3/21/2022
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Wall St Journal
How to Pay Off Your Debts Before Six Interest-Rate Increases
Spokesman-Review
Racism deemed a public health issue in Washington
Overnight apartment fire in North Spokane displaces 16 tenants
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Wall St Journal
Small-business owners have been hit particularly hard by additional security and repair costs
Mar. 20, 2022 1:40 pm ET
SAN FRANCISCO—Terry Asten Bennett’s family has been running Cliff’s Variety Store since 1936. In all that time, they’ve never experienced the amount of burglaries and property damage that they have recently, Ms. Bennett said.
Thieves smashed a display window and broke down a door to steal items as small as spray paint, and people shattered glass doors on two occasions for no apparent reason.
“These last two years have been insane,” she said. “It used to be a rare occurrence.”
Although violent crime in San Francisco is lower than in many other major U.S. cities, business owners, residents and visitors here are dealing with a rash of thefts, burglaries and car break-ins.
Among the 25 largest U.S. cities, San Francisco has had the highest property-crime rate in four of the most recent six years for which data is available, bucking the long-term national decline in such crimes that began in the 1990s. Property crimes declined in San Francisco during the first year of the pandemic, but rose 13% in 2021. Burglaries in the city are at their highest levels since the mid-1990s. There were 20,663 thefts from vehicles last year—almost 57 a day—a 39% increase from the prior year, although still below the record of 31,398 in 2017, according to the police.
Smashed storefronts are so common that the city launched a program to fix them with public money. Car owners leave notes declaring there is nothing of value in their vehicles, or leave their windows open to save themselves from broken glass. Videos of shoplifters hauling goods out of drugstores such as Walgreens have gone viral, and a smash-and-grab robbery by 20 to 40 people at a Louis Vuitton store last November made the national news.
Owners of small businesses say the costs of security and repairs are eating into profits already diminished by the Covid-19 pandemic. In the Castro, the neighborhood where Cliff’s is located, shops have recorded nearly 100 instances of smashed windows and doors that cost $170,000 to repair since the beginning of 2020, according to the neighborhood’s merchant association.
Criminologists say San Francisco’s high density of retail stores and its mix of tourists, commuters and wealthy residents have made it an inviting target for thieves. Locals point to a host of other factors that may be exacerbating the problem, including the tactics of the police and prosecutors, statewide changes intended to reduce the number of people behind bars, and the city’s dual crises of drug use and homelessness. There has been no end of finger-pointing.
Despite the city’s long history of progressive politics, some business owners and residents are demanding that political leaders shift to a more law-and-order approach.
San Francisco’s mix of retail stores, tourists, commuters and wealthy residents have made it an inviting target. The Union Square retail district, top, and the Chinatown neighborhood.
District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who took office in 2020 as part of the national “progressive prosecutor” movement and has de-emphasized the prosecution of low-level offenses, will face a recall election in June.
“Nothing is more important than to make sure that people who live in this city, people who work in the city, people who visit San Francisco, feel safe,” Democratic Mayor London Breed said at a news conference last month. “The fact is, that does require police officers.”
Some former police officials and business owners blame Mr. Boudin’s focus on keeping people who commit small-scale crimes out of prison. His office, for example, discourages filing charges in cases where suspects are pulled over for traffic infractions and officers find small amounts of drugs. Others point the finger at the police, who cleared just 6% of the city’s property crimes in 2020, more than 8 percentage points lower than the national average. A case is considered cleared if a suspect is arrested, charged and turned over to a court for prosecution, or is identified with sufficient evidence for a charge but can’t be taken into custody for circumstances beyond police control.
Some business owners say the city’s large population of people living on the streets and using drugs such as fentanyl is a big factor in the small-scale thefts. Law-enforcement officials, though, say they suspect organized crews of petty criminals are carrying out a large portion of them.
Police Chief Bill Scott has deployed more officers to tourist spots such as Fisherman’s Wharf to stop car break ins, and to retail shopping districts to stop thefts and burglaries. He has beefed up his retail theft investigations unit.
Businesses have been affected in every corner of San Francisco, even traditionally low-crime areas such as the Sunset District, where commercial and residential burglaries rose 80% in between 2019 and 2021.
Michael Hsu’s Footprint shoe store got broken into for the first time in February 2021. The thief used a blowtorch to crack the glass door without setting off the alarm and took tens of thousands of dollars worth of high-end North Face jackets. More people arrived soon after, taking whatever they could grab before they set off the alarm.
Mr. Hsu, who grew up in the Sunset, said he recalled thinking: “Oh, they finally got me.”
Michael Hsu's shoe store in the Sunset neighborhood has been burglarized repeatedly.
He now keeps some merchandise locked with security cables.
He turned to a grant program for small businesses to fix his shattered storefront.
Security footage shows a thief using a blowtorch to crack the glass door at Footprint.
Michael Hsu
Mr. Hsu was the first recipient in the new grant program for small businesses to fix their storefronts. Three weeks later, his store was hit again, this time by a thief who climbed up scaffolding, broke in through a second-story window and made off with several boxes of shoes.
He now equips his employees with pepper spray and a key fob that calls the police directly. He upgraded his security system and is putting money aside for other antitheft measures.
The grant program has distributed more than $500,000 to nearly 400 businesses to fix their storefronts.
Sharky Laguana, who is president of the city’s small business commission and runs the van-rental company Bandago, said thieves frequently smash his vehicles’ windows and steal his customers’ belongings. “It gives customers a bad experience, it costs them a lot of money and it costs us a lot of money,” he said.
Police and prosecutors say the majority of car break-ins are committed by organized crews. Mr. Laguana grew so frustrated he launched a reward program for information that leads to busts of big fencing operations that buy merchandise from such thieves. He thought he would be able to raise tens of thousands of dollars at best; he got $250,000 in pledges from rental-car companies and other businesses.
The day after the Louis Vuitton smash-and-grab robbery, San Francisco police deployed a mobile command center that still sits across the street from the luxury-goods store. The department sent more foot patrols to the Union Square retail district, pulling officers from all over the city, said Captain Julian Ng who oversees the area.
“It’s a resource drain, but if I had my way, we’d do this forever because it’s such an important area for the city,” said Capt. Ng.
Police Capt. Julian Ng, top, on the street in Chinatown. Shattered auto glass in the parking lot of a popular tourist destination.
Five people were arrested in connection with the Louis Vuitton incident. Captain Ng said there are many reasons for the city’s overall low rate of clearing property-crime cases, including the department’s no-chase policy for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, which aims to reduce unnecessary accidents. Car break-in crews can easily zip away in their own vehicles without police cars chasing them, he said.
Some former police officials said in interviews that officers don’t feel it is worth making an arrest in low-level cases because they assume the district attorney won’t file charges. They also point to a statewide ballot measure passed in 2014—Proposition 47—that raised the dollar amount at which theft can be prosecuted as a felony from $400 to $950.
Mr. Boudin, a former public defender, said his office hasn’t changed the way it prosecutes property crimes from the previous district attorney, George Gascon, who is now district attorney in Los Angeles and facing his own recall campaign. The office’s rate of filing charges against people arrested for burglaries and thefts dipped to 41% in Mr. Boudin’s first year in office, but increased to 58% in 2021, similar to the rate during Mr. Gascon’s tenure.
Mr. Boudin has pointed the finger back at the police, arguing that the certainty of arrest is low in San Francisco compared with other cities. More consistent arrests of criminals, he has said, would be a more powerful deterrent than the length of prison sentences.
Last November, officers were caught on a surveillance camera sitting in a squad car, watching as burglars made off with stolen product from a cannabis dispensary. The department is investigating the incident.
Lt. Scott Ryan, who heads a unit that investigates property crimes, said clearance rates aren’t a good measure because police often nab serial offenders who they believe to be responsible for far more burglaries or thefts than they can prove.
He said consequences aren’t severe enough for repeat offenders. Police investigators have a list of 48 people arrested five or more times for burglaries in recent years, he said, and more than half of them are no longer behind bars. “There’s got to be a line in the sand,” he said.
In February, Ms. Bennett, the owner of Cliff’s Variety, received an email alert that angered her. The burglar who broke into her store to steal spray paint and gloves was being released from jail, it said.
Charles Andrews, who was convicted in the burglary, was getting out of jail after 244 days. It was the second time that Mr. Andrews had been arrested for breaking into Cliff’s, the first coming in 2017.
The other burglar, who smashed a $4,500 display window to steal a $200 emergency kit, was never caught.
Terry Asten Bennett, right, in front of her family-owned store, Cliff's Variety Store.
She said the store has been burglarized more than once by the same person.
Security footage shows a break-in at Cliff's Variety.
Terry Asten Bennett
A large TV displays the many security cameras throughout the store.
Sylvia Cediel, a public defender who represented Mr. Andrews, said his repeated arrests “reflect the circumstances of his life—primarily extreme poverty.” Mr. Andrews has been homeless since he came to the Bay Area more than a decade ago, she said, and his time in jail has been the only time he has spent off the streets. Ms Cediel said the city needs to do a better job addressing poverty and lack of housing.
Ms. Bennett said she believes the worsening drug problem within San Francisco’s homeless population has led to thefts and some of the property damage at Cliff’s. Last year, Mayor Breed declared a state of emergencybecause of overdoses in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
In an effort to deter shoplifters, Ms. Bennett now stations employees at the door to greet customers. She installed a camera system and gave employees walkie-talkies so they could monitor shoplifters and confront them before they leave the store. Shoplifting losses have since dropped from 2% to 1% percent of annual sales, she said.
The increase in burglaries, which often involves breaking into closed shops, may be driven in part by emptier streets during the pandemic, police and criminologists say.
Ms. Bennett, whose great-great-grandfather Hilario DeBaca started the business, said the increase in crime hasn’t made her consider closing Cliff’s, which she said is woven into the neighborhood. But the break-ins are eating into the store’s bottom line.
New metal gates to protect the entrances plus repairs from the two burglaries and shattered door totaled about $22,000, less than half of which was covered by insurance, she said. She is applying to the city grant program to fix the most recently shattered door.
“When you’re a small-business owner, you spend more hours at work than at home, so you take it very personally when someone attacks you,” she said. “Whether it’s an attack on you or just your building, it really doesn’t matter. It feels the same.”
Signs warn visitors to remove valuables from vehicles at the tourist destination of Twin Peaks.
Write to Zusha Elinson at zusha.elinson@wsj.com
How to Pay Off Your Debts Before Six Interest-Rate Increases
Adjustable-rate debt, such as credit cards or auto loans, is going to get pricier as rates rise
Veronica DagherUpdated March 18, 2022 3:45 pm ET
The Federal Reserve raised its short-term benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point on Wednesday.
Photo: Getty Images
Now is the time to pay off high-interest debt before it gets more expensive.
Adjustable-rate debt, such as credit-card balances or auto loans, is about to get pricier because this week, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. The Fed also signaled several more increases are coming this year, with six moreexpected.
Fed rate increases don’t immediately raise the interest you pay on loans, but they do affect it indirectly. Financial advisers say you should pay down your high-interest debt as quickly as possible, given the Fed’s stance. It will cost you if you don’t.
Here are some tips on how to tackle it.
Create a sense of urgency
You can use the prospect of additional interest-rate increases to create a sense of urgency to pay off your debt. Karol Ward, a psychotherapist and confidence coach in New York, suggests visualizing what it would feel like to have to pay more and more interest. Then picture the relief of having your debt eliminated faster.
“You’ll recognize quickly by either feeling energized or discouraged which decision is best for you,” she said.
Resolving debt faster means you will likely have to cut back on some extras in your life now. While that might not feel good in the short term, Ms. Ward suggests focusing on the eventual gratification you will feel when you are relieved of that debt.
“Connect to the pride of both the effort and steps you are taking to become free of that debt,” said Ms. Ward.
Get motivated
Reframe paying off the interest of your debts as a return, which can motivate you to pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first, said Michael Liersch, head of advice and planning at Wells Fargo. Count how much money you will get back over the lifetime of the debt you are paying off, he said.
The Fed’s quarter-percentage-point increase won’t be a big deal for most credit-card borrowers, said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate. It will add only about $1 a month to the minimum payments toward the average credit-card debt of roughly $5,500 at the average credit-card rate of about 16.34%, he said.
Still, if you only make minimum payments, you will end up paying more than $6,000 in interest and it will take you more than 16 years to pay off the debt. The amount you will owe and time it will take to repay it will increase as the Fed raises rates.
Know your debts
Once you have your timeline, list each of your debts along with its corresponding interest rate, said Manu Lakkur, director of product at Credit Karma. Creating a spreadsheet or tracking what you owe in an app can help you feel more in control, he said.
Pay special attention to credit-card debt, adjustable-rate mortgages, home-equity lines of credit, auto loans and private student loans, as the interest rates on these loans may rise faster than those on other types of loans.
How the Federal Reserve Raises Interest Rates
How the Federal Reserve Raises Interest Rates
The Federal Reserve's main tool for managing the economy is to change the federal funds rate, which can affect not only borrowing costs for consumers but also shape broader decisions by companies like how many people to hire. WSJ explains how the Fed manipulates this one rate to guide the entire economy. Illustration: Jacob Reynolds
Make a plan
Financial planners generally recommend paying off expensive debt first before tackling lower-rate balances.
The interest on your debt may compound faster than the growth you may expect from your investments over the same period of time, said Kyle McBrien, financial planner at digital investment adviser Betterment.
Consider your minimum debt payments as fixed expenses, said Mr. McBrien. Then, get aggressive about paying off the highest-interest loan first, then moving on to the next to minimize total interest paid over time.
Consider a “scorched-earth” strategy by spending as little as possible and selling any assets you don’t need right now—such as collectibles—to help you get out of debt faster, said Benjamin Rickey, a financial planner in Yakima, Wash.
“It will be painful,” said Mr. Rickey.
Refinance your debt
If you have loans with a variable interest rate, consider refinancing to lock in a fixed rate. This will give you a dependable monthly payment that won’t rise further if interest rates continue to go up.
The decision to refinance depends largely on your financial situation and what your goal is, said Mr. Lakkur at Credit Karma: to save money over the life of your loan or to be able to lower your monthly payments to free up some extra cash.
If you have a large amount of pricey credit-card debt or are juggling several credit-card payments, consider consolidating with a personal loan, which tends to come at lower interest rates, especially if your credit is good.
Sign up for a 0% balance transfer credit card, said Mr. Rossman at Bankrate. You may be able to avoid interest for up to around 21 months and could save hundreds in interest payments depending on how much you owe, he said. Most offers charge a transfer fee of 3% to 5%, but it can be worth the cost as long as you are disciplined about paying the money back during the 0% offer period, said Mr. Rossman.
Write to Veronica Dagher at Veronica.Dagher@wsj.com
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Spokesman-Review
Racism deemed a public health issue in Washington
Groups such as the NATIVE Project can assist with vaccination access, pandemic response that minorities otherwise have trouble finding
By Arielle Dreher
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Racism is a public health crisis in Washington, a state association declared last month, and efforts are now underway to show how policies and systemic prejudice impact the health and well-being of the state’s residents.
“When we’re looking at racism, it stems from policies that have been created many years ago,” said Adrian Dominguez, chief data officer at the Urban Indian Health Institute, who serves as president of the Washington State Public Health Association. “If we do not address those policies and they continue to exist, you have institutional racism that still holds people down, and not having access to certain things creates this level of anxiety or stress that ultimately has an impact on BIPOC communities, and it’s a full circle.”
The Washington State Public Health Association is a group of public health and health care professionals, as well as educators and business and community leaders. The group has a membership of about 600 people, and it is growing,Dominguez said. The association seeks to improve health of all Washington residents – not just physical health, but mental, social and emotional health.
The group’s board of directors was working on a resolution about racism and equity for a few years, but the Black Lives Matter movement and then the pandemic pushed it to its final form.
The resolution lays out four focus areas: advocacy, education, allyship and accountability.
Dominguez said they are encouraging other local health jurisdictions to adopt similar resolutions. A resolution, however, is just the beginning.
The pandemic disproportionately impacted communities of color in Washington, despite state and local health agencies’ efforts. Dominguez, who has worked in public health in several states, said Washington state is a leader in this area.
“I think the Washington State Department of Health and many of the individual public health jurisdictions do incredible work,” Dominguez said. “I think we’re leaders in the country – I’ve worked in lots of states – and by far Washington state is one of those leaders. And with that being said, there’s a lot of work to be done, and that’s where this resolution comes in.”
Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Hispanic Washington residents have the highest age-adjusted case rates for COVID-19 in the state. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders have seven times higher COVID hospitalization rates than white Washingtonians.
Hispanic Washington residents have two times higher hospitalization rates for the virus than white residents.
When it comes to vaccinations, especially booster doses, people of color are not accessing them at rates similar to white Washington residents, DOH data show.
Department of Health officials acknowledge these gaps and have said they will continue their efforts to close them.
“The gap between our counties with the highest rates and our counties with the lowest rates is 50%, and that’s really significant,” Michele Roberts, assistant secretary at the department, told reporters last week. “That’s why we continue to talk about the importance of vaccination, why we continue to offer vaccination services and why we continue to especially make sure our efforts are culturally and linguistically appropriate, and work on our equity efforts to close the gaps.”
The Department of Health has outlined efforts to fund and continue to work with community organizations on vaccination efforts this spring and summer.
The pandemic pushed state and local health authorities to work with community organizations to increase vaccination rates and access to testing, PPE and vaccines. But some of these relationships were established only after realizing certain guidelines wouldn’t work for a community.
When vaccines were first available early in 2021, the Department of Health set age limits at 65 and older, then 50 and older for multigenerational households. Some communities would never have been reached with the 65-and-above cutoff.
“If you look at communities of color, that proportion is really small, so you’re already excluding the population you should be including,” Dominguez said. “The average age of a senior is lower than 65 in those communities.”
In Spokane County, involving community organizations and groups in pandemic response, like the NATIVE Project, resulted in a lot more access for communities that were either distrusting of large mass vaccination clinics or simply could not get off work to go get a shot at the times most were open.
This community involvement in public health is vital to building trust, Dominguez said.
“That’s one of the failures sometimes of public health, is we’re educated and we have the book smarts, but we don’t know the communities, and those relationships take a long time to establish,” Dominguez said. Arielle Dreher can be reached at (509) 459-5467 or at arielled@spokesman. com.
NATIVE Project staff, posed outside their clinic in 2021, worked overtime for six months to bring vaccines to not only the local American Indian community, but other communities of color in Spokane County. The Washington State Public Health Association recently issued a resolution calling racism a public health crisis in the state.
COURTESY OF THE NATIVE PROJECT
Overnight apartment fire in North Spokane displaces 16 tenants
By Kip Hill
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
An apparent electrical fire burned two apartments in a 24-unit complex off North Colton Road early Sunday morning, the Spokane Fire Department said in a news release.
The fire was reported around 2 a.m. in the 7000 block of North Colton Street. A fire in a second- floor unit had spread to the apartment above and an attic space, according to the news release. The fire was extinguished within 20 minutes.
Sixteen tenants and four dogs were displaced, but no injuries to occupants or firefighters were reported. The department’s Special Investigation Unit is looking into the cause, but “initial indications point to an electrical problem,” the department said in its news release.
The department urges the public to plug large appliances into wall outlets, not extension cords, to prevent overheating and sparking.