The Eaton Fire Destroyed Altadena’s Lush Greenery. These Volunteers Are Growing It Back

The Eaton Fire was merciless when it came to  Altadena’s celebrated green spaces, destroying or damaging most of the leafy trees that lined the streets in many neighborhoods. Reporter Steven Cuevas tells us how local advocates are scrambling to restore what was lost and save what’s still standing.  

A Post-War Program is Influencing Home Rebuilds in the Pacific Palisades

A year after the Palisades Fire, rebuilding has been slow. But some local architects have been thinking about ways to move things along, taking inspiration from a 1940s post-war project. One of the goals of the Case Study House program was to build homes quickly, using inexpensive materials. The idea ended up revolutionizing architecture and forever linking Los Angeles with the mid-century modern home. KCRW’s Brandon Reynolds tells us how a new version of that program could help fire survivors get back into homes faster, and maybe even start another architectural renaissance.

How a Bay Area Program Helps Unhoused Residents Become Protectors of Their Environment

Researchers estimate 10% of California’s unhoused population lives along waterways. In the absence of enough affordable housing and shelter, it feels like the best of bad options for many. But trash and other hazardous materials can bring detrimental effects to these waterways. So a Bay Area pilot program is teaching unhoused residents ecological literacy and creek restoration. It’s a novel approach to address the environmental harms brought on by the growing number of unhoused people setting up camp along creeks and canals in California. 

Music Creates Connections for Bay Area Residents and Families Confronting Memory Loss

Studies have found that music can actually help with diseases associated with cognitive decline like Alzheimer’s or dementia. At Sutter Health’s Ray Dolby Brain Center in San Francisco, a monthly singing circle is offering respite and joy for people with memory loss and their caregivers. As part of our Community Connections series, The California Report Magazine’s intern Srishti Prabha introduces us to a couple who help lead the group in song.

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This week marks the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s a somber anniversary that many Ukrainians here in California are commemorating. In fact, Silicon Valley is home to a large Ukrainian diaspora – many immigrants from Ukraine have come to work in the tech industry as engineers. Some of them have been using their tech skills to bolster the effort to defend Ukraine, and this army of engineers, coders, hackers, and tinkerers has become a vital part of the country’s resistance against Russian aggression. It’s a story that Bay Area investigative journalist Erica Hellerstein stumbled upon when she took a trip to Kyiv to work on a project about her own family’s Ukrainian roots. As she discovered, some believe Ukraine’s tech sector and its connection to Silicon Valley is part of the reason Ukraine is still standing today. This week, we’re sharing an excerpt of an episode Hellerstein reported for the KQED podcast Close All Tabs.

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When Cherish Burtson was sent to prison, she says one of the main things that helped her get through her time was reading. She devoured memoirs and books on mindfulness, which helped her manage the challenges she experienced behind bars. After she was released, she began to volunteer with Books Thru Bars San Diego, a group that provides reading materials to people who are  incarcerated. But lately she’s noticed that more titles are being rejected by prison officials. This week, we bring you an excerpt of the KPBS podcast The Finest. It explores prison book bans, which some critics are calling censorship.

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When most of us head to the airport, it’s to fly out and leave. But some people go to the airport to stay, sometimes for months on end. People experiencing homelessness have had a presence at the airport since at least 2018, but airport officials say their number has grown. The San Francisco Police Department says it encounters about 35 unhoused people at the airport every day. But helping them find other places to live is complicated. Reporter Erin Bump introduces us to some people at SFO who help them with shelter, food and medical care, and are sometimes just there to listen . 

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Three years ago this week, Oakland bakery owner Jen Angel lost her life when a “smash and grab” robbery went horribly wrong. Ishmael Jenkins Burch, then 19, was driving the getaway car and was initially charged with murder. We bring you an excerpt from an episode of the Snap Judgment podcast, which explores  what happens when Angel’s community pushes for restorative justice instead of retribution, something they say Angel would have wanted for the accused.

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This weekend marks one year since the deadly Eaton Fire was contained. From the moment the fire first broke out, reporter Steven Cuevas began talking to his neighbors, to business owners, and other people who make up the fabric of this vibrant community, and we’ve featured those stories on our show ever since. Host Sasha Khokha joins Steven  as they  revisit some of those neighbors, including a 94-year-old therapist whose home was saved by her sons, a renter who lost her home of 15 years, and an artist who is working on a community art project as she waits for the right time to rebuild. Despite the devastation, for some people, the fire brought about a stronger sense of connection to the place they call home.

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This week we're featuring two stories from our friends at the Bay Curious podcast. 

San Francisco’s Historic ‘Relief Cottages,’ Built After the 1906 Earthquake, Are Hidden in Plain Sight

After the 1906 Earthquake and Fire leveled 80% of San Francisco, more than a quarter of a million residents were temporarily displaced. People who had the means left the city, but many low income San Franciscans didn’t have that option. City leaders commissioned union carpenters to build small cottages to house the refugees – many of whom the city relied upon to help rebuild the city.These “earthquake shacks” gave many people their first shot at homeownership and helped the city recover. Bay Curious’s Katrina Schwartz says you can still find a few of them dotted around the city if you know what to look for.

Invasion of the Grub Snatchers: How One Rich Guy’s Russian Boars Colonized California 

Originally imported to Monterey County for sport by a wealthy landowner in the 1920s, wild boars now number in the hundreds of thousands, and they are destroying sensitive habitats and suburban lawns all over the state. Experts say the problem has gotten worse in recent years all across the state, especially after a series of wet winters has left moist soil teeming with grubs — a pig’s favorite food. KQED’s Rachael Myrow takes us on a trip to see some of the destruction, learn how the boars got here in the first place, and gather some ideas on how to get rid of them.  

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San Francisco Airport’s Fear of Flying Clinic Welcomes Nervous Passengers Aboard

If your stomach drops at the thought of getting on an airplane, you’re not alone. Millions of Americans share a fear of flying. Some psychologists say the way through it is to rewire the brain, by gradually facing the very thing that feels dangerous. But you can’t just hop on a plane whenever you want to practice. That’s where a Bay Area program hosted at San Francisco International Airport can help. For nearly 50 years, they’ve been helping uneasy travelers get back in the air. Reporter Evan Roberts brings us the story from five miles up.

San José’s Batman, Fighting for the Unhoused, Is the Real Life Superhero ‘We Need’

If you happen to be in downtown San José at night, you might spot a man in a mask, wearing a black and purple cape and toting a cart full of supplies.. This is the Batman of San José — a volunteer who has spent nearly eight years walking the city at night to help unhoused residents. He’s a far cry from the vigilantes of comic books. He isn’t swooping from rooftops, seeking revenge or delivering justice through fists. His superpower is noticing people who feel ignored, and offering them food, first aid supplies, and sometimes, being someone they can confide in. KQED’s Srishti Prabha brings us his story.

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This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles wildfires, two of the most destructive fires in California history. We bring you an excerpt from a new podcast, The Palisades Fire: A Sandcastles Special, which documents the community-led efforts to fight the Palisades Fire. Host Adriana Cargill highlights the role of the “Community Brigade” – a first-in-the-nation model that allows trained civilians to work alongside firefighters when wildfires hit. The podcast explores whether these kinds of brigades might be replicated in other places as California continues to grapple with more devastating – and more unpredictable – wildfires.

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Luis Rodriguez credits reading and writing for keeping him resilient his whole life. He’s best known for his 1993 memoir Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A., which chronicles how he joined a gang at age 11, found himself homeless and using heroin, and wound up in the juvenile justice system. He went on to write 17 books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and he served as poet laureate of Los Angeles from 2014 to 2017. As part of our series on resilience, host Sasha Khokha sits down with Luis Rodriguez to talk about his life and work, and what advice he has for getting through tumultuous times.

This episode first aired on July 25, 2025.

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This holiday week, we’re bringing you two joyful stories from 2025. 

Reena Esmail’s childhood in Los Angeles had two soundtracks: the Western classical music her parents loved, and the old, scratchy Bollywood tapes her paternal grandparents would play over and over. Those multicultural influences shaped what would become the driving question of her work: how do you invite people from different cultures onto the same stage to build a relationship and create music together? Composing is how Esmail has made her mark — by putting Western classical musicians in conversation with Indian artists, building bridges between violinists and sitar players, tabla drummers and western singers. She has also composed with unhoused singers from Skid Row, and her music has been performed by major orchestras and choirs all over the world. In May, as part of our series on California composers, host Sasha Khokha brought us this profile of Esmail.

Artists are often the people in our communities who bring people together in ways that are creative, spontaneous, and surprising. That’s true in the East Bay neighborhood of Point Richmond, where a local artist has created dozens of miniature fairy houses brimming with the personality of their imaginary inhabitants. In this story from April, Pauline Bartolone set out to explore these hidden treasures, and meet the person who created them.

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