Blog
San Rafael bans rent hikes in pandemic-stressed Canal
Posted: January 21, 2021
The San Rafael City Council has approved a temporary ban on residential rent increases in the Canal area, the neighborhood with the highest rate of coronavirus cases in Marin County.
Marin County’s Census Response Rates Rise
Posted: January 14, 2021
A year before the 2020 census was to take place, Marin County granted the Canal Alliance funds to conduct census outreach across the county. The project lead, Stephanie McNally, the advocacy and policy senior manager at Canal Alliance, got to work with partners and nonprofits, especially in historically undercounted areas, to make a plan. Then the pandemic hit and it all went out the window.
Omar Carrera of San Rafael’s Canal Alliance wins a North Bay Business Journal Nonprofit Leadership Award
Posted: December 15, 2020
Omar Carrera is a strategic thinker and social entrepreneur with more than 18 years of experience in business operations management in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.
Marin Voice: Bold, innovative actions for pandemic survival, recovery needed now
Posted: December 14, 2020
In the first peak of COVID-19 in July, Latinos in Marin County (most of whom reside in the Canal neighborhood of San Rafael) accounted for almost 80% of cases, while only comprising 16% of the overall population.
Marin renters, businesses allotted $3.2M in pandemic aid
Posted: December 11, 2020
Marin County and the Marin Community Foundation will distribute $3.2 million in emergency rental assistance and financial aid to small businesses in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Here’s why Marin continues to be the Bay Area’s most segregated county
Posted: December 8, 2020
A new UC Berkeley study showing that Marin County leads the Bay Area in segregation. The report from UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute found that six of the 10 most racially segregated municipalities in the Bay Area are in Marin County.
Marin jail ICE pickup shakes up immigration forum
Posted: December 2, 2020
Lucia Martel-Dow, Director of Immigration and Social Services at Canal Alliance, displayed screen shots from a video that she said was taken outside the Marin County jail involving a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Images of a Latino man being handcuffed and taken away in an unmarked van after being released from Marin County Jail stirred controversy during Marin County’s TRUTH Act Forum on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020.
Latinos make up 71% of Covid-19 cases in Marin. Will new equity efforts help?
Posted: November 5, 2020
Officials in the San Rafael tech shop were able to build a mesh Wi-Fi network to connect students in the dense Canal Neighborhood with the help of volunteer expertise and funding from across sectors.
California community leaders call for urgent action on broadband access
Posted: September 29, 2020
More than fifty California organizations, businesses, and public officials—including the AARP of California, the San Francisco Tech Council, the California Center for Rural Policy, the Khan Academy, and a number of California cities and counties—join Common Sense Kids Action and EFF in urging Governor Gavin Newsom to call the legislature back into a special session to address the state’s digital divide.
San Rafael’s essential residents need a better virus testing system
Posted: September 28, 2020
Marin Independent Journal article by: Maggie Stevens For those of us who are teaching Marin’s neediest children during the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom isn’t cutting it. Some
