missionlocal.org

Workers at Mission Neighborhood Health Center, a nonprofit organization that provides healthcare services to low-income patients, hit the streets today. At this afternoon’s action outside of the clinic’s main health center at 240 Shotwell St., near 16th and South Van Ness, dozens of health workers put on red union shirts, grabbed signs and picketed on the sidewalk for more than an hour. Former District 11 Supervisor John Avalos, who now works for the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), is representing the healthcare workers, whom he rallied during the lunch hour on Tuesday. Mission Neighborhood Health Center’s second clinic lies in his district, near Mission and Francis Street in the Excelsior.

This year’s San Francisco Open Studios is set to kick off in the Mission District on the weekend of  Oct. 26, and the 93 artists who fill the studios at 1890 Bryant St. will include 12 new participants who have recently taken up residence in the five-story building between Mariposa and 17th streets. A lot of people want in the building, and it’s hard to find space in the building at this point,” said Paul Morin, who has been renting an 800-square-foot studio in the building for the past 12 years. It begins with a preview reception on Friday, Oct. 25, from 6 to 9 p.m. and is followed on Saturday and Sunday with studios open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Space is so difficult to get at 1890 Bryant that some of the larger spaces have been subdivided into small cubicles. Li decided to dive full time into her jewelry business seven years ago and hopes that her tenure at the Bryant artist studios can teach her to grow her craft.

In Chan Kajaal Park on 17th Street between Shotwell and Folsom streets, Rafael Sanabria plucked at a virtual keyboard on his phone and listened to a live radio broadcast in Spanish. Sanabria thought he had been called in to work at a roofing company, but the job was rescheduled for tomorrow. This area has changed a lot; it’s cleaner and nicer now,” he said. Though he’s lived in the Mission for only three years, the changes have been dramatic, he said.

I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor at Berkeley’s J-school since 1990. My earlier career was at The New York Times working for the business, foreign and city desks. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards. Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest sustainable.