Crosscurrents

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SHOW: Rising up: Housing, Soul, and Song Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

New laws meant to encourage the construction of new homes in San Francisco give a lot of power to the state. Today, we explore how and where the homes get built. Then, music legend Melissa Etheridge performs in the Bay Area after releasing her first album in seven years.

State of the Bay: Housing vs Local Control Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

Keeping up with your rent in San Francisco is not for the faint of heart. Online rental services were showing that the average monthly rent for a one bedroom home was more than four thousand dollars, and a two bedroom was averaging at five thousand seven hundred dollars.

Housing is a perpetual topic here in the Bay Area and for decades, cities have largely gotten to decide what could be built and where you could build . But over the last few years, California has passed a number of laws trying to shift those decisions to the state.
Today, a conversation about the laws that are now coming into effect this month. We hear from Sarah Dennis Phillips, SF Planning Director and David Garcia, Policy Director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. They spoke with State of the Bay host Grace Won.

Sights + Sounds: Melissa Etheridge Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

Music legend Melissa Etheridge recently released her first new album in seven years. Her album “Rise” is inspired by some of the challenges she’s had to rise above in her life, including evacuating her home during last year’s Southern California wildfires, and her son passing away from opioid addiction in 2020.

She’s on tour now with another music icon: Wynonna Judd. Their tour is called “The Raised on Radio Tour.” And they’ll be making a stop at The Mountain Winery in Saratoga tomorrow night.

KALW’s Jenee Darden caught up with Melissa Etheridge for “The Sights + Sounds Show.”

SHOW: Animals Outside; Domestic and Wild Jul 16, 2026

Show notes

Pets are often important companions for unhoused people. Today, we meet a grassroots organization that’s helping homeless folks take care of their animals. Plus, a new novel takes on the survival instincts needed to make it in a Bay Area suburb.

In Oakland, one nonprofit looks beyond the dog days Jul 16, 2026

Show notes

Homelessness ends with a home... Technically. But there’s much more to it, and the path to live indoors is most always complicated.

For many unhoused people, access to services is only half the battle. The other half is trust. Like the disappointment of overpromised services that don’t deliver, inadequate shelter conditions, and just the accumulated trauma of life on the street. All that can leave people deeply skeptical of the outreach workers and programs meant to help them.

So what does it actually take to build trust across that divide? One Oakland organization may have found a starting point: pets. KALW’s Homelessness reporter Alastair Boone went to learn more.

New Arrivals: Vanessa Hua tackles race, class, housing, and suburbia in new novel Jul 16, 2026

Show notes

Now, it’s time for New Arrivals, our pocket sized book tour with Bay Area authors. Vanessa Hua lives in the East Bay. Her new novel, "Coyoteland," is set in a fictional Bay Area suburb, and takes place about a year into the Covid pandemic. It’s about wealth, privilege and the housing market, as well as territory, predator, and prey.

Intergenerational Conversations and Life Lessons Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

Today, lasting lessons from the AIDS crisis. Then, we hear three generations of local leaders share their experiences of transitioning. Plus, a poem about never having to say goodbye.

Living Lessons from the AIDS Crisis: Queer Elders on Care, Activism & Community Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

It’s been 45 years since AIDS was first named. The disease has killed roughly 40 million people worldwide, including 700 thousand Americans. And while much progress has been made, the fight is not over.

More than eleven thousand San Franciscan’s are still living with HIV. And just earlier this year one of the largest and oldest HIV non-profits in the country, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation was fighting to prevent over a million dollars of annual city funding from being cut, right after the Trump administration cancelled a million dollars in federal funding. The good news is that funding cuts from the city have been partially averted after non-profits, residents and survivors fought and argued for the organization’s significance.

And this AIDS Activism has a long history in SF, from the days of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. That’s when activists, caregivers, survivors, and community members started the long fight to build queer solidarity. KALW’s Travis Raburn wanted to know what we can learn from those elder pioneers today. So he recently invited three of them to join him in conversation at KALW’s live event space in Downtown SF. Paul Aguilar, who we heard earlier, a long-term survivor community liaison at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Patrick Batt, the owner of AutoErotica in the Castro, and Reverend Jim Mitulski, former pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church.

In this excerpt from their conversation, the three of them reflect on what it was like to live through the AIDS Crisis during their young adulthoods.

Bay Poets: 'What If We Didn't Die' after Bayani Bala & Maria Bolaños by poet Keana Aguila Labra Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

And now we let poetry help us imagine an impossibly beautiful world with no goodbyes. Filipinx poet Keana Aguila Labra and her piece "What If We Didn't Die after Bayani Bala & Maria Bolaños.”

Transitioning, trancestors, and community legacy Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

Intergenerational conversations are important, and they take on an even greater role in communities that have been historically marginalized. Jojo, Honey, and Donna all grew up in the Bay Area and they are all pillars of the local Trans community. But each of them comes from a different generation. In this story from 2025, Reporter Yosmay del Mazo connects each of their stories to one greater trans legacy.

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