kristen: everyday we talk with experts about issues important to you, the bay area, and we get answers in real-time. september is national suicide prevention month. today, we share information and resources that can help. the executive director of a nonprofit that supports families who have lost someone to suicide will be joining us to talk about how to move forward. big companies it in san francisco sending out pink slips. who is doing the laying off and what does that suggest about our economy? the san francisco standard will be here to review the results of

their latest layoff tracker. california works to win back tourists. california launching a new campaign to visit native california. tourism with an emphasis on visiting destinations important to the history of indigenous people. during a slip to talk about it is the ceo of visit california, carolyn but teta. >> thank you. kristen: this is interesting. the california tourism bureau has rolled out this new campaign to get travelers to visit the state's tribal land. how did this come about? >> there was a lot of organic discussions that were taking place. we had this real opportunity catalyst with the american plan rescue act. we received a one million-dollar federal grant to expedite this. we put this on a fast track. we saw it as great importance

california has more recognized tribes than any other state in the nation. kristen: rich cultural history. it is probably impossible to cover locations that include all 100 hives -- tribes, but highlight some key areas. >> we are excited to bring these experiences directly to prospective -- visitors. as part of the kick off, we brought in a handcarved redwood could new that is very native and historic old to the tribe in the redwoods. visitors can actually go paddling with members of the tribe up in the mendocino area. very exciting. in the bay area, there is the indigenous red market in oakland where a variety of tribes come together for indigenous food,

experiences, dances and culture. we were able to spend some time with crystal white papers. >> there are more that are not too far from us. we have a graphic we can put up. there is one in santa rosa, the nonprofit national indian justice center pot california indian museum and cultural center. >> we are excited about that one as well. you can see on the screen commission asked to cascade. did you know in the shasta cascade region there are petroglyphs from native american tribes? it is a bounty that we will be bringing out. visitors sometimes do not know they are on native tribal lands. palm springs, most of the land in palm springs is owned by the tribal nation.

it is really just to bring people closer to the tribes and we have so much to push forward from the bay area specifically. kristen: the idea is you have this page dedicated to these native destination experiences. here it is. when i saw this i was like, it is kind of like the winetasting trail in napa or sonoma. you go to that page and you see all of the places you could visit and you go wow, this one sounds cool. i want to share some photos you sent that are unique experiences. if you could walk us through some of them, though the trail and 2 -- county. >> yes. some members of that nation were with us yesterday. providing storytelling and some of their indigenous chance. it is an incredible experience.

they traditionally did not do powwows, they gathered in a round barn. there are so many nuances and languages. seven different dialects in just one of the 109 tribes. the culture is rich and deep. something that is part of our dna in the bay area is sustainability. they were the first to my original stewards of this state that have shaped this land and culture. it is our foundation. it is exciting to touch base and lift up what they have been doing for thousands of years right here in california. kristen: for those of you who visit santa monica, we have a picture of a park there. i want to show this picture. it is beautiful. but also, it is really need to have different types of experiences. for museums and spas to nature

hikes. speaking of spas, i want to show a luxury experience. tell us about this. >> this one is in ohio. it has got quite the reputation in terms of people coming from around the world to experience this. -- is known for spas and pared with the history of restorative experiences makes it particularly -- just, authentic and organic. kristen: are there some destinations where you can work the land? as they have in hawaii now? >> we are leaning into that and we are in discussions about that one of the exciting things about many of these tribes is guided

walks. not necessarily working the land, but people are really interested people hike all the time in the bay area. but what parts of nature is healing, food, restorative? you mentioned working the land, nature is what really supplied the bounty for these tribal nations and even what we are dealing with, with the wildfires, we have our department of resources agency secretary reaching out to tribes for best practices on fire mitigation. kristen: i understand part of this is both to understand our rich history in california, contributions of native tribes and peoples, and also to bring economic prosperity to tribes, but also to california as a whole as we wait for tourism to bounceback.

but, are there downsides? anytime you talk about attracting tourists, there are times when there are conflicts. any worries there? >> in terms of our initiative, it has to be a win-win. we are engaging with tribes that specifically have the infrastructure and visitor interface to welcome people in. as a matter of fact, the chief of the aqua caliente tribe yesterday said being able to share our story helps preserve our history, culture and heritage. i thought that was profound. it really will be a situation where these tribal establishments that are ready for visitors will engage in this initiative. kristen: we will see if this will bring tourism dollars. i think what is neat, i have lived in california most of my life and i didn't know about some of these locations.

this is a great place for californians and out of stators to start. thank you so much. >> i appreciate it. kristen: up next, we shift gears. september is national suicide prevention month. often lost in the conversation is the trauma facing the families of those who lost loved ones. we will be right back to talk we will be right back to talk the founder of alliance of hope. have you seen my new phone yet? it like, folds in half. i would never switch to samsung, i love my phone. what??? ♪♪ (...it folds in half.) you see i love my phone. i would never switch to samsuuu... (gasping)

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kristen: september is national suicide prevention month. all month long, abc 7 is committed to having a tough but important conversation about suicide. there's a new national suicide and crisis lifeline to call if you need help. the number is on your screen.

988. we will keep it up throughout this segment. as we bring you resources, we want to tell you about a nonprofit that provides 24/7 online grief support to those who have lost a loved one to suicide. joining us live is ronnie walker, founder and executive director of the alliance for hope, which serves hundreds of people in the bay area. thank you for coming on the show. >> thank you for having me. >> we know the numbers when it comes to suicide. 45,000 per year. one every 11 minutes. we don't really look at the number of loved ones left behind and that is a vast number, isn't it? >> it is. no one really knows exactly the number, but the estimate is six to eight people are profoundly impacted for each person who died by suicide. some estimates take it up over

100. for the most part, six to eight. that would make about 300,000 to 400,000 suicide loss survivors in the u.s. each year. many millions, 4 million to 5 million across the planet every year. kristen: that is a lot of people facing devastating trauma. you are a mental health counselor and you are a survivor yourself. what did you go through after losing your stepson to suicide? >> thank you for asking. my stepson chad ended his life in 1996. it was a tremendously disruptive event. it was as if a grenade went off in our family, leaving everyone wounded and struggling. there wasn't anything in my traditional training as a counselor -- the fact that i was a mental health counselor made

no difference at all. it was just a shattering experience. a number of years later, as i regained my footing, 13 years later i began to see that there was a real lack of support and attention on the loss survivors who were doing a lot of work to research suicide prevention. the loss survivors didn't have services available to them. one of the prevailing conversations among survivors is, you never get over it, you just learn to live with it. you have joined a club no one wants to belong to. i thought at that point in time perhaps we could launch a website that could provide more hope and information and i didn't know if anyone would come. it was a kitchen table project but people began to come from all over the world. these days, the alliance serves

tens of thousands of people and we have so many wonderful volunteers and a wonderful community that has joined particularly to reach out to people newly bereaved. kristen: we are looking at the website. i can see that you offer a variety of services and support to people who have lost loved ones. talk about some of the ways which you can support people. i know your website is 24/7 online. >> if you go to the find support section in the navigation bar, you can find a number of things that we offer. you will see that we have a community forum on the left. we have a community forum that has over 21,000 survivors. we get hundreds of messages every year from people who are using that, saying that it is there lifeline it allows people to connect with other people who understand what they are going

through. it is a culture of kindness. we have 60 volunteers ensuring that it is just a very welcoming place. it is something i am terribly proud of because in this divisive political time, we have had nothing go on. all of the things that divide people just fall away and there is a commonality of understanding of what it means to lose a loved one. we have our community forum, we do online consultations, we have a website that is very deep in information about the survivor experience. people can look up and begin to understand a little bit about what they are going through. it is not going to take away the tremendous pain, but it will let them know that it is normal. and that it will dissipate. everything that we do has hope woven into it and kindness.

the first two words of our mission statement are "kindness matters." kristen: kindness and finding someone in the community who knows what you are going through without judgment. i understand you have undertaken a campaign to increase awareness in terms of the complexities of suicide in the loss facing survivors. what is your goal? >> we began this campaign four years ago. we noticed that the survivors on our forum were talking about the amount of guilt that they felt when they saw suicide prevention messaging. they were feeling that they missed the signs or were confused because they saw no signs. or, they had somebody who had a lot of signs and issues and tried to get them help and they couldn't. it was a little bit difficult.

there was a lot of upset among survivors about some of the messaging. what we did was take on an initiative to just let people know that suicide is a very complicated issue. sometimes there are signs and you do everything you can think of and you still lose somebody. sometimes there are no signs and people are blind-sided. it is a complicated issue. we also wanted to people to know it is a complex issue, but also that survivors are there and they need support. they need kindness. just, all kinds of support to get through what they are going through. i often say that when people lose someone to suicide, they are catapulted onto a journey of grief. that is not a short journey of days and weeks, it is months and years and they are catapulted into an abyss and struggle to

survive. in the aftermath, suicide loss survivors are 10 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts. there have been so many -- kristen: i do hope people will turn to alliance of hope.org, or other resources. i want to thank you for coming on once again to remind our viewers, in addition to alliance of hope, there is the new 988 national hotline where you can get help. 988 is the number. you can also go to abc7news.com /take action. coming up, we track the trends in san francisco's job market as companies cut ties with workers. should that have us concerned about th i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program.

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the san francisco standard have been following the ebbs and flows of employment since the start of the pandemic. today, they published a new article about a new round of major layoffs. they cloud communications provider based in denver and cisco, 800 employees are being let go. 11% of its workforce. the standard is launching a new layoff tracker to track which companies and industries are contracting. joining us to talk more is data editor liz lindquist are. thanks for coming. >> thanks for having me. >> what's the idea behind this? >> i were tracker has been in place in january. ever since economic conditions started to worsen across the country. we are interested in tracking layoffs in the tech industry, but now pretty much across all industries to see how it was impacting residents. kristen: let's take a look at

the layoff tracker. maybe you can walk us through some highlights. >> over the summer, there was a pecan layoffs. across industries, but particularly tech and information. last week, san francisco went above 10,000 layoffs in the past year. those numbers are starting to look better. in the last couple of weeks, there have been fewer total layoffs. the summer peak has gone down a little. kristen: we are looking at the daily announcements from each companies. stubhub, change.org, certainly a lot of different ones, lyft. the other one i am interested in is the weekly. that looks like more of your traditional graph. >> yes, that one shows the would be trends. this past week is a little bit of a collaboration. between leo -- the cloud-based company laid off 800 members.

kristen: looking at the 10,000 we have had so far this year, how do those numbers compare to the recent past? maybe taking out the pandemic year, in terms of, we are the way through the year, is 10,000 normal? >> the layoffs are intense for the tech industry because they are so concentrated. officials and economists at work at the san francisco comptroller's office say it is not necessarily as off-base as the past. they say the labor market is strong. unemployment rates are low. even though this reflects the tightening market and economic difficulties economists are predicting across the country, they say it is not exactly a huge cause for concern yet. kristen: this is not that there are no more swings, it's just you have to move to a different swing?

>> in some ways. one of the interesting things is that a lot of workers that are laid off, particularly by startups like a tree on, companies that really expanded, a lot of those companies are starting to tighten their structure. they are restructuring for economic conditions. a lot of those workers are still not having a hard time finding jobs. nationally, some other job hiring across the united states and even in san francisco for information services advanced trees. kristen: would speaks to that point is the san franciscan employed number. tell us what this number shows and how it compares. >> the unemployment rate in san francisco has dipped below pre-pandemic levels. it was above two -- 2% to 3%.

now it is below 2%. the number of san franciscans finding jobs is starting to increase. in july this month, the controller's office reported that -- jobs were added to san francisco's economy. it indicates that as much as these layoffs are happening, the level of growth and number of jobs being added to the market outstrips concern. kristen: many workers are now work from home, or hybrid, so their job is not show up as a loss. does the shift to remote lead to other jobs being lost? >> that had a ripple effect on blue-collar industries. from the pandemic until now, san francisco saw a loss in 60,000 jobs. particularly in industries related to hospitality, service and transportation. the jobs it gave were in tech and industry.

when you cmp offices downtown, that is going to affect service industry workers that would be running those buildings and keeping it running while tech workers sit at home and do their work from home. kristen: you guys are going to keep that tracker, right? >> we update it every week. kristen: thank you so much for coming on to share your work. you can check out more of the standard's other original reporting on their website. abc 7 will bring you more segments featuring the standard's

kevin: i've fought wildfires for twenty years. here's the reality we face every day. this is a crisis. we need more firefighters, more equipment, better forest management to prevent wildfires and reduce toxic smoke. and we need to reduce the tailpipe emissions that are driving changes to our climate. that's why cal fire firefighters, the american lung association, and the california democratic party support prop 30. prevent fires. cut emissions. and cleaner air. yes on 30.

kristen: thanks for joining us. we will be here every weekday at

3:00 answering your questions. stay tuned for abc7news at 4:00. wine industry experts taking matters into t tonight, tropical storm watches and warnings as we come on the air. tropical storm fiona gaining strength in the atlantic.nds no to ten inches of rain. it will reach the u.s.? rob marciano with the timing and the track. the immigration showdown heating up less than two months before the midterms. republican governors in texas and florida sending migrant men, women and children to sanctuary cities. some of the my grants who landed on martha's vineyard had no idea where they were. tonight, the democratic governor calling this cruel, calling for a federal investigation now. the warning from new york city's mayor. but the republican governors behind it who say the biden administration must deal with