Health

For five years, Mostafa Maklad has driven for rideshare companies, clearing about $100 a day after expenses. At 36, he shares a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco with five other roommates and tries to drive up to 100 hours a week to get by. Maklad, who has driven for both Uber and Lyft and is […]

Tanya Harris and her three daughters struggle to breathe in the converted motel room in Salinas they now rent as a studio. Just large enough for a bunkbed and a desk, the room holds all four of them. Harris sleeps on a silver inflatable mattress on the floor. And doctors say the room is making […]

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 […]

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 […]

Kenda Williams, 51, went to West Coast Dental in Torrance to treat the shooting pain in her molar. She spent the day in a drug-induced haze. Williams later found out she had signed up for two credit cards that day to cover her dentist’s $9,055 bill. Unemployed and on Medi-Cal, the Los Angeles resident had […]

Water is scarce and dirty for many in Fresno County’s small West Park community. They’re not alone. It’s a common and persistent challenge for residents throughout California who rely on water wells. Residents in West Park, an unincorporated cluster of houses and buildings on the southwestern outskirts of Fresno, say they have stopped drinking the […]

Activists and local government officials across Monterey County have banded together to fight a proposed desalination plant that could double the cost of water for some residents and endanger an aquifer that serves low-income communities. Opponents say the plant could cause saltwater to seep into the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin, the aquifer that provides freshwater […]

Maximina Molina Sanchez is worried about going hungry this winter. She depends on a food bank in Huron to feed her husband and two kids. But with most agricultural workers out of jobs during the winter, demand is bound to increase, so she worries there won’t be enough food to feed everyone who needs it. […]

Gina Diaz-Nino considers herself an extrovert. But since her mouth began deteriorating after years of methamphetamine use and two fights, she receded into the shadows.  Her teeth are yellow, crooked and browning around the corners. Most of her top teeth are either chipped, missing or decaying. When they fell out, they crumbled like chalk. “I’ll […]

Nonprofits distribute 80 million pounds of food in Los Angeles County per year, helping low-income people survive.