progressive” on housing. The most important housing issue to me is additional housing of all types, from luxury to below market. But San Francisco also needs to build much better public transportation, particularly on the west side, to accommodate additional people and cut down on car traffic.

Can San Francisco remain the city so many love if it changes its cityscape to make room for newcomers? Of course. Cities must always evolve or they die. San Francisco has plenty of room for greater density all over. But in what other city can just about every resident find a beautiful park within a 10-minute walk? Or world-class sporting events, museums, restaurants, farmers’ markets, performing arts and outdoor spaces?

I would not want to live anywhere else in the world.

Carol Brewer, San Francisco

Affordable housing key

I have worked in real estate development in San Francisco and the other core Bay Area counties for over 20 years. And I am progressive with respect to the need to build more housing.

The most important need is affordable housing. “Affordability” and market-rate housing don’t fit together in San Francisco, as construction costs are so high that a market-rate developer can only develop for the highest rents or sales prices on the market. Thus, in San Francisco, it will only be possible to provide affordable housing built by true affordable housing developers who have access to capital sources specific to these types of buildings.

I also believe that affordable housing should be spread throughout different neighborhoods, subject to having good availability to transit. Those living in affordable housing developments are typically those that work in-person jobs. Also, housing can be built much more affordably when in-building parking is minimized, making transit near housing imperative.

How can a city love itself if only people who make $200,000 or more can live here? The city does not just belong to the wealthy.

Vickie Nyland, San Francisco

City can get even better

Neighborhood character is a more politically acceptable way of saying keep it the way it is, and keep those “other people” out, maintaining a lack of diversity.

There is a great need for housing at all income levels. New market-rate housing, with all of the demands made for approvals, is necessarily expensive. More new housing being built will mitigate the demand for existing units being converted to luxury housing. San Francisco today (or at least in 2019 pre-pandemic) is the best it has ever been. And I expect it to get even better.

As I grow older over the next 20 years, I expect that living in a three-story house will become more of a challenge. When I reach that point, I hope to move to an elevator building located within or near my neighborhood.

A final thought: I live in ZIP code 94114, recently reported as one of the most affluent in the country. I would like to see more diversity.

Alan Marling, San Francisco

Stop calling it ‘luxury’

As the former executive director of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, I’d like to throw in my two cents’ worth. I object to using the term “luxury housing” as a catchall when describing new housing production. It’s inflammatory and does little to illuminate the debate around our housing affordability crisis.

I suspect little of San Francisco’s paltry current production is actually luxury housing, which generally includes amenities like sweeping views, concierges, fancy fitness rooms, etc. It is also limited to certain neighborhoods. There is no luxury housing being built in the Tenderloin, Sunset, Western Addition, Bayview and many other city neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, for a variety of complex reasons, ALL new multifamily housing in San Francisco is really expensive to build. The culprits are stratospheric costs for scarce skilled labor and building materials, high land costs, expensive and lengthy process and permitting costs, and the very high taxes and fees we put on new market-rate housing to subsidize “affordable housing.” A modest 30-unit building in the Richmond District with smallish unit sizes, no views or amenities, and limited parking generally faces the same obstacles as a 30-story glass and steel tower on the waterfront.

The problem with calling all new housing “luxury” is that most of it simply is not. In public debates, what we call things matters. No matter how it’s approached, solving our housing crisis demands that we dramatically increase housing production in all of our neighborhoods. Using false arguments to oppose this should not be accepted. Besides, it’s perverse that folks who live in neighborhoods where homes run for $1.5 million (San Francisco’s median sale price) or more should be taken seriously when they oppose new housing on the grounds that it is too expensive.

Tim Colen, San Francisco

Some context needed

I grew up and lived most of my life in the Minneapolis metropolitan area. For the past 12 years or so, since my retirement, I have lived in San Francisco. As a rule of thumb, housing in the Minneapolis metropolitan area costs about 20% what it costs in San Francisco.

San Francisco is a major international city. However, many residents still want it to be the funky small town of the 1950s. To solve the housing problem, people here must first accept the fact that change is inevitable.

San Francisco just needs to build more housing! All types of housing!

There is plenty of land available to build. Affordable housing, middle-class housing and, yes, housing for the wealthy. There is nothing wrong with building high-end condos for the wealthy billionaires from around the world who would like to live in San Francisco. Their condos pay real estate taxes and are only occupied a fraction of the time.

San Francisco needs to embrace the fact that it is a dynamic, diverse, exciting international city.

Bill Drake, San Francisco

A gathering of ideas

When we speak about urban design in the profession, and as students, there are many movements. From prefabrication to cohab housing, the village and assembly line manufacturing, urban renewal/slum clearing, placemaking, urban transportation, visual aesthetics of large and small, parks and streets, neighborhoods, living communities, market spaces, and squares.

It’s historic. Yet it evolves with history, culture and community.

We have to constantly be asking those questions of our community. What could we be? Where do we want to be?

We have the creativity and knowledge right here San Francisco. Let’s do something right and have a charette in front of City Hall to do some serious planning ideas and invite the community!

April Rosenlund Ford, San Francisco

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Ok so I’m going to initiate this by saying that I’ve moved a lot in my life.

Everywhere I seem to have gone in my adult life, they have the same questions and feelings that they ask about a certain thing.

Why do Californians keep moving to our state and how do we get to stop it?

Let me just say this. I lived in the Bay Area for about 2 1/2 years. I loved it there. Honestly, I would go back there if it wasn’t that expensive. Well, before you get upset and say things like, “Fine, go back. Texas doesn’t want you here” or anything, give me a chance to discuss this with you.

In my life I have lived in Iowa, Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, California, back to Colorado, Oklahoma, a third term in Colorado and now Texas. To say that I’ve seen some very different states and cultures is an understatement.

Every state has its “vibe” per se. Sometimes the mood in one state doesn’t suit the person, so they go somewhere else. Sometimes they are transferred or move to a state for a job. The latter describes my life.

As a child, my father was moved anywhere to repair troubled sales departments in his company. He would turn it over and go to the next place to fix it. I hated it as a kid, but I’ll tell you that. I accept very different cultures and vibes and have a little bit of each of the states I’ve lived in as part of my personality.

Californians aren’t that bad. Yes, they have a slightly different personality, especially these locals or someone who has lived there for more than 10 years. It also depends on what part of California they lived in. There are VERY different sectors in California, similar to Texas. For example, a person from Dallas is very different from one from Amarillo, wouldn’t you agree?

In theory, you could compare someone from Los Angeles to someone from Dallas, or someone from San Francisco to someone from Austin. Big cities all have similarities, and so do the types of people who live in them. However, California is getting a bad shell for me for some reason.

The main criticism of the Californians is their driving style. They “drive too fast” or “are assholes” on the road. Well, I’d hate to tell you, but Texas doesn’t have the best drivers either. Come on admit it. Texans are guilty of these things too, but for some reason the comment “must be from California” gets into the conversation.

I’ve also seen a lot of discussions about politics as to why Californians don’t seem welcome here. Many people think that Californians on this spectrum don’t match the majority of Texas, but is it really that bad? Diversity is what we want across the country. A different perspective from the outside is not necessarily bad.

Most of the California people I’ve met here aren’t all that bad. I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t fit into life in Texas the way I could.

Oh, and why I would be moving back to the Bay Area so soon? Yes, it has to do with my sports teams. I’m a die-hard fan of the Giants and 49ers, and I claim the Sharks as my hockey team. I am very excited to have 3 of my 4 favorite teams in the same area where I can see them play in person. I bet you didn’t see THAT as a reason to go back, did you?

It’s your turn. Do you think it’s cool when Californians move in? Or would you prefer to stay or go somewhere else? Let me know below

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The post How Do You Really feel About Californians Transferring Right here? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The daily beast

The strange new twist in the case of 4-year-old Cash Gernon

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos by Dallas County Police DepartmentDALLAS – After the kidnapping and murder of 4-year-old Cash Gernon in Dallas last week, neighbor Jose Alvarado checked his surveillance cameras for footage that could help investigators. What he found The video is from 10 weeks before the little Cash died of stab wounds on the floor. But it shows the teen accused of kidnapping him, Darriynn Brown, walking down the street, opening Alvarado’s back gate and peering in before quickly walking away. “It’s really scary,” Alvarado told The Daily Beast. “I have two kids, a girl and a boy, and they play basketball in the backyard.” Alvarado’s house shares a back alley with the home of Monica Sherrod, 35, who looked after Cash and his twin Carter. She said she was with the twins’ father, Trevor Gernon, a 31-year-old construction worker, until he reportedly left town in March when a court ordered him to go to rehab for the next two months – without the knowledge of her mother, Melinda Seagroves, who lives in Houston. Early on the morning of May 15, a young man sneaked into the twins’ bedroom, got some sleeping money from the toddler bed he shared with Carter and went out – a terrifying scene captured by a baby monitor in grainy black and white. Footage obtained from the Daily Mail shows the intruder returning about two hours later and hovering over the bed where Carter slept before leaving abruptly as if scared by something. By then, Cash was dead. Antainain Square, a Dallas teacher who lives in the area, was out on her morning walk around 6:45 am when she saw tufts of hair on the floor. The thought belonged to a dog. “I spoke to my mother on the phone.” Square told The Daily Beast. “As I got closer I could see an arm and a foot and I just started crying and said, ‘Mom, I think I’m coming on a body. ‘And I started:’ Mom, it’s a kid! It is a child! ‘And the baby had blood all over her face. At that point my mom told me to hang up with her and call 911 right away … The baby had ants on its feet. So I knew pretty well that he was gone. “4 year old Slain’s father in Dallas apologizes for leaving KidsSquare. She remembers that she was “in denial” and hoped that Cash was actually just asleep, even though he was obviously dead. “I was just trying to put all kinds of stories together. I had no way of believing anyone would do this to a child, “she said, adding that she stayed with Cash’s body until the police and paramedics arrived so no one would drive over him.” A couple who left out of their garage I had to stop her to let her know this baby was on the floor, ”Square said. More than three hours later, Sherrod reported that Cash was missing. “I got up late the day he went missing and thought it was weird,” Sherrod later told the Daily Mail. “I said, ‘It’s already ten o’clock, guys.’ So I thought Cash was still in bed. ”Cash Gernon was kidnapped from his bed on May 15. Handout Later that day, police arrested 18-year-old Brown, who lives with his parents about half a mile from the spot , on Cash’s body, was found on charges of kidnapping and burglary, but not murder, because police said they were awaiting forensic tests, and instead of bailing him for $ 1.5 million, Brown couldn’t for comment and has no lawyer on court records. His mother, Mimi, has told reporters she believes her son is being framed. A jumble of relationships, criminal records, and an unknown motive hangs over the case. Sherrod, who Mother of several children, has a criminal record that includes assault and DWI.Trevor Gernon, who has an extensive rap sheet, appears to have disappeared; a phone number listed under his name w got separated. Darriynn Brown is reportedly a friend of one of Sherrod’s children and has been seen playing with children in Sherrod’s care. Sherrod first characterized any relationship she or her children had with Brown, who attended the same high school as at least one of the child boys who live in her home, as minimal. She later told a reporter that Brown had visited her house two days before Cash’s murder but was not shopping at the time. According to several neighbors, Brown was definitely not a stranger to the neighborhood. One told The Daily Beast that the teenager regularly played soccer and basketball with some of the children who lived with Sherrod. Others said they saw Brown on their ring surveillance cameras hanging around the area. Little information is known about Seagroves, who now has custody of Carter. Seagroves didn’t respond to multiple interview requests, but her mother, Connie Ward, told The Daily Beast this week, “We’re not ready to make any statement. My family is broken. It was a nightmare to hear and see the news about our baby and tell stories that are wrong. “Seagroves does not appear to have had a violation of the law, but court records show that both Sherrod and Gernon have records that include assault arrests. In 2013, Sherrod pleaded guilty to assaulting her mother, Lezlee Pinkerton. According to an affidavit signed by Officer Glenn Burkheimer-Lubeck of the Harris County Constable’s Office, Sherrod deliberately hit Pinkerton with his hand in the head and chest and pulled her to the ground, then, “Cause[d] Assault “to Pinkerton” by stamping [Pinkerton’s] Toes with your feet. “” The complainant reports that she believes her toes are broken, “the affidavit reads. Sherrod was sentenced to two years of community supervision, participation in a domestic violence treatment program, a $ 100 donation to a family violence center, and a $ 200 fine. In 2018, Gernon was arrested by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office for attacking his father, Roger Gernon, during a dispute over a credit card bill, Texas court records show. When Roger Gernon told his son he was going to call the police, Trevor took the phone away, bled his father’s arm with his fingernails, and poked him in the chest with his elbow. He was charged with assault and disrupting an 911 call, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 68 days in prison. In addition to attacking family members, both Sherrod and Gernon have histories of theft, fraud, and drug possession. Sherrod’s last arrest was for DWI; She also pleaded guilty to identity fraud, meth possession, driving without a license, and theft of misdemeanors. Geron’s most recent arrest was for possession of narcotics in 2020. He was previously charged with possession of methamphetamine in 2016. His rap sheet features Neal Flanagan, co-owner of an anti-corrosion company, told The Daily Beast that he met Gernon in high school and reconnected in 2016. He gave Gernon some work because he was having problems. Then it went sideways. “My ex-wife and I were married at the time,” Flanagan said. “We had problems. She broke up with me in January 2017. Then she and Trevor started seeing each other. “I never saw him after that,” Flanagan said. “A few years later, he wrote to me on Facebook. Like, ‘hey buddy. How you been?’ As if nothing ever happened. “When he was sober, Gernon was’ as good as anyone could want,” said Neal’s father, Johnny Flanagan. But he added that he wasn’t surprised that Gernon took off without his boys. ” He’s one of those guys that way goes the way the wind is blowing, you know, and he’s going to do good for several months and then do bad for several months, and you know, just get up and go, ” said Flanagan. Following his drug abuse charge last November, he failed to appear for a March 29, 2021 hearing, forfeiting a $ 10,000 bond payment. There is now an open arrest warrant against him. His sister posted a YouTube video that recorded an apology from him. In it, he says he left town looking for work and didn’t want to disturb the boys’ routine, so he left them behind. “I paid the ultimate and most painful price for my poor judgment and I have to live with this devastation every day,” he said. “I will never forgive myself. If I could, I would go back and do everything differently. This is a nightmare that won’t go away when I open my eyes in the morning. We just don’t understand how this can happen to such a bright and happy child. “None of the various defense attorneys who have represented Sherrod or Gernon in court have agreed to speak on the basis of the privilege of attorney and client. Cash’s death raised many questions for those responsible for it. But in the neighborhood where he spent his final months, the overarching mystery is why anyone should kill a defenseless child and leave it on the street like trash. Steven Monacelli The solid part of the working class Mountain Creek in Dallas is a quiet place bounded on one side by the 600-acre Cedar Ridge Conservation Area. The houses are in fair condition and the courtyards are clean. On the street where Cash’s body was found, locals stopped at a shrine to leave toys, flowers and other memorabilia. The woman who found Cash’s body has been struggling with her emotions since that morning. “It was difficult. It was really difficult, “Square told The Daily Beast.” I’m 3 years old and as we look at this and process this, I am learning that I have little triggers. If I see a little boy, 4, 3, 5, I’ll cry. It’s just a trigger for me. My own daughter is like a trigger. Sometimes she says something and I cry. “Even though I didn’t know the baby, he was simply robbed of his life. It was really hard. It was really hard to just process this. And no matter how hard you try to keep going, you can’t miss what you saw. “Rohrlich reported from New York and Monacelli from Dallas. Read more at The Daily Beast. Do you have a tip? Submit it to The Daily Beast here. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside delves deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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