Erica Hellerstein

Erica Hellerstein is an award-winning journalist and a reporter for The Mercury News and The California Divide project covering poverty and inequality in the Bay Area. She has covered human rights issues throughout the United States as well as in Colombia, Honduras, Argentina, Mexico, and Chile. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Marie Claire, ELLE, and the Washington Post's The Lily, among others. Her investigation into North Carolina's commercial hog farming industry won the Reed Award for Environmental Writing and was a finalist for numerous other awards. She has a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and a master's in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Latest Stories

California Divide

Living at the intersection of rich and poor

Carmen Preciado has always been able to identify the precise spot along Middlefield Road that marks the end of her world and the beginning of another. “When I go to the other side, it’s just like: ‘Oh, this is a rich people area,'” said Preciado, a 31-year-old single mother and life-long Redwood City resident. “You […]

By Erica Hellerstein • February 18, 2020

California Divide

California has some of the best and worst places in U.S. for raising children, report finds

Children who grow up in the San Jose area are better off than those raised in almost any other metropolitan region in the country, according to a new report measuring which U.S. neighborhoods give children the best chance of achieving economic success and good health. Nationally, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metropolitan area ranked second, just […]

By Erica Hellerstein • February 3, 2020

California Divide

Bay Area has highest income inequality in California

It’s official: The gap between the Bay Area’s haves and have-nots is wider than anywhere else in the state. Top income earners in the Bay Area make 12.2 times as much as those at the bottom of the economic ladder, according to new research from the Public Policy Institute of California, which analyzed 2018 U.S. […]

By Erica Hellerstein • January 29, 2020

California Divide

New ‘food hub’ for low-income residents launched in Bay Area

A new Alameda County program focused on the connections between poverty, food and employment opened Friday morning, the latest in a countywide effort to help low-income residents by increasing access to jobs and fresh produce. The newly built, 3,300-square-foot space will provide a commercial kitchen for small, home-based food entrepreneurs, land to grow fresh produce […]

By Erica Hellerstein • January 17, 2020

California Divide

Child support payback reform gets new life in proposed state budget

After vetoing a bill to reform the state’s child support payback system, Gov. Gavin Newsom has revived efforts to give families on public assistance a greater share of their support payments in his proposed 2020-21 budget. The changes, which if implemented would go into effect January 2022, would provide funding to boost the amount families […]

By Erica Hellerstein • January 13, 2020

California Divide

Why one county is exploring giving $1,000 monthly to every youth aging out of foster care

When Dontae Lartigue left foster care right before his 19th birthday in 2009, finding housing in Santa Clara County was one of his biggest obstacles. He struggled to find places he could afford on his $12 an hour wages at Walmart, and with a limited income and no rental history, landlords were often wary of […]

By Erica Hellerstein • January 13, 2020

California Divide

Minimum-wage workers will see pay boosts on Jan. 1

Low-wage workers will ring in the new decade with bigger paychecks as a round of minimum wage hikes takes effect on Jan. 1. Currently, the state minimum wage is $11 an hour for businesses with 25 or fewer employees and $12 an hour for larger employers. Beginning Jan. 1, both those rates will increase by […]

By Erica Hellerstein • December 30, 2019

California Divide

Why this Bay Area county is betting big on food pharmacies for low-income patients

When she went to La Clinica de la Raza health center in Oakland for a routine checkup, the 54-year-old immigrant told her doctor she was under a lot of stress. Work had begun to dry up for her husband, a day laborer, and money was tight. Marta, who asked to be identified by a first […]

By Erica Hellerstein • December 17, 2019

California Divide

‘It’s like a nightmare you never wake up from.’ Parents wait years for subsidized daycare

Tamara Hudson’s workday routine typically starts before 4 a.m., when the bleary-eyed single mother rouses her 2-year-old son in their Redwood City home, wraps him in a blanket and places him in her Honda for the first of her 40-mile round trips to the closest daycare provider she can afford. After dropping him off in […]

By Erica Hellerstein • November 29, 2019

California Divide

Cost of citizenship would rise 60% under Trump plan

A recent proposal by the Trump administration to increase the cost of applying for U.S. citizenship will disproportionately affect low-income immigrants and could dissuade many green card holders from applying, immigration advocates say. The proposed new rule, published on November 14 by the Federal Register with a month-long comment period, would raise the naturalization application fee for […]

By Erica Hellerstein • November 26, 2019