Save the date: our next monthly bike ride is on November 29

and Lookout’s latest on lack of affordable housing and worsening mental health

November 09, 2025

🚲 Join us at the next Safer Roads Are Possible Bike Ride on Saturday, November 29

🏠 Lookout’s latest on lack of affordable housing and worsening mental health

🚴‍♀️ Safer Roads Are Possible Bike Ride — “Tour the Tidepools” 🌊

Join us for the next Safer Roads Are Possible Bike Ride, a monthly community ride that raises awareness and builds connections for safer, more accessible streets in Santa Cruz.

During this month’s 7.5 mile ride, we’ll visit the coast during low tide, giving us time to pause, explore the tidepools and enjoy the ocean air.

📅 Saturday, November 29, 2025 [Add this event to your calendar]

🕥 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

 📍 Start Location: United Methodist Church, 250 California St., Santa Cruz

 🚗 Free parking available

After the ride, join us for free Korean ramyun noodles 🍜 at the Noodle Café inside the United Methodist Church.

Bring your bike, helmet, and friends — and come ride, explore, and connect for safer roads in Santa Cruz.

🚴‍♀️ “Tour the Tidepools” Ride Schedule

10:30 AM – Icebreakers & Safety Talk: Meet at United Methodist Church, 250 California St.

10:40 AM – Depart: Begin ride heading east toward West Cliff Drive tidepools.

11:00 – 11:30 AM – Tidepool Scavenger Hunt: Explore the tidepools at West Cliff Drive (carefully—please don’t disturb the wildlife!).

11:30 AM – Depart West Cliff Drive Tidepools

11:45 AM – Arrive at Natural Bridges Overlook: Enjoy the view from the UCSC Seymour Marine Discovery Center trail overlook.

11:55 AM – Depart Overlook

12:10 PM – Return to United Methodist Church

Join us for free Korean ramyun noodles served at the Noodle Café (optional).

“Over the past two years, Santa Cruz County has consistently recorded the highest rates of serious psychological distress in the Bay Area. Our numbers aren’t just bad; they’re well above California state averages, and would shock most developed countries”, Kevin Norton, community organizer for Pacific for People, writes in Lookout’s Community Voices opinion section.

Santa Cruz County, “being the most unaffordable rental market in the nation for three years running”, contributes to the worst mental health in the Bay Area, stalls the local job growth and drives people out of the county.

Santa Cruz looks like paradise but we're the most distressed county in the Bay Area – I blame housing

Public health data show that Santa Cruz County leads the Bay Area in rates of serious psychological distress and need for mental health or substance-use services. Mental health advocate Kevin Norton believes the real culprit isn’t our lifestyle — it’s our housing costs. Despite hundreds of millions spent on treatment each year, the county hasn’t addressed the root cause: unaffordable rent. Until it does, he writes, paradise will keep pushing people out — and breaking the rest of us down.

lookout.co/santa-cruz-looks-like-paradise-but-were-the-most-distressed-county-in-the-bay-area-i-blame-housing/story

Questions, comments, suggestions? Reply back or ask us on Instagram.