THE MAGAZINE OF OAKLAND, BERKELEY AND THE WORLD THAT REVOLVES AROUND US
December 2023
Youngwon Lee, owner of Dokkaebier craft beers
LocalGifts A TREASURE TROVE OF DELIGHTS
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December 2023
SHOPPING THERAPY
ONLY THE LONELY
LOCAL WARES
ROCK ART
SOUL FOOD
HOSPICE CARE
A letter from our editor 4
Combating social isolation 20
Gifts for every body 6 Burdell 12
It's the Season for Celebration! Come on in and find all you need to make your holidays special. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Monday–Saturday 9 AM to 8 PM
THE MAGAZINE OF OAKLAND, BERKELEY AND THE WORLD THAT REVOLVES AROUND US
ANIMAL KINGDOM
Urban wildlife habitats 16
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Karen Klaber
EDITOR
Samantha Campos
COPY EDITOR
Suzanne Michel
CONTRIBUTORS
Dennis King, collector 26 End-of-life workers organize 30
PRODUCTION OPERATIONS MANAGER Sean George
SENIOR DESIGNER Jackie Mujica
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Phaedra Strecher
Sonya Bennett-Brandt Jeffrey Edalatpour Lou Fancher j. poet Gabriel Thompson
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Lisa Santos
ADVERTISING ACCOUNT MANAGERS Danielle McCoy Ben Grambergu Mercedes Murolo Lynda Rael
CEO/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Dan Pulcrano
Sunday 9 AM to 7 PM –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
(510) 653-8181 4038 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland PiedmontGrocery.com
ON THE COVER Photo of Dokkaebier CEO Youngwon Lee, courtesy of Dokkaebier
AN EAST BAY EXPRESS PRODUCTION www.eastbaymag.com
TELEPHONE: 510.879.3700 ADVERTISING: sales@eastbaymag.com | 510.879.3730
EDITORIAL: editor@eastbaymag.com
CIRCULATION AND BUSINESS: publisher@eastbaymag.com
Except as otherwise noted, entire contents ©2023 Metro Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.
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Shopping Celebrating the many gifts of the East Bay
Spirit MERRY & BRIGHT Bring on the hot toddies (not pictured)! It’s the holidays.
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SONYA BENNETTBRANDT writes about climate, conservation and the Bay Area.
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burnout. Thus begins this cycle of holiday family gatherings and gift-giving. Amidst the angst and chaos, shopping locally solves a few problems. We know that spending money close to home helps sustain and grow our community. Luckily, our region features the best artisans, entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, craftspeople, collectors and so much more—as evidenced in these pages—who offer their wares to better our lives. Other folks who can improve our lives—or the ends thereof—are hospice workers. We learn in this issue how vital it is to protect the people who care for our loved ones during their most vulnerable moments.
JEFFREY EDALATPOUR’s writing about arts, food and culture has appeared in SF Weekly, Metro Silicon Valley, East Bay Express and KQED Arts.
LOU FANCHER has been published in the Diablo Magazine, the Oakland Tribune, InDance, San Francisco Classical Voice, SF Weekly, WIRED.com and elsewhere.
This time of year, when friends and families gather, also presents another problem for many of us: loneliness. We include here the ramifications of this national epidemic, with tips for overcoming feelings of isolation. One way to heal is by walking through nature and learning about our urban wildlife, with info on this also included in this issue. Do you know what also helps? Finding a thoughtful token for a loved one by engaging with the community and connecting with our plethora of talented vendors—aka, shopping. That’s the spirit! — Samantha Campos
J. POET has been writing about music for most of his adult life and has interviewed a wide spectrum of artists, including Leonard Cohen, Merle Haggard and Godzilla.
GABRIEL THOMPSON is the author of five books and has written for The New York Times, New York Magazine and The Nation.
PHOTO OF BARDO LOUNGE & SUPPER CLUB BY SAMANTHA CAMPOS
t’s the last month of the year, and I’m once again surprised by that. It’s an annual tradition! Time moves swiftly and eludes me. Is it seriously time to go to the store again? We were just there yesterday. It was a week ago. Didn’t we see Grace Jones at the Fox Theater last September? No, that was the year before. How is it that my friends’ kids are graduating high school—don’t they know we only graduated a few years ago? And so on. Add to this a generous heaping of disastrous world news, economic anxiety and continued pandemic(s), and we have a seasonal recipe for overwhelm and
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A-MEOW-ZING!!
Best of the East Bay — in 4 categories, 2 years in a row Best animal adoption center Best animal rescue group Best charitable event (PINTS FOR PAWS)
Best dog trainer (TRAIN THE BAY)
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Delight All the Parts The best local gifts for every body
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ne would never think the best gifts for giving gustatory, olfactory and optical satisfaction— respectively, taste, smell and sight—would come from a factory, a nonprofit community kitchen seeking to boost the food security of people in need, a daughter honoring her mother, fermented flowers, bamboo leaves and other improbable sources. But that’s exactly what happens at these East Bay entities whose products purchased and given as gifts are sure to delight a loved one’s mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and may we please add tummy and appetite for sharing:
Satisfy the Mouth and Nose COMMUNITY KITCHENS CKOAKLAND.ORG Founded in 2020 by Richard Mitchell and Maria Alderete of Luka’s Taproom, Community Kitchens finds all manner of ways to feed people who struggle to feed themselves. Through partnerships that prioritize BIPOC-owned businesses
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and restaurants in underserved neighborhoods, they serve the community with 35 Dining for Justice restaurants, 50 restaurant meal partners, 10 community organizations and 100 volunteer home chefs. Bringing food to where people live and work has involved the kitchen’s CK Mobile Oasis bus; self-serve, free food in stocked town fridges; and joining food distributions to provide bagged lunches, snack packs and more. Special dinners in cooperation with East Bay restaurants are a highlight and a great gift for foodies with a heart to feed not only themselves but others. Proceeds from a three-night series of dinners Dec. 1-3 with reggae and cassoulet featuring French master chef David Campigotto will fund Community Kitchens’ hunger and homelessness street meal program for 2024. The menu showcases cassoulet, the iconic Southern France dish of pork, duck and beans. Campigotto will be assisted by East Bay chefs Chris Pastena of Calavera and Chop Bar, Nigel Jones of Kingston 11 and Calabash and Kendall Jones of Luka’s Taproom, among others. The dinners will be held at the former space of Kingston
PHOTO COURTESY OF MR. ESPRESSO
BY Lou Fancher
11/16/23 7:59 AM
REGGAE & CASSOULET Proceeds from a series of dinners featuring French master chef David Campigotto (pictured) will fund Community Kitchens’ hunger and homelessness street meal program for 2024.
11 (now closed), 2270 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland, with happy hour starting at 5:30pm, followed by dinner at 7pm. Tickets cost $250 and include all food, beverages, tax and tip.
` THE CAFFE Brothers John and Luigi Di Ruocco opened Mr. Espresso’s first café in downtown Oakland this year.
THE CAFFÈ BY MR. ESPRESSO MRESPRESSO.COM Brothers John and Luigi Di Ruocco boosted the East Bay’s caffeine intake by 1000%, after opening the 40-year-old company’s first café in downtown Oakland. Mr. Espresso has been operated by the Di Ruocco family since 1978; using oak wood to roast its coffee beans and thereby producing a signature taste
» PHOTOS COURTESY OF COMMUNITY KITCHENS AND TCHO
TCHO TCHO.COM Out of the company’s state-of-the-art factory in Berkeley, TCHO has launched a galaxy of “fair and square” sweet chocolate treats. Founded by NASA techie Timothy Childs with chocolatier Karl Bittong, and operated until 2014 by Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe, the founders of Wired magazine, the company sources its cacao beans in cooperation with farmer partners in five main origin countries. Using only non-GMO, fair trade certified,100% plant-based ingredients without milk or dairy of any kind, TCHO offers factory tours in addition to tasty, densely flavorful chocolate bars and baking supplies. Besides tried-and-true standbys—Toffee Time, Choco Latte, Aww Nuts!—three flavors released for the winter season include Dirty Chai (oat milk chai chocolate infused with a shot of Equator Coffees’ Jaguar espresso), Karl the Nog (eggnog oat milk white chocolate
infused with nutmeg and rum flavor) and the Snow Problema gift box (six-bar assortment of dark and oat chocolates).
CHOCOLATE DREAMS Berkeley’s TCHO entices with unique seasonal and plant-based bars like Karl the Nog, an eggnog oat milk white chocolate with nutmeg and rum flavor. DECEMBER 2023 | EASTBAYMAG.COM | EAST BAY MAGAZINE
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YOUNGWON LEE’S Asian-inspired craft beer company Dokkaebier established its taproom and brewery near Oakland’s Jack London Square in March 2023.
GIFT SHOP Philippa Roberts, on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, carries locally crafted jewelry plus a plethora of gifts for all ages.
« and reputation for aromatic, bold,
complex, elegant, well-balanced and satisfying flavors, and also disrupting espresso convention with small-batch blends introducing surprising, layered, contemporary cupping notes.
FREE RANGE FLOWER WINERY FREERANGEFLOWERWINERY.COM
DOKKAEBIER ENJOYDKB.COM Youngwon Lee’s Asian-inspired craft beer company established its taproom and brewery at the former Federation site near Jack London Square in March 2023,
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Please the Eyes and Ears LAUREL BURCH STUDIOS LAURELBURCHSTUDIOS.COM CHRONICLE BOOKS CHRONICLEBOOKS.COM PHILIPPA ROBERTS PHILIPPAROBERTS.COM Go retro with a wall calendar. It’s both practical and becomes legacy art when created by Aarin Burch, owner of West Berkeley’s Laurel Burch Studios. The younger Burch is the daughter of the late Laurel Burch, and the calendar, the first in 10 years, pays tribute to the artist’s 50 years of creating unique and beautiful art and design. It’s a stunner, with personal
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF DOKKAEBIER AND PHILIPPA ROBERTS
Founder Aaliyah Nitoto’s lavender wine in 2021 earned Cosmopolitan magazine’s Best Sustainable White Wine. Along with Black winemakers who are members of the Association of African American Vintners, her company’s lineup of plant-based, non-grape, vegan wines represents a longawaited, ground-breaking revolution. Not only has she joined people of color and women to move into vanguard positions by establishing her own company, Free Range wines offer exciting flavors made with fermented flowers and techniques rising from centuryold practices and cultures. Sniffing and sipping Nitoto’s garden-in-a-glass will have one’s nose and mouth singing “Joy to the world, joy to you and me.”
taking over Federation beer operations and beers made by Hella Coastal, Oakland’s only Black-owned brewery. Drinking a beer under the Dokkaebier label transports an imbiber to new far-away lands where the air is scented with galangal (a root closely related to ginger and turmeric), corn, lime, honey, Asian fruits, wheat, bamboo and more. Consider oneself a traditionalist? Pick up Federation’s tried-and-true In The Weeds West Coast IPA or Oakland Gold Golden Ale.
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DANGER!
CLIMATE CHANGER Garbage is a manufactured product, created when otherwise recoverable resources are mixed and mashed together. Most rooms in every building in the whole country have a basket where this manufacturing begins. Discarded resources are put in one by one, then dumped into a larger bin, and then into a truck with a more modern body based on this one. A hydraulic piston smashes everything together. The objective is to pack in more cargo before the truck has to be driven to where it can dump onto the land, to be covered in a “sanitary“ way. Liquids leach out and make their way into the planet's NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day from February 12, 2002, colored the methane in the Earth's atmosphere green, and an animation showed how it spins to the poles. NASA said, “Methane (CH4) is second only to carbon dioxide (CO2) in creating a warming greenhouse effect …. The largest abundance released by the US … is created when anaerobic bacteria break down carbon-based garbage in landfills.” [Emphasis added.]
water — eventually. These “sanitary” methods of filling the land (hence “sanitary landfills”) also provide for anaerobic decomposition of organic materials – which makes methane. Landfills are the largest human-created source of methane. In the short term methane is 80-100 times more powerful than carbon dioxide to warm the planet.
Making garbage changes the climate! If you're not for Zero Waste, how much waste are you for?
Urban Ore has been salvaging for reuse in Berkeley since 1981. We have 3 acres of secondhand goods, open 360 days a year until 5:00PM, 900 Murray St. near 7th x Ashby. Come shop. DECEMBER 2023 | EASTBAYMAG.COM | EAST BAY MAGAZINE
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These East Bay entities whose products purchased and given as gifts are sure to delight a loved one’s mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and may we please add tummy and appetite for sharing.
OLDY BUT GOODY Yes, wall calendars are still as popular as ever—like this one, from Bay Area-based Chronicle Books.
« stories and quotes from Laurel Burch.
and tabletop items, candles, frames, art, socks, slippers and more. A special Oakland section is worthwhile, and all of the many offerings are meticulously curated.
Treat the Odds and Ends Of course, a body is more than a mouth, nose, eyes and ears. There are hands, feet, skin, muscles, and the mind, soul and spirit to gift. Here are some send-off suggestions, with a promise to feature specific local businesses in future editions of the magazine. • Hands: Any tech gadget, mobile device or new app will set thumbs happy-tapping. • Feet: Boots. (Remember the rain last winter?) • Skin: Provide soothing protection
with balms, lotions, soaps, sun hats and high-tech UV protective clothing. • Muscles: Give in to the latest trends and invest in pickleball gear or an e-bike. • Mind and Soul: Select books by Bay Area authors—there are dozens of great choices—from a favorite independent bookstore, search out best buddy gifts for owners of felines and canines or for one’s own cat or dog. • Spirit: For “experiencer” friends, choose adventure gifts, such as scuba, surfing or sailing sessions, ukulele jams, theme park passes, salsa or ballroom dance classes, horseback riding, hang-gliding, and satisfy the nature lover with regional/state park passes for hiking and camping trips.❤
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRONICLE BOOKS
Other fine choices for calendars come from Bay Area-based Chronicle Books: a LEGO calendar with impressive photographs of LEGO “minitoys” placed in fantastic, imaginary settings, or a second calendar featuring Anne Taintor’s vintage ladies in frocks and bikinis exhibiting biting humor in pastiched feminist quips, such as an aproned housewife checking the roast who says, “Why, I’d be delighted to put my needs last again.” After one has picked up a pair of Laurel Burch’s iconic earrings and marked their birthday on calendars intended for friends so they think of the gifter and reciprocate, they may hop over to Oakland and visit Philippa Roberts. In addition to jewelry, there are gifts for all ages, from baby clothing and toys to books, games, cards, journals, reading glasses, bags, wallets, textiles, kitchen
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Burdell Foraging at local farmers’ markets drives Chef Geoff Davis’ menu BY Jeffrey Edalatpour 12 EAST BAY MAGAZINE | EASTBAYMAG.COM | DECEMBER 2023
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FOR THE TABLE Chicken liver mousse with crispy skin and shallots, maple vinaigrette and cornmeal waffle kickstarts a dinner.
A
GRANDPARENTS’ KITCHEN Soul food is a state of mind for Chef Geoff Davis.
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHEF GEOFF DAVIS
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t Chef Geoff Davis’ restaurant, Burdell, a couple of diners told him they were surprised that fried chicken wasn’t a staple on his soul food menu. While he was on the way to the Temescal neighborhood where Burdell is located, the chef defined his approach to the cuisine for me as, “an ethos of cooking.” For Davis, soul food encompasses something beyond a couple of familiar dishes. To expand on the idea, he made an analogy with Italian food. Bay Area chefs aren’t making Italian food in the exact same way chefs are making it in Italy. “The intention is there, the way of thinking about food and cooking, more than in specific dishes,” he said. In October, Davis took the time to write an impassioned online response to one critical customer who Yelped, “It’s quite obvious from multiple reviews, that’s [sic] others share my same sentiment. THIS IS NOT SOULFOOD!!” Davis replied by asking the question, “Why do we put each other in a box? We’ve gotten a couple negative reviews from guests that are a bit stretched from our concept.” He added, “The big point for me for this restaurant is that it is really an exploration of a cuisine that has been ignored and been sidelined.” At Burdell, named for one of his grandmothers, Davis has created a
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platform to express his ethos, a point of view in the kitchen that’s personal and authentic for him. “For multiple generations, soul food has meant a lot of different things to different people,” he said. People attach a certain price point and a certain style of food to the concept. “I really want to break that mold.” Typically, he explained, soul food restaurants are open all day and serve food from a steam table. “I want to tie soul food with the food my grandparents told me stories about, going foraging and getting ingredients directly from the farm or from their gardens,” Davis said. These are stories that hearken back to the 1950s and 1960s before the industrial food revolution. “And before housing projects and redlining disconnected Black people from access to land and fresh produce,” he said. Davis and his team are dedicated to foraging in Bay Area farmers’ markets. He mapped out a typical schedule where they source ingredients: Tuesdays at the South Berkeley Farmers’ Market; Thursdays at the Marin Farmers’ Market; Fridays at the Old Oakland Farmers’ Market; Saturdays at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market; and some Sundays at the Temescal Farmer’s Market. “We’re using the highest quality ingredients we can get our hands on,” he said. Davis’ background in fine dining provided him with an alternative way of serving soul food, one in which steam tables are left out of the equation. He worked for James Syhabout, the Oakland chef who made his name with Commis and Hawker Fare. Since leaving his employ, Davis said that Syhabout has remained a friend and a mentor to him. Earlier this fall, Syhabout wrote an article about Davis for Resy entitled, “Why Burdell’s Debut Is So Special and Inspiring—Especially For Chefs.” “There’s a lot of preparation that goes into our simplest dishes,” Davis explained. The craft comes through in a dish that sounds, superficially, like any home cook could make it. Tomatoes ($16) is a salad composed of iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, torpedo onions, herbs and a glorious buttermilk dill ranch dressing. The tomatoes, cut into generous quarters, were likely some of the finest ones grown in the late summer sun. Davis should find a way to bottle that tangy ranch dressing. Farmers’ market vegetables like okra ($28) and greens ($13) appear on Burdell’s menu with greater degrees of complexity. Davis slow-cooks the greens with smoked
HOMEY AMBIENCE Burdell is named after one of Davis’ grandmothers.
ham hock, berbere spice and cider vinegar until they’re about to melt. The okra was served as a light, vinegary stew with dandelions, toasted sesame and purslane. Barbecue whole shrimp, heads still attached ($26), appear on a plate that’s lovingly smothered in a Worcestershire and brown butter sauce. Slices of white bread are grilled so they can sop up the dark brown, glistening sauce. Davis’ sourdough biscuits (two for $10) are crisp on the outside and tender inside, served with a cider honey butter. While he was growing up, Davis’ parents were both avid cooks who were very interested in food. His family also spent a lot of time going out to restaurants. “My mom would always want me to review the restaurant—what I liked and what I didn’t, how I felt about the service, etc.,” he noted. From the outset, it seems that he was fated to become a chef. He recalled that each summer the family would pick one cookbook to cook their way through. “I would be in charge of the shopping list and the plan for the meal’s budget,” he said. The concept for Burdell occurred to Davis about a decade ago. For five or six years though, he had a few false starts. But it was the series of weekly pop-ups he held at Andrew Vennari’s Sequoia Diner in 2022 that created the interest and momentum, which led to the restaurant’s recent opening. “We changed the menu
every week,” he said. “We wanted to show off the range of the cuisine. We had one couple who came to most of the popups because we kept changing what the offering was.” One dish, the pork neck, was a standout that made the transition to the restaurant’s menu. “In one of our first pop-ups, it was the same cut but treated a little bit differently,” Davis said. “The [pop-up] barbecue shrimp is really similar to the shrimp we have on our menu, but we did it with okra rice and cornbread.” He noted that all of the pop-up dishes could potentially show up again at the restaurant. “But 98% of everything on our menu comes from the farmers’ market, so it’s just really dependent on what we can get that week. That’s what really drives what goes on the menu.” Despite a few diners expressing their disappointment about the absence of fried chicken, Davis believes Burdell is serving people what they want. “We just don’t want to compromise and pander to what people expect when they hear the words ‘soul food,’” he said. “I think soul food is the only true American food that was born here, and it needs a voice and room to grow into the future and not just continually be doing recreations of more simple food.” Burdell, open Wed to Sun from 5-9pm, 4640 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 510.239.9287. burdelloakland.com.
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Life Is
Wild W
The unique spectrum of urban animal habitats in the East Bay
BY Sonya Bennett-Brandt CRYPTIC CREATURES East Bay’s urban wildlife extends beyond just coyotes and deer.
hat humans perceive as one place—one city— can be a jigsaw puzzle of extremely different ecosystems, each with its own risks and opportunities for wildlife. In the East Bay, animal neighbors are as numerous and varied as human ones. There are rattlesnakes in the hills, rainbow trout in Wildcat Creek, falcons in The Campanile, newts in the pools of the Botanical Garden, 16 species of bats roosting in caves and crevices—and that’s just scratching the surface. The layout of the East Bay creates a unique spectrum of habitats for wildlife. Down the spine of the Berkeley and
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TRAIL CAM Some animals are seldom seen up close, like the swooping hawk (pictured here) and crepuscular bobcat (photo below right).
cover and hunting ground in the overgrown fringes of a golf course, while coyotes prefer the larger territory and taller shrubs and grasses of the East Bay parks. Cameras in the yards of private residences are likely to see a full cast of small mammals, while the MLK Shoreline cameras mostly capture wading birds like egrets and herons and waterfowl like ducks and geese. The cameras along the perimeter of the zoo itself are dominated by coyotes or deer, alternating season by season. The zoo’s project is a part of the Urban Wildlife Information Network, an alliance of researchers from around the world working to promote coexistence with wildlife in urban areas. The Oakland cameras have contributed data to larger studies about urban animal behavior, like studies about urban coyotes, and about how wildlife uses golf courses as habitat. The lives of urban wildlife present a host of research questions: How do animals move across city environments? How abundant are certain species, and how does species diversity change across seasons? How do behaviors shift as animals adapt to city life? The Urban Wildlife Project is slowly gathering
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF SAMANTHA SAMMONS
Oakland Hills, the largest urban park district in the nation protects a swath of forest, chaparral and grassland. Then there’s a strip of dense urban areas: busy with people and crisscrossed by highways, but full of the crumbs and crusts that entice small animals into human environments, which in turn entice predators to follow. Moving westward, there’s the more open landscape and wetlands of the shoreline, then the bay itself. Despite sharing territory with us, urban animals can be cryptic, their populations and habits hard to pin down. Since 2018, the Oakland Zoo’s Urban Wildlife Program has tracked and monitored animals in the East Bay by placing motion-activated trail cameras in 17 locations across Oakland, from the East Bay Regional Park District to the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline. “It’s really cool to see the gradient among the cameras,” said Samantha Sammons, a senior keeper at the Oakland Zoo, who oversees the Urban Wildlife Program. “Each location really has a different subset of species that we see.” For example, gray foxes, hardly larger than domestic cats, can find adequate
enough data to see patterns in the photos they’ve collected. “It’s a very interesting geography around here,” said Sammons. “Animals in the park areas definitely behave slightly differently than animals in the residential areas. Or even down in the city versus the MLK Shoreline. They all have their own behavior.” Human presence applies a strong pressure on when and how animals are active. In the parks, which are full of hikers and dog walkers, animals are more likely to lay low during the day and take over the trails under the cover of darkness. “Some of my favorite photos are ones where you see people walking by all the time during the day—but then at night, all these animals are walking the same path,” said Sammons. Many of the East Bay’s local urban animals are, by now, familiar neighbors. Most people have probably experienced a late-night run-in with a portly raccoon or two trundling across the sidewalk, startled a skunk in an alleyway, or sighted a coyote or black-tailed deer in a local park. Yet much of the region’s vibrant wildlife manages to live close by but under the radar, giving humans little to no glimpse of the well-camouflaged communities tucked into meadows, creek-beds, trailsides, and other bits and pieces of green space scattered across the cities of the East Bay. Consider the dusky-footed woodrat, often caught on Sammons’ cameras by Arroyo Viejo Creek in South Oakland. Only distantly related to the common rat, the woodrat is shier and more
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MLK SHORELINE Cameras mostly capture wading birds like the heron (pictured here), while the dusky-footed woodrat (photo above right) is often caught on Sammons’ cameras by Arroyo Viejo Creek in South Oakland. Meanwhile, wild boar (photo below) live in the parks but sometimes venture into nearby yards and gardens.
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adorable, with rounded Mickey Mouse ears, chubby gerbil cheeks and a furry tail. Woodrats are urbanizers in their own right, constructing elaborate conical homes with twigs and leaves, complete with cozy chambers lined with shredded bark for sleeping and a series of specialized larders for fungi, leaves and acorns. These nests, built near each other
in woodrat neighborhoods, can grow to several feet in height and are often passed down from generation to generation for decades. Another interesting denizen of the East Bay is the black-tailed jackrabbit, a species of hare. Larger and leaner than rabbits, they don’t dig burrows—instead, they rely on their ability to zigzag away
from predators at speeds of up to 40 mph and hop 10 to 20 feet in one bound. Female jackrabbits scratch shallow depressions in the soil to give birth, and their offspring, known as leverets, are born lively and fully furred, hopping around within minutes of birth. Some animals are well-known but seldom seen, like the crepuscular bobcat, which creeps into East Bay neighborhoods to hunt rabbits, squirrels, mice and birds at dusk and dawn. Wild boar who live in the parks sometimes venture into nearby yards and gardens. The Urban Wildlife Project’s cameras even captured otters on a golf course by the Oakland shoreline. Catching creatures on camera is a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Some animals are so elusive that their presence is only known through scat, footprints and the occasional eyewitness report. Mountain lions definitely pass through the East Bay, Sammons said, but she hasn’t seen one in a trail cam photo—yet. “Cameras only capture one little segment,” said Sammons. “It could be that wildlife is passing right outside the frame of the camera, and we would have no idea. Unless you’re there at the exact moment in time when it happened, you might never know that there's a mountain lion passing by.” Trail cams record just a fraction of the animals living, traveling, hiding and hunting within urban environments. Even so, the photos give researchers a window into how our animal neighbors behave when humans aren’t looking, in the green corners and quiet pockets of cities and neighborhoods. “How we treat what we consider ‘our’ environments, like our trash and our roads and our work, does affect wildlife and can alter and change how they behave,” said Sammons. “All these animals pass through—and they share the same space as us.” ❤
18 EAST BAY MAGAZINE | EASTBAYMAG.COM | DECEMBER 2023
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The
Loneline Epidemic
How to mitigate feeling socially disconnected and isolated in our postpandemic world BY Lou Fancher
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ness
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environmentalist or nature-lover who makes a home in a remote, less-developed location. Actual loneliness is different from being alone. The former is a disconnection that can be experienced even in a crowd; the latter is a lifestyle or episodic choice. A person in a rewarding intimate partnership, who has or doesn’t feel the need for hundreds of social media “friends,” might suffer from feeling disconnected from larger society. Alternatively, a highly social person who volunteers or carries a prominent profile in a community might grieve over the lack of a romantic partner or a best friend. Loneliness is complex, and the only thing easy to tickle out is that almost everyone has firsthand knowledge and has experienced it. One of the traps of the condition, particularly if combined with shame, is the tendency for a lonely person to catastrophize. “I’m the only person in the history of mankind who has ever felt this isolated,” one might think. The sufferer and other people might be quick to pathologize the situation, with comments such as, “I/You must have a mental health condition. I/You should see a therapist.” Self-rebuke and well-intended but misguided encouragement—chin up, just get over it, keep a journal, get a dog, “think of all the people who have it worse than you do”—intensify the verbal whipping and actually might increase isolation under the crescendo of verbal abuse. The problem sweeps thousands of individuals into therapists’ offices. Having already hoarded and exhausted self-help books and online apps, having searched the Internet for “my people,” they are desperate for a cure or even momentary relief. Loneliness experienced before, during and especially following the coronavirus pandemic is not just bandied about in social psychology research labs and think tanks, but has captured America’s political gaze. Experts say it’s among topics discussed at every level of public health. Make no mistake; it’s fair for the surgeon general and others along with him to suggest America has a loneliness pandemic. With distressing evidence of increased suicides, death rates and
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PHOTO BY BADER OLEKSI/SHUTTERSTOCKI
ately, I’ve been asking family, friends and even near-strangers if they’ve ever experienced loneliness and if the pandemic made it worse. If one is seeking a universal “yes,” those are the perfect questions to ask. I did not take joy in our shared suffering but did begin to think maybe I wasn’t neurotic—not to mention immunocompromised and fantasizing life would be different. And then, a few months ago, listening to the nightly news, I heard United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy referring to our loneliness as a “national epidemic” and felt even more validated. Murthy even issued an 85-page advisory. In an April 2023 essay in The New York Times, he wrote, “At any moment, about one out of every two Americans is experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.” My interest was extended by a journalist’s high propensity for curiosity. I began to research, which happens to be one way I handled my ongoing loneliness. Learning more about the topic and finding ways to reverse the negative flow of loneliness led to solutions that worked for me. It filled the time and connected me to my close friends and family, the local community and people across the country. Here’s some of what I learned, followed by suggestions that might help combat loneliness. The common constellation of emotions that constitutes loneliness results from a broad spectrum of causes, including actual, imagined, self-inflicted, systemic, economic—and other accelerants, such as the prevalence of technology and social media—that can lead to isolation. In contemporary culture, we refer to it on the downside as “otherness,” “lacking a tribe,” “lonely” or simply “being too much alone.” On the opposite end of the spectrum, someone choosing to spend considerable time in solitude is embraced as an intentional nomad, freespirit, or admired as someone seeking enlightenment through spiritual retreat or solo mindfulness practice. When the separation is physical, a person deliberately living in isolated surroundings is respected as an esoteric, devout
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When people are socially disconnected, their risk of anxiety and depression increases. So does their risk of heart disease (29%), dementia (50%) and stroke (32%). The increased risk of premature death associated with social disconnection is comparable to smoking daily and maybe even greater than the risk associated with obesity. UNITED STATES SURGEON GENERAL DR. VIVEK MURTHY
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serious health risks from conditions related to the mental and physical symptoms experts associate with loneliness, their concern is backed up by real data, not just anecdotal. “When people are socially disconnected, their risk of anxiety and depression increases,” writes Murthy. “So does their risk of heart disease (29%), dementia (50%) and stroke (32%). The increased risk of premature death associated with social disconnection is comparable to smoking daily and maybe even greater than the risk associated with obesity.” In the Health and Human Services (HHS) report, Murthy stated that loneliness was most pronounced in young people aged 15-24 who had 70% less in-person social interaction with their friends. A 2022 paper from Johns Hopkins University found that socially isolated older adults also had a higher chance of developing dementia than their peers. A July 14 article from The Conversation, a national nonprofit, independent news organization, reported more research-backed facts: A 2021 survey by Cigna showed nearly 1 in 6 Americans reported feeling lonely or isolated. Young adults in the survey were nearly twice as likely as people over age 65 to report feeling lonely or isolated. Similar conditions were reported by 75% of Hispanics, 68% of Black or AfricanAmerican people, and the majority of
lower-income respondents and single parents. Severe physical and mental health conditions—obesity, dementia, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, depression, anxiety and other chronic illnesses—lead to shortened lifespans and poor quality of life. To address the issue of loneliness and isolation following the pandemic, the National Institutes of Health launched the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) initiative. With funds allocated by Congress, NIMH sought to determine the medical aftereffects specific to COVID, but with no guarantee of the limited money continuing, actual progress to deliver results and actual solutions remains indeterminate. Notably for those people searching for a glimmer of light in a dark tunnel, there’s some grassroots relief found in groups such as Seniors Taking Action, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, the Troops First Foundation for military veterans and numerous organizations dedicated to providing a social connection for LGBTQ+, BIPOC and other undersupported communities. A course offered as a podcast at Yale University, “The Happiness Lab,” has host Dr. Laurie Santos introducing scientific research that shows what does and does not make people happy (or less lonely). Books are a sturdy resource for people hoping to combat loneliness. In 2020, Murthy authored Together, a
book encouraging people to focus on relationships and life purpose more than career achievements and productivity. A brand new book by Andy Field, Encounterism: The Neglected Joys of Being in Person, makes the argument that after almost three years of COVID-dictated isolation, we need to inhabit shared spaces. The London-based artist creates projects inviting people to explore inperson experiences as common as going to a hair salon, striking up a conversation with (instead of ignoring) the homeless person one passes on a daily commute, or sharing an umbrella with a stranger or neighbor during a rainstorm. Experts point to larger changes or foundational pillars society must use as we begin to address loneliness. The first step includes acknowledging everyone at some point in life will experience loneliness. But, accepting the condition does not mean being passive. Secondary steps might be to strengthen the social infrastructure of community connections by striking up conversations with people met in parks, the grocery store, public libraries and similar places—or joining an advocacy group that seeks things such as paid family leave, accessible technology for all, or improved funding and services to address negative health consequences related to loneliness. Casual friendships might be improved by choosing to engage in person by using public transportation, joining a fitness
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club, attending local meetings instead of remotely on Zoom and participating in groups interested in the same things. Intimate relationships require a larger investment of time, so considering in advance exactly what is desired—whether it be a lover, a travel companion, a formal relationship—helps determine the paths to pursue. Many of us might think these are fine ideas, but they won’t produce immediate effects. Those who are lonely want to know what can be done now. The following are a few isolation-busting suggestions specific to the East Bay, with the idea that similar activities—and even some of the actual organizations—pertain to other cities and regions.
Memberships Joining a social or business club is a natural way to increase in-person interactions. The Berkeley City Club comes with pedigree built into the foundations: in the architectural design of California’s heralded architect, Julia Morgan, and in its long history of supporting and amplifying the voice of women leaders. Originally commissioned as the clubhouse of the Berkeley Women's City Club, the landmark building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. More importantly for those looking for social, civic and cultural connection, City Club’s mission continues to be progressive. Members gain access to the heated indoor pool, fitness room, members-only workspaces and lounges, and special guest rates for the club’s hotel rooms, classes and events. Invitations to mixers, exclusive dinners in Julia’s Restaurant or Morgan’s Bar & Lounge, and special rates on private events such as weddings and business meetings are available. Programs include a book club, paint nights, yoga and tango classes, an arts & culture program series, wine tastings and Beer Fest Fridays, and more. Membership ranges from an initiation fee of $1,000 and monthly dues of $179 for single memberships up to household memberships with respective fees of $1,500 and $340. A less expensive way to participate is to purchase tickets to events open to
the public, among which there are many options. Viewing the online events calendar allows one to explore club offerings before taking a full plunge into membership. The Claremont Club & Spa, Spa a Fairmont hotel, is an iconic East Bay landmark that was established in 1915, situated on 22 acres with views of San Francisco. Members gain daily access to its extensive facilities, including three heated outdoor pools, tennis and pickleball courts, stateof-the-art fitness equipment, guided instruction and over 75 weekly wellness classes, with exclusive savings at Fairmont Spa, Limewood Bar & Restaurant and East Bay Provisions. The Commonwealth Club claims to be the country’s oldest and largest public affairs forum. The club addresses politics, culture, society, climate, economy and more through events in the East Bay and the greater Bay Area. A weekly radio broadcast is carried by more than 230 public and commercial stations scattered across the nation, and a selection of programs are podcasts, video broadcasts or posted in a website archive. The club’s upcoming travel opportunities offer trips to the Canadian Rockies, the Republic of Georgia, the Greek Islands, Turkey and Cyprus, the Deep South, South Africa and other locales. Recent programs have had experts speaking on transportation, literature, social media, wealth equity and the future of housing in the Bay Area, among other topics. Most events are open to the general public, making it easy to purchase a ticket and find out if the club is a good fit. Memberships begin at $120 for individuals and rise to the $1,000 Leadership Circle, with reduced prices for students and educators and options for corporate memberships. The Urban Adventure Club is based in San Francisco and offers events throughout the Bay Area, with excursions to places beyond. There are Learn to Play Texas Hold’em Poker nights, a virtual program for creating online dating profiles, dinner cruises and local restaurant outings with hosted meals, and paddleboard classes, as well as ongoing events such as social tennis on Sundays, game nights, ubiquitous pickleball
competitions and classes, and more. Upcoming trips include a Sequoia National Park hiking adventure, tubing, hiking and wine tasting on the Russian River and a weekend on a Lake Shasta houseboat. Memberships start at $25 per month, with people looking to join two or more events per month benefitting from three-month and one-year memberships that offer savings on monthly dues and greater discounts on event access. A 30-day free trial is available, and members may upgrade at any time.
Other Ideas Membership in a club is but one of the many ways people can find or explore new relationships and social connections. Free or low-cost options include recreation departments in local cities and towns, neighborhood walking and book clubs, and faith communities offering a wide variety of interfaith, non-denominational as well as religious institutions. Public libraries in the post-pandemic world have returned to plentiful programming, with weekly events, workshops, classes and special events designed for patrons of all ages. Art centers and community choirs and orchestras appeal to people interested or accomplished in the arts; volunteer ushering or docent duties serve individuals with connections to theater, museums and history. People in the UK and Australia have established specially designated “chat benches” where people can meet for community conversations—maybe start one in a local neighborhood? A person might also look online for Civic Suds, a group that meets in laundromats. For those interested in public policy, economic vitality and advocacy aimed at preserving the quality of life in the area, there are organizations such as the East Bay Leadership Council. Council Events include an annual advocacy day, a Leadership Series featuring thought leaders and keynote speakers, the East Bay Philanthropy Awards, and the Capitol Series, with elected officials from Washington, D.C. and Sacramento discussing issues important to East Bay employers and members of the EBLC. ❤
24 EAST BAY MAGAZINE | EASTBAYMAG.COM | DECEMBER 2023
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The Art of
’ ’ R ock n
o R ll
Dennis King collects psychedelic posters and more ‘for the magic’ BY j. poet
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PHOTOS BY AKIKO NABESHIMA
n the mid-’60s, The Fillmore Auditorium and the Family Dog’s Avalon Ballroom became ground zero for the psychedelic rock revolution. Bill Graham began booking shows at the Fillmore with local, soonto-be legendary bands, like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Santana. To promote the shows, Graham, and the Family Dog’s Chet Helms, hired local artists to make posters that incorporated the vibrant psychedelic imagery of the time. The posters were given away free and appeared in the windows of counterculture bookstores, record shops and other businesses. The posters slowly became treasured by collectors and increased in value dramatically. Berkeley’s Dennis King was one of the people who noticed this trend. He began collecting posters and comic books during his teenage years and started selling them at the Alameda Flea Market in 1971. Over the years, his buying and
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ROCK ART King has one of the largest rock poster collections in the world, with hundreds of flyers from the Mabuhay Gardens and other venues.
COUNTERCULTURE ENTREPRENEUR Dennis King began collecting posters and comic books during his teenage years. DECEMBER 2023 | EASTBAYMAG.COM | EAST BAY MAGAZINE
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UNDERGROUND COMIX King has a massive inventory of comic books from the 1950s and up.
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selling of posters became a full-time job. Today, he owns the D. King Gallery on Fulton Street in Berkeley. The shop sells posters, baseball cards and comic books, both underground and mainstream. “I grew up during the rock ’n’ roll era of the ’50s and ’60s, listening to Top 40 radio,” King said. “I had a transistor radio with one earplug in 1959. I played classical guitar, and even went to see Segovia. But when the folk movement came along, I got interested in fingerpicking. I saw The Kingston Trio, The Limelighters and Peter, Paul & Mary. Then, The Beatles changed everything. “Walking down Telegraph Avenue one
day, I saw the Zig Zag Man poster for Big Brother,” King said. “I thought, ‘That takes balls!’ and started looking into the posters. I was too young to get into the Fillmore or Avalon, so I went to the free concerts at Provo Park in Berkeley and The Panhandle in San Francisco. I saw Country Joe and the Fish, The Grateful Dead and all the bands.” King bought a few posters when he had extra money. “Moe’s sold them in the basement of their bookstore on Telegraph,” he recalled. “The Avenue was a counter-culture hub, like the Haight in San Francisco, but more political, international and intellectual. “I’d collected comic books since I was a kid,” he continued. “One day, my girlfriend said she was going to the Alameda Flea Market to raise some money. She asked me to come along and sell some of my comics. Someone bought the whole box. I realized I could make money selling comics. About a year later, I ran into Ron Greco, from the band Crime, selling rock posters at the flea market. I bought them all, pulled out the ones I wanted and sold the rest. “By that time, I was going to UC Berkeley, studying for a math degree. I had a cheap apartment, $95 a month. I was making enough to get by, eating ramen and eggs. I graduated and became a teacher for a few months, but the bureaucracy was too much,” he remembered. “Since I was starting to make good money selling posters and comics, I quit. A few years later, I was at the San Diego Comic Convention. A friend of mine told me he’d sold 200 bucks worth of sports cards out of a binder he had. I said, ‘Tell me all about it.’ That got me into selling baseball cards.” King made a shirt to wear to the flea market that said, I buy Baseball cards. “I was wearing it when I went into a bookstore in Berkeley. The owner asked if I was serious. When I said yes, he dug out some cards from the 1920s, including Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. That really got me going,” he said. A few months later, King opened a small shop in a mall on Durant Street. He went to the Daily Cal and told them about his store. A story about
it appeared on the front page. On his opening day, people were lining up outside. KRON sent a reporter over. The station ran stories about him for three days running. The business took off, and he’s been expanding ever since. He moved to his current location on Fulton Street in 1996 and opened an online store the next year. They’re currently open by appointment only. “Before COVID, we were open all the time, trying to give people what they want,” King said. “I didn’t get into this for the money, but for the magic. When I first started, a guy came in and asked if I bought baseball cards. He said he was gonna throw them away. I paid him 200 bucks for the box and found some cards from the ’30s. A couple of weeks went by. Someone came in looking for those very cards. That kind of thing happens all the time. “We have a deep reserve of baseball cards going as far back as the 1880s, but my sweet spot is stuff from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. I don’t really pursue sports items from this century, but sometimes it comes my way. I collect pennants, signed baseballs and footballs; if it’s old and sports-related, we probably have something,” he continued. King has a massive inventory of comic books from the 1950s and up, as well as one of the largest selections of underground comix, but his specialty is the psychedelic posters of the 1960s. “I have one of the largest rock poster collections in the world. I even collect the original hand-drawn art that they were created from. When punk hit in the ’70s, there was an explosion of flyers for the new bands,” he said. “I have hundreds of flyers from the Mabuhay Gardens and other venues, but I was more interested in the art than the music. One standout from that era is the posters for Psycotic Pineapple, done by John Seabury. Today, there’s a whole other wave of modern poster artists. It’s been a big scene since the early 2000s, and it’s getting bigger all the time.” King said the best way to get a feel for the evolution of the art is to visit his gallery or check out his web page at dking-gallery.com.
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HOME SUPPORT ‘Hospice care is a deeply emotional thing,’ said Michael Ellsberg.
Protecting End-of-Life As hospices privatize, Bay Area workers organize BY Gabriel Thompson
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PHOTO BY CHINNAPONG/SHUTTERSTOCK
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his February, just before he turned 92, Daniel Ellsberg learned he had inoperable terminal pancreatic cancer. Best known in journalism circles for leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971, Ellsberg had a couple of months’ reprieve before he became bedridden. By April, the longtime activist entered hospice care at home in Kensington. His family hired a local agency, Hospice East Bay, to help.
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The support from the nurse assigned to Ellsberg, Jill Tobin, was extraordinary, said Michael Ellsberg, 46, the youngest of Daniel Ellsberg’s three children. His father would pass away in June. “This was the first time that anyone I was very emotionally close to had died,” Michael Ellsberg said, noting the long hours Tobin spent at his dad’s bedside. “Hospice care is a deeply emotional thing,” he continued, “and we were all so grateful for her.” Tobin did not mention it to the Ellsbergs, but she and her coworkers were beginning a fight they hoped would ensure they—and the dying patients they cared for—got what they felt they deserved from Hospice East Bay. In September, the workers filed papers to hold a union election. On Nov. 3, Hospice East Bay employees voted 56-15 to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), becoming the sixth hospice workplace in California to unionize in the last year. Union certification at East Bay will also be the latest in a burgeoning labor movement among hospice workers seeking not only better wages but also better jobs.
Hospice Workers Hospice care was once the work of charities and nonprofits, but it has more recently become big business. More than half of Americans now die in hospice care, which is often paid for by Medicare. Last year, Medicare spent nearly $24 billion on hospice care, a jump of more than 24% from five years earlier. Forprofit companies make up more than 72% of the hospice industry, with more than 100 new for-profit companies entering the field each year. And these companies, though funded at the same daily rate per patient as nonprofits, enjoy more than three times their profit margins. “In the last 10 to 15 years, there has been an explosion of for-profit hospices, especially in California and throughout
the southwest,” said Matt Wilkinson, a spokesperson for the National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation, which represents nonprofit hospices and palliative care providers. Nonprofits, he said, have higher costs in part because they typically provide a range of services that for-profits don’t, including bereavement and spiritual care, which aren’t covered by Medicare. A 2019 report by Milliman, an actuarial firm with a specialty in healthcare, suggested that profit margins are also tied to cuts in core hospice services. The report, commissioned by the National Partnership for Hospice Innovation, found that nonprofit hospices provided patients three times as many physician or nurse practitioner visits and twice as many therapy visits as for-profit ones. In 2023, a RAND Corp. study published in JAMA Internal Medicine reported that caregivers of patients receiving hospice care reported receiving substantially worse care in for-profit hospices than nonprofit ones, though the data showed some variations. While there is no comprehensive data on unionization rates across the industry’s occupations, which range from home health attendants to spiritual counselors, anecdotal research suggests unionization is growing. Hospice worker unions have organized in Washington, Minnesota and Oregon in the last three years; the National Union of Healthcare Workers and the SEIUUnited Healthcare Workers West have organized five workplaces in California in the last year. (Disclosure: NUHW and SEIU are financial supporters of Capital & Main, a nonprofit publication in California.) Feeling increased pressure to provide more care for less pay has pushed hospice workers to organize, often for the same reasons given by Hospice East Bay workers. Tobin said she joined East Bay in part because the nonprofit agency has a reputation for providing high-quality patient care. But when the company’s leadership changed this spring, “the new
QUALITY OF CARE Caregivers of patients receiving hospice care reported receiving substantially worse care in for-profit hospices than nonprofit ones.
focus was much more around numbers and inflexible metrics for productivity,” she said. Soon, workers had reached out to the National Union of Health Workers for help. Capital & Main spoke to workers at three agencies with hospice union campaigns. All described similar pressures to see more patients more quickly, with little regard to the effect on care. Brooke Zakar, a veteran social worker at Sutter Health in Sacramento, said her caseload doubled and the frequency of her visits was cut in half. Her home health colleagues went from four
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PHOTO BY ALEXANDER RATHS/SHUTTERSTOCK
More than half of Americans now die in hospice care, which is often paid for by Medicare. Last year, Medicare spent nearly $24 billion on hospice care, a jump of more than 24% from five years earlier.
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I’m often having to decide, do I take care of myself and not do this work that would be needed for the person, or do I give what I know my patients and families need.
JILL TOBIN
« patients a day to six, she said.
At Providence St. Joseph Health Hospice in Sonoma County, the NUHW alleged that aides saw their daily caseloads increase by 25%. Meanwhile, at Hospice East Bay, spiritual counselor Claire Eustace said she was given 30-minute limits for routine meetings with patients and their caregivers. Tobin said many nurses at East Bay did unpaid work to ensure patients got the care they needed. In response to the organizing drive, Hospice East Bay’s interim president, Bill Musick, sent out a video message to employees, stating that the only thing a union could guarantee was that “you’ll work under union rules and be asked to pay union dues.” The company also distributed an anti-union flyer that said, “Keep in mind, a union organizer’s job is to promote the idea that employees and management have separate, incompatible interests. In fact, we all share the same interests.” In an emailed statement to Capital & Main, Musick wrote that the agency’s “commitment to patients attracts purpose-driven employees of great skill” who have rated the company a
Great Place to Work for the last four years. He denied that they “set strict parameters on the length of any specific interaction” and that they “regularly urge our employees to maintain a healthy balance between work and other aspects of their lives, and compensate them for all reported hours worked.” A spokesperson for Sutter said that the company “coordinates visits based on patients’ health needs” and that “staffing levels align with best practices and industry standards.” Providence did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Patients’ Needs Tobin doesn’t believe Hospice East Bay’s management understands how the push for productivity affects her patients’ needs or her own well-being. After spending the first year of the COVID19 pandemic as an emergency room nurse, she sought out hospice work in hopes of a job that was “more human and meaningful” and less rushed. Recent months have left her wondering if it would work out that way. “I’m often having to decide, do I take
care of myself and not do this work that would be needed for the person, or do I give what I know my patients and families need,” Tobin said. Indeed, the primary demand of East Bay workers interviewed by Capital & Main is to have more staffing and manageable caseloads that give them sufficient time with patients. “Organizing protects us as workers, but it also protects our communities, because we will have the resources we need to do true hospice work and not drive-by, task-based nursing,” Tobin said. Michael Ellsberg, who said he supports the union drive, said Tobin’s long hours of dedicated care for his father were exactly what he needed. “My dad was not the type to take orders,” Ellsberg said. “But Jill somehow won his trust. So if we needed him to eat something that he didn’t feel like eating, we would say, ‘Well, Jill says you need to eat.’ And he would say, ‘Oh, OK, Jill says that—OK, I’ll do it.’… This is a type of medicine where bedside manner really matters. And you can’t have that if you’re rushed.” This article was produced by Capital & Main and is copublished here with permission.
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