Yesica Prado on Muck Rack

Yesica Prado

Verified
(She/Her)
Berkeley
As seen in: San Francisco Public Press, Type Media Center, KQED-TV (San Francisco,CA), Berkeleyside, Mission Local, 48 Hills, The GroundTruth Project, El Tecolote, The Street Spirit, MindSite News, Hecho En California
Covers:  Housing, Homelessness, Poverty, Immigration, Activism, Art, Culture and Indigenous communities.
🇲🇽Bilingual Investigative Reporter & Photojournalist @eltecolotesf @TypeInvestigate| past:@sfpublicpress @catchlight_io @ucbsoj| 📩prado-reports@proton.me

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Yesica Prado’s Biography

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People who are disenfranchised often have nowhere to turn and voice their concerns. My work focuses on issues that affect people’s access to land and belonging, such as homelessness, immigration, and Indigenous status. I am an independent investigative journalist, working with photo, video, audio, data, public records and long-form writing. I am currently focused on reporting on homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area, working to hold policymakers accountable for the real-world impact of the…

Yesica Prado’s Journalist Portfolio

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'Everything Is Gone, and You Become More Lost': 12 Hours of Chaos as Berkeley Clears Encampment

'Everything Is Gone, and You Become More Lost': 12 Hours of Chaos as Berkeley Clears Encampment

In early October, Berkeley police and city officials roused 53 unhoused residents — claiming they were harbor…

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Can SF enforce its RV ban? Public records reveal doubts

Can SF enforce its RV ban? Public records reveal doubts

San Francisco's plan to enforce a ban on RVs used as shelter faces significant legal, logistical and ethical …

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No storage, no shelter: Oakland's MLK sweep leaves many residents behind

No storage, no shelter: Oakland's MLK sweep leaves many residents behind

The recent closure of the long-standing Martin Luther King Jr. Way (MLK) encampment in Oakland during the wee…

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You Report an Unhoused Person in a Mental Health Crisis. This Is What Happens Next

You Report an Unhoused Person in a Mental Health Crisis. This Is What Happens Next

In San Francisco, it is not uncommon to cross paths with a person experiencing homelessness in the throes of …

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California Indian Tribes Denied Resources for Decades as Federal Acknowledgement Lags

California Indian Tribes Denied Resources for Decades as Federal Acknowledgement Lags

California has the highest Native American population in the country and is also home to the majority of non-…

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Grassroots Nonprofits and Homeless Communities Create Their Own Fire Prevention Solutions

Grassroots Nonprofits and Homeless Communities Create Their Own Fire Prevention Solutions

Encampment fires are a fact of life due to the exposed conditions homeless residents live in, but the 77th Av…

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Articles

San Francisco RV Permit Program Leaves Some Residents Homeless Despite Promises

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By Pablo Unzueta, Yesica Prado Verified, El Tecolote
| KQED-TV (San Francisco,CA) Verified
El Tecolote Home / Housing / El Tecolote Mar 29, 2026 Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Email Miguel Mercado sits inside the RV he has called home for two years in the Mission District on Feb. 12, 2026. With the Large Vehicle Refuge Program ending in April, he faces an uncertain future and doesn't know where he'll go.
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SF prioriza remolques sobre vivienda: la crisis de las RV agrava la falta de refugio

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By Pablo Unzueta, Yesica Prado Verified, Erika Carlos
| El Tecolote Verified
El permiso municipal para vehículos-vivienda o RV prometía estabilidad; sin embargo, para Miguel Mercado, el resultado fue el opuesto. La semana pasada, tras entregar su unidad a las autoridades de San Francisco, pasó a vivir en situación de calle. Read this story in English Durante casi tres años, este migrante de origen nicaragüense, de 58 años de edad, habitó en la RV de una amistad sin pagar alquiler.
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SF is towing more RVs than providing housing, leaving many on the streets

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By Pablo Unzueta, Yesica Prado Verified, Erika Carlos
| El Tecolote Verified
The city’s RV permit promised stability. For Miguel Mercado, it delivered the opposite. Last week, after the RV was turned over to the city, Mercado started sleeping on the streets. For almost three years, the 58-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant had lived inside a friend’s RV without paying rent. In exchange, he helped with repairs, kept it clean and pushed it down the block at midnight each Sunday to avoid street-sweeping tickets. That fragile arrangement has now unraveled.
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Interview

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What does it mean to be a journalist?

It means being an informant. A historian. A guide and a watchdog.

What tools and software do you use to do your job?

Camera. <3 My first love. Recorder, lights, lavaliers, osmo pocket, and phone. Excel. Adobe Photoshop, Audition, Premiere, and Illustrator.

Why did you become a journalist?

To pay forward the gift of information. To give back to my communities by uplifting their narratives and seeking accountability.

Awards

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Society of Professional Journalists Award

2021 - Photojournalism — First Place/San Francisco Public Press & CatchLight

Thousands of Bay Area residents are “vehicularly housed,” living in cars, vans, RVs and campers. Like many others in search of alternative shelter, they are victims of a decades-long affordable housing crisis affecting the whole region. Photojournalist Yesica Prado, who has a unique longstanding connection with communities of vehicle residents, takes us behind the scenes to tell the stories of people finding ways to protect themselves and their friends in a sometimes-hostile political climate that restricts their movement and makes daily life more difficult.

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San Francisco Press Club

2021 - Newspapers-Non-Daily: Photo Series — First Place/San Francisco Public Press & CatchLight

In the San Francisco Bay Area, stringent and widespread parking restrictions are a fact of life. But to the hundreds of city residents who live in their vehicles, these regulations can also be an obstacle to maintaining stability and getting off the streets. Vehicle residents play cat-and-mouse with the government’s enforcement apparatus, violating local laws to survive outdoors.

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San Francisco Press Club

2023 - Feaure Story (Serious subject) — First Place/San Francisco Public Press

In early October, Berkeley police and city officials roused 53 unhoused residents — claiming they were harboring rodents — and seized and destroyed 29 tents and three self-made structures. People begged to retrieve personal items and work tools before the property was tossed into a phalanx of garbage trucks. Four vehicles in which people had been living were towed to impound lots. They would be crushed 15 days later, per the city’s request. While some operable cars and RVs were allowed to remain in the neighborhood, and people without vehicles who chose to stay were offered two-person tents, the overall effect of the sweep was that dozens of unhoused people had their belongings taken and their daily existence turned upside down.

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Institute for Nonprofit News (INNY)

2023 - Insight Award for Visual Journalism — First Place/San Francisco Public Press

The photo essay and accompanying story took readers inside the reality of unhoused residents caught up in a crackdown by Berkeley police and officials, who tossed personal belongings into dumpsters and hauled away cars where people were sleeping. It showed the harrowing experience of people having their lives turned upside down by municipal power. After the publication of the essay, Berkeley officials began auditing policies for responding to homelessness and overhauling procedures for engaging with people living in vehicles and encampments.

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Institute for Nonprofit News (INNY)

2024 - Insight Award for Visual Journalism — First Place/San Francisco Public Press

After deadly storms ravaged California’s San Francisco Bay area, journalists from San Francisco Public Press focused on a particularly vulnerable population: unhoused people. Local shelters were close to capacity, and many of those residents couldn’t search online for options for shelter. Madison Alvarado and Yesica Prado talked with more than two dozen people about those challenges and captured those moments of their lives, as they stood under narrow overhangs or sat or crouched beside buildings, some of them with only a coat or poncho to shield them from the rain. The photography “really helped illustrate the challenges faced by a group of people that are often left in the shadows of our communities,” a judge said. “The interactive map was also a nice touch to illustrate where the reporters walked around to speak with folks.”

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San Francisco Press Club

2024 - Investigative Reporting — First Place/San Francisco Public Press

Thousands of people last year fell into San Francisco’s complex, reactive, strained system for treating severe mental health and drug-related crises. To explain how that system works and its effects on the people who enter it, we dug into hundreds of public records, analyzed data, and interviewed six city departments to show how cases of involuntary psychiatric detentions traverse a tangle of pathways through handoffs between dispatchers and myriad public workers. The person in crisis might spend days or weeks tumbling through the criminal justice system or healthcare facilities. Often, they return to where they started: the streets. I completed this investigation with my colleague Madison Alvarado.

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