The Advocate

It's the unofficial slogan of San Leandro. Successive generations of local leaders have repeated it over and over in coffee shops, libraries, and city hall. We print it on banners and campaign mailers. It adorns our meeting rooms and street lights. It's seen as self-evident, a truth we hold without ever asking why, "a city where kindness matters." But does it? Whether we're looking at those sundown town times of the suburban wall, where crosses were burnt on Black family lawns and the police arrested gay men through entrapment, or the murder of Steven Taylor and citywide upheaval that followed during the pandemic years, San Leandro has continued to show that kindness is often the last thing on our minds. There are over 400 homeless people who live here. They're our neighbors, friends, and even family members. Yet, our Chamber of Commerce would have us send them to Oakland and Hayward or, better yet, book them a permanent stay at John George up the hill, if it

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the action of human beings." — Nelson Mandela in 2005 at the Make Poverty History rally in London’s Trafalgar Square. Average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in San Leandro in 2020 is approximately $1,845 per month . For a single year of occupancy, that total rent is $22,140. The minimum wage as of July 1, 2020 is $15 per hour . For a single full-time worker that equals a gross annual income of $31,200. After taxes, that comes to approximately $26,425 annual net income . That leaves you with approximately $4,285 for the entire year, or about $357 monthly, to pay for groceries, water, electricity, transportation, healthcare, and internet. This assumes you don't get sick or injured, lose your job or access to reliable transpiration, are evicted or foreclosed on, experience any kind of financial emergency, and that you aren't saving for retirement. In one of the m