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I found a website by Conde Nast called Portfolio.com and which shows the baseball stadiums that have the best -- and worst -- heath code records. The title of the article is "Foul Ballpark" and the subheading is "even the rats and flies have pretty good seats". If that's the case then one of the places with the best seats for Rats and Flies is The McAfee / Oakland Coliseum, home of the Oakland A's and the Oakland Raiders. According to the article, the home of these great teams had 493 Heath Code Violations In 2007. The website points to various online articles as the source for its conclusions. The website has Oakland front and center as a major violator in this area. It reports that food storage was so bad that food was exposed to "overhead leakage" and that "dirt, insects, rodents, and chemical contamination" was found. What's so embarrasing about this is that it happened 493 times in one year. There are only 365 days in the ...

It's about time! OAKLAND -- Alameda County hopes to attack two root causes of homelessness next year with new social service programs aimed at the mentally ill. Using a portion of a annual $20 million grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the county and two partners will seek to offer permanent housing and services to mentally ill homeless persons. "The programs will serve a very under-served and chronic homeless population in our county," said Riley Wilkerson, manager of the county's community development agency. "We are really starting to make inroads and focus in on the populations that have a high level of use." One of the new programs will focus on mentally ill homeless who have criminal histories. The program, Forensic Assertive Community Treatment Shelter Plus Care, will give permanent housing to 13 homeless individuals and provide each with services. The other program, STAY Well Housing Project, will focus on 31 menta...

This is terrible news that must be reported. What are medical institutions doing with the money made from record health care costs? It's not being spent on safe buildings at all. I hope more people spread this story. Half of hospitals won't meet seismic deadline Report warns of possible medical building closures, earthquake risk By Rebecca Vesely, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 01/18/2007 02:51:27 AM PST Half of California's hospitals requiring seismic retrofitting won't meet a 2013 state deadline, which could lead to hospital closures or put patients at risk if a large earthquake hits, according to a report issued today. The problem is especially great in the population-dense Bay Area and Los Angeles, where 80 percent of the hospitals needing retrofits are located, according to the study by the California HealthCare Foundation and the RAND Corporation. The biggest issue is cost of compliance, expected to reach a staggering $110 billion, according to the report....