Bay Area

Mayor London Breed Announces Opening of Bayview Vehicle Triage Center

“We must take advantage of every opportunity we get, and all do our part to ensure that our unhoused residents have a safe place to sleep and regular access to stabilizing services,” said Mayor London N. Breed. “As we continue to move forward with our Homelessness Recovery Plan, we must find solutions for people living in their RVs or their cars and provide them with a path out of homelessness. I want to thank the California State Parks for their partnership and the residents of the Bayview for their support of this critical Center.”

Published

3 years ago

February 2, 2022

Oakland Post

San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed.

New Center at the Candlestick State Recreation Area Boat Launch Parking Lot will deliver critical services to people living in vehicles

By The S.F. Mayor’s Press Office

Mayor London N. Breed and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) announced on January 21, the opening of the new Bayview Vehicle Triage Center (VTC) at the Candlestick Point State Recreation Area’s (SRA) Park Boat Launch Parking Lot. The new Center will provide a safe space to sleep and access to stabilizing services for people experiencing vehicular homelessness in close proximity to Candlestick Point SRA.

The City and County of San Francisco, together with the California State Parks and a task force of Bayview community leaders, proposed the development of a temporary VTC at the underutilized site in District 10 in March 2020. The authorizing resolution was approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and by the California State Lands Commission in October 2021.

“We must take advantage of every opportunity we get, and all do our part to ensure that our unhoused residents have a safe place to sleep and regular access to stabilizing services,” said Breed. “As we continue to move forward with our Homelessness Recovery Plan, we must find solutions for people living in their RVs or their cars and provide them with a path out of homelessness. I want to thank the California State Parks for their partnership and the residents of the Bayview for their support of this critical Center.”

The Bayview VTC will include up to 135 parking spaces for 203 people, 24/7 staffing and security, bathrooms, mobile shower facilities, potable water, and mobile blackwater pumping services.

Additionally, the Center will provide people living in their vehicles in the immediate area with access to services designed to help stabilize their lives through health care, housing, employment, or other interventions that meet their unique needs and lead to a permanent exit from homelessness. The Bayview VTC will be funded by Proposition C, which voters passed in 2018, and newly secured state resources.

“This vehicle triage center will improve conditions in the neighborhood for all by providing badly-needed services, security, and hygiene facilities,” said City Attorney David Chiu. “As an Assemblymember, I was happy to work with community groups to secure funding in the state budget for this site.”

“The Candlestick area has been under-resourced, neglected, and overrun with challenges for way too long. For years, our housed neighbors living in the Candlestick area have been calling on the City to tackle these very issues,” said District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton. “All of our community members deserve to live in a neighborhood that’s clean and safe and our vehicularly housed folks deserve access to basic services like restrooms, electricity, and pathways to housing. This VTC is the first step towards answering the calls of all our neighbors in the area who deserve better.”

“With the Bayview VTC, we continue to develop innovative approaches to the growing issue of vehicular homelessness in our community,” said Shireen McSpadden, Executive Director, San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “The purpose of the Bayview VTC is to offer stability to individuals and families and to provide a transition from living in vehicles to housing and services that offer an end to their homelessness.”

“As we continue to face tough challenges during these unprecedented times of the pandemic, State Parks is proud to partner with the City and County of San Francisco to help ease the homelessness issue in the Bayview community while providing quality outdoor recreation opportunities at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area,” said Maria Mowrey, Bay Area District Superintendent, California State Parks.

HSH will contract with nonprofits Urban Alchemy and Bayview Hunters Point Foundation to operate and provide services at the Center. Urban Alchemy and Bayview Hunters Point Foundation were selected jointly based on their success and demonstrated expertise working with people experiencing homelessness.

The proposed Bayview VTC is intended to be temporary, as the City has negotiated a two-year sublease for the Center with the California State Parks.

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

2 days ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

1 week ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.

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Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

1 week ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.