Folders with red minus signs

Try Repair Permissions in Disk Utility.

The procedure below will reset the permissions of a home folder in OS X 10.7.4 or later. If you're running an earlier version of 10.7, update to the latest version first. This procedure should not be used in OS X versions older than 10.7.4.

Back up all data before you begin.

Step 1

Click the Finder icon in the Dock. A Finder window will open.

Step 2

Press the following key combinations, in the order given:

The Info window of your home folder will open.

Step 3

Click the lock icon in the lower right corner and authenticate with the name and login password of an administrator on the system. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Step 4

In the Sharing & Permissions section of the window, verify that you have "Read & Write" privileges. If not, use the "+" and "-" buttons in the lower left corner to make the necessary changes.

Step 5

By default, the groups "staff" and "everyone" have "Read Only" privileges. With those settings, the files at the top level of your home folder will be readable by other local users. You can change the privileges to "No Access" if you wish, but then your Public and Drop Box folders will be inaccessible to others, and Personal Web Sharing won't work. Most likely, you don't need to change these settings.

Step 6

If there are entries in the Sharing & Permissions list for users or groups besides "me," "staff," and "everyone," delete them.

Step 7

Click the gear icon at the bottom of the Info window and select Apply to enclosed items... from the drop-down menu. Confirm. The operation may take several minutes to complete. When it does, close the Info window.

Even though I already had 'read & write' seemingly enabled, I still ran this and it worked great - i can now access my documents. Thanks (using El Capitan).