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At Glia, our strength lies in our people. Our collaborative approach spans disciplines and borders, uniting our vast expertise to bridge critical gaps in global healthcare. Meet the passionate individuals driving Glia’s mission forward.

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Equip Gaza’s physicians, strengthen local care, and stand for Palestinian liberation through Glia’s open-source medical tools, delegations, and solidarity work.

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Equal To (or Better Than) – The Glia Stethoscope VS The Current Standard

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We’re excited to offer you this timely opportunity to attend KQED Live’s member-exclusive series of California Gubernatorial Election Town Halls!Three of the race’s top-polling candidates are coming to The Commons at KQED next month in conversations centered on the issues shaping California’s future — including housing and the economy, climate, tech, immigration, and the state’s fraught relationship with the Trump administration — hosted by KQED’s Political Breakdown. Each session gives you a chance to hear directly from the candidate and submit a question of your own. Attendance is free with a suggested contribution to support our live events. Use promo code KQEDTOWNHALL to access your exclusive to any or all of these evenings of civic dialogue, share your questions, and learn more about the candidates leading the race to be next Governor of California. Registration is open below:KQED Gubernatorial Election Town Hall: Former U.S. Representative Katie Porter Monday, May 4 | 7pm The Commons at KQED | 2601 Mariposa St, San Francisco Promo Code: KQEDTOWNHALLRegister Here KQED Gubernatorial Election Town Hall: U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell Wednesday, May 13 | 7pm The Commons at KQED | 2601 Mariposa St, San Francisco Promo Code: KQEDTOWNHALL Register Here KQED Gubernatorial Election Town Hall: Sheriff Chad BiancoMonday, May 18 | 7pm The Commons at KQED | 2601 Mariposa St, San Francisco Promo Code: KQEDTOWNHALL Register Here If you have any questions or need assistance with the ticket purchasing process, please contact live@kqed.org. We look forward to seeing you there.

By Laura Waxmann, Staff Writer April 9, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)

Gift Article

A rendering of the nine-story building that is under construction as part of the Marvel in the Mission project in San Francisco.MEDA

As commuters stream through the 16th Street Mission BART Station, a familiar corner has given way to change: A decades-old building that stood behind the station is gone, its absence marked by a construction fence. Behind it, work is underway on a 136-unit development that will reshape the Mission District transit hub into a model for supportive housing. 

The official groundbreaking ceremony for what will be a nine-story building — the first of three planned as part of the larger “La Maravilla,” or the Marvel in the Mission project — is scheduled for later this month, but site work has already begun at 1979 Mission St. 

Co-developed by Mission Housing Development Corp. and the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA), the project will place 382 affordable homes at the northeast corner of 16th and Mission streets, a majority of which will be housing for families. The first building to rise will pair affordable housing with on-site services to help formerly homeless residents maintain housing stability.

Reaching this stage has been a long journey. The site, once infamous for a stalled market-rate project proposed at the peak of the city’s housing boom, languished for years amid community opposition and financing challenges. After years of planning, public-private collaboration, and sustained advocacy, the Marvel is moving forward at a time when debates over permanent supportive housing are intensifying.

“It’s more thankless than ever to be an affordable housing or permanent supportive housing developer —  locally, state, federal, you name it — and it’s harder to get financing for these projects than it’s ever been in the history of our industry,” said Mission Housing Executive Director Sam Moss, adding that he is still in disbelief that the team has “physically broken ground.”

“I pinch myself when I walk by at least once a day to see it. It was one of the hardest closings in history,” Moss said. “Everyone worked really hard the last three months of 2025 and pulled off a not very small miracle, and closed all the funding that was needed. Now there’s a tangible building coming out of the ground that represents going on two decades of organizing and difficult work.”

The Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development contributed $61 million in funding to the project. The Marvel is also backed by Merritt Community Capital Corporation and the Western Alliance Bank. Five Star Bank, which expanded to the city just a few years ago, has committed $10 million to the project through a low-income housing tax credit investment.

“While it’s our first investment here in the Bay Area, this type, it will likely not be our last, and it’s really part of our larger strategy to really partner with these mission driven developers,” said Five Star Bank Executive Vice President DJ Kurtze, who added that he serves on the board for Hamilton Families, a local nonprofit with a goal to “end family homelessness in San Francisco.”

“I see a lot of the issues from a different perspective,” Kurtze said. “It makes a lot of sense for a bank to invest in something like this as well, when you weigh all the other benefits to the community.”

Western Alliance Bank’s Mieke Holkeboer, Director of Affordable Housing Finance, said the investor is “committed to supporting projects that contribute to housing stability, neighborhood vitality, and inclusive economic growth.”

“Projects that demonstrate clear community benefit, sound fundamentals, and alignment with local stakeholders are where we see the greatest opportunity to make a meaningful and lasting impact,” Holkeboer said.

Financing challenges are just one of the headwinds facing the affordable housing industry. In recent months, City Hall has announced efforts to reshape San Francisco’s approach to homelessness and supportive housing, with sharp discussions among advocates and policymakers over how these types of buildings should operate, challenging the city’s traditional Housing First model.

Moss said these developments have increased the pressures that affordable housing developers like Mission Housing and MEDA face to “build something that’s properly managed and has the necessary operating funds to take care of 136 of what are most likely to be some of the most acute formerly homeless individuals in the city.”

“It is a lot harder to run these buildings than to physically build them,” he said, adding that the Marvel will be one of the first “100% funded” affordable housing buildings to come online in recent years. “We want to not only build one of the best permanent supportive housing buildings — we want to run it so that it stays nice and the surrounding neighborhood benefits as well.”

Marcia Contreras, Mission Housing’s deputy executive director, said that “bringing the right partners to the table” and understanding the population that is served is key. 

“We also serve many single room occupancy hotels throughout the corridor, so we have experience,” she said.

While the debate over how to house and care for the city’s formerly homeless population persists in City Hall, Mayor Daniel Lurie said that he is supportive of projects like the Marvel.

“Our administration is working to deliver more affordable housing so the next generation of San Franciscans can raise their families in the city they love,” Lurie said in a statement. “This project will provide stability for residents while strengthening the Mission community and delivering the affordable homes that San Franciscans have long needed.”

April 9, 2026

Laura Waxmann

Reporter

Laura Waxmann covers the business community with a focus on commercial real estate, development, retail and the future of San Francisco’s downtown. Prior to joining The Chronicle in 2023, she reported on San Francisco’s changing real estate and economic landscape in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic for the San Francisco Business Times.

Waxmann was born and raised in Frankfurt, Germany, but has called San Francisco home since 2007. She’s reported on a variety of topics including housing, homelessness, education and local politics for the San Francisco Examiner, Mission Local and El Tecolote.

By St. John Barned-Smith and Ko Lyn Cheang | April 9, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)

 Gift this article

Ismael Ayala-Uribe was in agony.

The pain started soon after immigration agents seized the bespectacled 39-year-old man, who had lived in the United States since he was 5, at the Orange County car wash where he worked last August.

They took him to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, where he developed an abscess under the skin on his left buttock. It filled with pus and bacteria, rotting muscle and fat as it pushed into his pelvis and abdomen, threatening to flood his bloodstream with toxins.

Ayala-Uribe complained to medical staff about rectal pain, rating it “10 out of 10,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement records show, but documents do not indicate he was ever physically examined by staff members at Adelanto. On Sept. 18, a nurse gave him over-the-counter painkillers and fiber supplements used to relieve digestion problems, then sent him back to his cell.

Three days later, sweating and trembling, Ayala-Uribe was finally taken to a hospital. While waiting for treatment, he suffered septic shock caused by the abscess, according to a coroner’s report, and his heart stopped.

“This case is just absolute medical malpractice,” said Dr. Barbara Ogur, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who reviewed his treatment records at the Chronicle’s request.

Ayala-Uribe is one of at least 48 people who have died in ICE custody since President Donald Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025, and launched an aggressive immigration crackdown. Last year’s death toll of people in ICE custody — 33 — was the highest since the agency’s creation in 2003, federal records show.

Annual deaths in ICE custody

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/hdgap

Data as of April 8, 2026.

Chart: Nami Sumida/S.F. Chronicle · Source: Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Chronicle research

Reporters spent six months obtaining detention data, ICE death reports, which record medical care a person received in custody, and, when available, autopsies, toxicology reports, coroner’s investigations and detailed medical records for all 48 cases.

The Chronicle analyzed 32 cases in which some revelatory documents were available, sending individual patient records to doctors with specialties related to the medical conditions cited in the detainees’ cause of death — including emergency room physicians, addiction specialists and psychiatrists. Reporters sent documents from each case to at least two doctors and relied on 14 doctors in total.

In all, at least 17 people in ICE custody died after medical staff delayed or failed to provide critical care that might have saved their lives, multiple doctors who reviewed their cases told the Chronicle. In some deaths, physicians’ opinions were not unanimous; some said they did not have enough information to make an evaluation.

In the 15 remaining cases, doctors either said that there was not enough information to comment or that the person was so medically frail that detention likely hastened their death. In one of these cases, a 75-year-old heart attack survivor, near-blind from cataracts, died from a heart attack weeks after being detained.

Ismael Ayala-Uribe loved his close-knit family, from left: nephew Anthony Ayala, 10, brother Jose Ayala, 31, father Eusebio Ayala, 68, niece Sophia Ayala, 4, mother, Lucia Ayala, 64, and sister Mayra Ayala, 37. Philip Cheung/For the S.F. Chronicle

People routinely died in custody without ever being seen by doctors, even as they begged for help while gasping for air or hallucinating. Their life-threatening symptoms were often evaluated only by lower-level nurses, who are not trained or authorized to make diagnoses.

ICE facilities’ medical staff repeatedly failed to diagnose critical illnesses, misdiagnosed patients and did not call 911 in time for people experiencing emergencies, according to the Chronicle’s review.

One 44-year-old man died after detention staff waited more than an hour to call emergency medical transportation after witnessing him suffer a series of seizures. A 45-year-old man died from complications of AIDS after not being tested or treated for HIV for months. Two people died in cells from drug and alcohol withdrawal, despite an ICE policy requiring staff to send detainees experiencing severe withdrawal to an emergency department.

Eight men died by suicide at the facilities, including one at Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, which had been faulted for failing to complete suicide prevention training, and another who detention staff witnessed having a psychotic breakdown.

Read complete article at: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2026/ice-detention-deaths/?noapp=true&utm_content=cta&sid=53b8a5219dbcd4db6500018b&ss=A&st_rid=77f4eee7-f664-4a4f-9856-743a554a1448&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=headlines&utm_campaign=sfc_morningfix

Credits

Reporting and data by St. John Barned-Smith and Ko Lyn Cheang. Graphics and development by Nami Sumida. Photography by Santiago Mejia, Jenna Schoenefeld, Philip Cheung and Phobymo. Editing by Caleb Pershan, Dominic Fracassa, Demian Bulwa and Ryan Gabrielson. Data editing by Dan Kopf. Photo editing by Emily Jan. Copy editing by Linda Houser.

on Apr 09, 2026 02:20 am

Matthew A. Winkler,  Editor-in chief emeritus of Bloomberg News  –  Bloomberg News

Stephan: While the Trump MAGAt Republican policies are trashing the wellbeing of the people of the United States, there is a counterexample going on in California, the fourth largest economy in the world, and it is getting almost no media attention, except this Bloomberg article. It is being managed by Gavin Newsom, and demonstrates why Democrat governance, although far from perfect, is always superior to Republican governance.

Of all the prevailing media narratives around Gavin Newsom, the one that is most conspicuous by its absence is how under its two-term governor California became the top performing economy not just among its 49 siblings but also any developed nation. No wonderElon Musk quietly sought Newsom’s help when the world’s richest man sought to move a bunch of Tesla Inc. engineers back to the state after relocating them to Texas.

Amid the thousands of headlines referencing California failings with wildfires, droughts, floods, mass transportation, aging roads, education, homelessness, unaffordable housing, widening inequality and poverty along with the exodus of billionaires, corporate headquarters and longtime residents — never mind the “slick” label whenever the betting favorite for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination is mentioned in the press – the Golden State (population 39 million people), just supplanted Japan (123 million) as the fourth-largest economy.

Gross domestic product surged 40% to more than $4 trillion, accounting for more than 14% of US output, after Newsom took office in […]

Read the Full Article »

Comedian Dave Columbo parodies the Trump administration’s rational for the Iran war in a video that has gained millions of views across social media.

 (Photo: Screen grab via X)

“Our goal from day one was for Iran to open the strait that didn’t close until after we attacked.”

Brad Reed

Apr 09, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

Comedian Dave Columbo on Wednesday released a parody video that lampooned the Trump administration’s contradictory and constantly changing rationales for its unconstitutional war with Iran.

In the video, which was first posted on Instagram and has since gone viral on other social media platforms, Columbo assumes the role of a White House spokesperson trying to explain what the US has achieved so far with its war, which Trump illegally launched without any congressional authorization more than a month ago.

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“This is a victory for the US,” Columbo says at the start of the video. “Because our goal from day one was for Iran to open the strait that didn’t close until after we attacked, which was completely controlled by their military that we had total dominance over. And it was a waterway that we could have taken over, but instead we asked for help that we didn’t need, but we’ll remember our allies did not give us.”

10/10. No notes. pic.twitter.com/YQ3JPNIR02

— Barney Panofsky's Best Intentions (@mynamesnotgordy) April 8, 2026

Columbo then explains that this purported victory has only come about due to “a FIFA Peace Prize recipient’s threat to annihilate a civilization in order to liberate them.”

The comedian next touts the administration’s success in changing the Iranian regime from “an old man who hates us to his younger son, who hates us for those reasons, and that we killed his father.”

Columbo acknowledges that the administration is unsure about “the status of Iran’s nuclear capabilities that we obliterated last year, but were going to be a problem in two weeks,” before boasting that Iran now has “more money and control over the strait than they had when they made the old deal that we ended because it was terrible.”

While Columbo’s video is intended as satire, much of it simply relies on arguments that the Trump administration has made throughout the course of the war, such as the president’s demands that NATO allies give help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that he also says is unnecessary given US military strength.

As of this writing, the Iran War has cost US taxpayers more than $45 billion, and the Strait of Hormuz has still not reopened.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Brad Reed

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

Pro-Palestinian Jewish American demonstrators rally outside the Manhattan headquarters of the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on February 22, 2024 in New York City.

 (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The resolution was “’out of step with the policies of the Democratic Party’ while being entirely in step with the vast majority of Democratic voters,” said one advocate.

Julia Conley

Apr 09, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

Poll after poll shows that support for Israel and political candidates’ associations with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group that poured more than $100 million into the 2024 elections, are toxic for the Democratic Party.

One of the most closely watched Democratic primary elections last month was significantly swayed toward US Senate candidate James Talarico in Texas when he spoke out against the US arming Israel.

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And the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) own suppressed autopsy of the 2024 election found that the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza harmed then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ efforts to win over some voters.

But the mounting evidence that voters want candidates to shift away from the party’s decadeslong alliance with Israel wasn’t enough on Thursday to convince a DNC panel to approve a resolution condemning the “growing influence” of dark money and corporate spending in Democratic races, particularly by AIPAC.

X post: https://x.com/briantashman/status/2042291892088393754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2042291892088393754%7Ctwgr%5E6f3f63eaf211d0e59346c774829da07c417a8968%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Faipac-dnc

The committee’s resolutions panel killed the motion, which called for “robust” campaign finance transparency, at its spring meeting in New Orleans.

“The use of massive outside spending to support or oppose candidates based on their positions regarding international conflicts or foreign governments raises concerns about undue influence over democratic debate and policymaking, potentially constraining elected officials’ ability to represent the views of their constituents,” reads the resolution, which was submitted by Allison Minnerly, a DNC member from Florida.

The resolution was voted down weeks after organizations linked to AIPAC accounted for $22 million in super political action committee spending in Illinois’ US House primaries.

Margaret DeReus, executive director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project, said the vote shows that “Democratic leadership is asleep at the wheel when it comes to one of the biggest existential threats to the party.”

“AIPAC’s extreme agenda for unconditional weapons funding to Israel is deeply out of step not just with most Democrats, but with the majority of the American people,” said DeReus. “We know DNC officials conducting their unreleased post-2024 autopsy found President [Joe] Biden’s support for Israel cost Democrats votes in the last presidential election and paved the way for [President] Donald Trump to ascend to the White House. Party leadership needs to wake up.”

In a memo to the DNC resolutions committee ahead of the vote, the IMEU Policy Project stressed that “the vast majority of Democratic voters agree Israel is committing genocide and support ending weapons to Israel.”

“Democratic elected officials face intense pressure from AIPAC to not align with their voters and most voters across the country,” wrote the group.

Resolutions like the one Minnerly put forward, said DeReus on Thursday, are “entirely in step with the vast majority of Democratic voters.”

X post: https://x.com/mzdereus/status/2042285222340018545?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2042285222340018545%7Ctwgr%5E6f3f63eaf211d0e59346c774829da07c417a8968%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Faipac-dnc

Progressive advocate Brian Tashman wrote that “as Israeli settlers carry out violent pogroms, Israeli soldiers shoot children in Gaza in the head, Israeli warplanes bomb apartment buildings in Beirut, and Israeli leaders try to sabotage the Iran ceasefire, the pro-Israel lobby still demands total support for Israeli war crimes.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Julia Conley

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

Pope Leo XIV leads his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Squarein Vatican City on April 8, 2026.

 (Photo by Maria Grazia Picciarella/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The US “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” a top official told the Vatican’s US representative. “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

Julia Conley

Apr 09, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

Pope Leo, the first American to be named the head of the worldwide Catholic Church, has spoken out against President Donald Trump’s policies frequently this year as the US has invaded Venezuela and Iran and threatened Cuba’s 10 million people with an oil blockade that has crippled the island’s economy and healthcare system—and according to new reports, his criticism has followed a warning from a Pentagon official who demanded the Vatican take the “side” of the White House in foreign disputes.

The Free Press originally reported this week that after the pope’s “State of the World” address on January 9, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby called Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s US diplomatic representative, to Washington.

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Colby told Pierre that the US “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world.”

“The Catholic Church had better take its side,” he said, according to The Free Press.

Another Pentagon official alluded to the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy ordered an attack on Pope Boniface VIII and forced seven successive popes to relocate from Rome to Avignon in France.

According to Christopher Hale of the Substack blog Letters From Leo, who independently confirmed the meeting had taken place, Vatican officials took the remarks about the Avignon papacy as “a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”

“Bringing up the Avignon papacy as a threat is truly insane,” said progressive organizer Jonathan Cohn.

X post: https://x.com/tedlieu/status/2041988158636855518?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2041988158636855518%7Ctwgr%5Ea7e9c541c6573542ce26601bfe93ad5118e2ce19%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fpope-leo-and-trump

The pope is unlikely to visit the US during Trump’s presidency as a result of the meeting, Hale reported. Pope Leo rejected an invitation to the White House for the United States’ 250th anniversary celebration on July 4, and is reportedly planning to visit the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean that day, where thousands of North African immigrants have arrived as they attempt to reach Europe.

The pope, reported Hale, “is too deliberate a man to have chosen that date by accident.”

The Pentagon meeting took place days after Pope Leo angered the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, by lamenting the fact that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies.”

In the speech that enraged Pete Hegseth and top Pentagon officials, Pope Leo XIV said: “A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”

“War is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.

“The… pic.twitter.com/q76XtqxNXU

— Christopher Hale (@ChristopherHale) April 8, 2026

He made the comments days after the US invaded Venezuela, killing dozens of people and abducting President Nicolás Maduro, and as the US continued its boat bombing campaign that began last year in Latin America.

Since then, the pope has made numerous statements in recent weeks as the US joined Israel in bombing Iran and Trump issued increasingly bellicose threats to attack the country’s population of 93 million people.

He said on Tuesday, hours before a two-week ceasefire was reached between the US, Iran, and Israel, that Trump’s threat to wipe out the “whole civilization” of Iran was “truly unacceptable.”

“There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety,” said Pope Leo. “Let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way.”

He also appeared to reject a call from Hegseth last month when the defense secretary asked Americans to pray for US troops in Iran “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” said the Pope in his homily on Palm Sunday days later. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’”

The New Republic reported that prior to the January meeting Pierre was called to, there were no public records of meetings between the Vatican and Pentagon officials, “let alone an instance in which the world power suggested that it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.”

When asked about the meeting on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance—a Catholic convert—at first claimed not to know who the Vatican’s US representative was, before saying the reported was “uncorroborated.”

BREAKING: JD Vance initially says he doesn't know who Cardinal Christophe Pierre is — until recently Pope Leo XIV’s ambassador to the United States — then, once reminded, declines to comment on the Pentagon's January meeting with the cardinal or on the ”bitter lecture” Under… pic.twitter.com/Qknnuh0wxv

— Christopher Hale (@ChristopherHale) April 8, 2026

The Defense Department also denied The Free Press’ account of the meeting, saying the characterization was “highly exaggerated and distorted.”

Writer Pedro Gonzalez noted that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed strategies to “take down” the late Pope Frances with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to files on Epstein that were released by the Department of Justice.

“It is for this and other reasons that people take seriously the report about the Trump-Vance administration threatening Pope Leo to bend the knee or else,” said Gonzalez. “These people are insane. Their hunger for power is bottomless. Moral resistance will be met with intimidation and threats, whether it’s in America or in Rome.”

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Julia Conley

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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The open letter, co-signed by Oakland’s Lakeshore and San Francisco’s Castro LGBTQ+ cultural districts, calls on the coffee chain to reverse its controversial move.

by Roselyn Romero April 9, 2026 (Oaklandside.org)

A day after the CEO of Oakland-headquartered Philz Coffee demanded that Pride flags be removed from all of the chain’s stores, the Oakland and San Francisco LGBTQ+ cultural districts are speaking out.

In an open letter sent Thursday afternoon, the Oakland Lakeshore and San Francisco Castro LGBTQ+ cultural districts told CEO Mahesh Sadarangani that his announcement was “an extreme disappointment.”

Both districts represent neighborhoods with deep histories intertwined with LGBTQ+ communities. And both are hosts to Philz Coffee cafes.

“When Philz came to our neighborhoods, it did so knowing it would be serving our communities,” the district representatives wrote. “These recent actions, however, suggest that you do not prioritize us or the diversity of the LGBTQ community.”

Philz Coffee did not immediately respond to questions from The Oaklandside about the letter.

But Sadarangani previously said the decision, which will take down all types of flags, was intended to create a “more inclusive experience” at Philz stores. “This is a change in how our stores look, not in who we are,” he wrote in a statement sent to multiple media outlets.

Both LGBTQ+ cultural districts pushed back on Sadarangani’s comments, saying the move does the exact opposite.

“Let us be clear: there is no community more inclusive of all backgrounds, creeds, races, genders, religions, immigration statuses, or classes than the LGBTQ community,” the districts’ letter read. “We encompass every community across the world.”

The letter, which both districts also posted on social media, called for Philz to reverse the decision and reaffirm its commitment to the LGBTQ+ community. It also urged community members to sign a Change.org petition, launched by Philz Coffee baristas, demanding that company leadership reinstate Pride flags at all locations.

“We stand with Philz baristas and workers who have spoken out about the importance of maintaining Pride flags in their stores and who have organized a public petition calling for their reinstatement,” the district leaders wrote.

Philz’s Lakeshore Avenue location opened in June 2024, nine years after its College Avenue store opened. The Castro cafe opened in 2015. The company was founded in 2003 in San Francisco’s Mission District and moved its headquarters from San Francisco to its Oakland roasting facility in 2024.

Philz was purchased by the private equity group Freeman Spogli last year for $145 million. A controversial part of the deal was the cancellation of stocks owned by 10 former employees. An FAQ published on Philz Coffee’s website after the sale said Freeman Spogli intended “to preserve and build upon Philz Coffee’s rich history, maintaining the unique, authentic coffee experience that has made the brand so special for over two decades.”Send a note to the Oaklandside newsroom.*

Roselyn Romero

roselyn@oaklandside.org

Roselyn Romero covers public safety for The Oaklandside. She was previously The Oaklandside’s small business reporter as a 2023-24 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism Fellow. Before joining the team, she was an investigative intern at NBC Bay Area and the inaugural intern for the Global Investigations team of The Associated Press through a partnership with the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2022 with a bachelor’s in journalism and minors in Spanish, ethnic studies, and women’s & gender studies. She is a proud daughter of Filipino immigrants and was born and raised in Oxnard, California.More by Roselyn Romero