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DREAMER: I Was Invited to the State of the Union. This is What It Was Like.

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By Karen Bahena / Alliance San Diego

Democratic leaders from the House and Senate welcomed the largest group of Dreamers to attend a State of the Union address. I stood in disbelief when I received an invitation and I want to thank my congressman, Scott Peters, (D-CA), for making the cordial invitation and standing with Dreamers like myself. It was a remarkable statement of resistance and it sent other members of Congress the message of urgency for a narrow, bipartisan bill that would protect Dreamers all across the country.

Moments before President Donald Trump took the stage, I was escorted by my congressman to my seat. I scanned the House of Chambers from the upper balcony and immediately attempted to make eye contact with attendees who wore “migrating butterfly stickers” in a show of support for immigrants, refugees, and Dreamers. We acknowledged each other’s presence and stood there in solidarity shaking our heads and raising our eyebrows through what turned out to be a distasteful, hate-filled speech.   [Read more…]

Pacific Beach Street Guardians Provide Jobs for the Homeless

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By Caryn Blanton

Founded in October 2016, Pacific Beach Street Guardians (PBSG) is a non-profit (501c3) that functions as a social enterprise. Neighbors who are experiencing homelessness are hired to handle many different tasks, including:

  • Care for the streets, sidewalks, alleys, parking lots and beaches of our community
  • Perform janitorial/custodial work for local businesses, organizations, and residents
  • Provide event services (set up/take down and trash/recycling)

As a social enterprise, PBSG offers much more than a job – Team Members are given the opportunity to gain pride, purpose, stability, dignity, a path to self-sufficiency and hope.   [Read more…]

Why Fannie May and Freddie Mac Should be Subject to FOIA, and How it Could Happen

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By Rob Bryson and Maryam Karimi / Public Interest Advocacy Collaborative

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), enacted in 1967, provides the public, individuals, and corporations, the presumptive right to access and obtain records from any federal government body unless such records meet one of the nine exemptions or is protected under special law enforcement record exclusion.

On April 27, 2017, the House unanimously passed H.R. 1694, the Fannie and Freddie Open Records Act of 2017. H.R. 1694 would make the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) subject to FOIA. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises and are the two largest corporations that back home mortgages and student loans. Fannie Mae was established in 1938 by amendments to the National Housing Act. Freddie Mac was established in 1970 by the Emergency Homes Finance Act of 1970.

Currently, these two agencies are not classified as federal agencies and as such, they are not required to release records to the public although they are government sponsored and under the conservatorship or receivership of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).   [Read more…]

How to Make Housing More Affordable in San Diego

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By Murtaza Baxamusa / SanDiegoUrbDeZine

There isn’t enough affordable housing being built in the city of San Diego. Lenders and banks aren’t lending as much, apartment owners aren’t caring, and builders aren’t building as much since it’s not as remunerative to build for income-constrained households.

This worsens the disconnect between the economics of the housing stock and the demographics of the families it’s meant to serve, as shown by a recent Harvard University study on apartments. In San Diego, less than 10 percent of the rental housing stock is affordable*. With new federal tax policies, things could get worse.

A home isn’t just a luxury that anyone can live without. It’s a social necessity. Yet cities and states don’t build housing, they plan for it and permit it, and then are dependent on private developers to build it at the rents or prices that yield them the highest returns. This is where inclusionary housing comes into play: By allowing the private sector to competitively perform at its optimal level within a uniform regulatory framework that achieves societal goals.   [Read more…]

You Can’t Get Clean Energy From Natural Gas!

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By Edward Bergen / SD350

In retrospect, branding the toxic gas that emerges from underground deposits as “natural gas” was a stroke of marketing genius. It sounds so, well, natural. But natural gas is much more like “organic tobacco” – harmful in any form.

The more experts study natural gas, the more evidence they find that this fossil fuel is inflicting great damage on our environment. It is damaging when it’s burned and damaging when it’s extracted from the ground. In fact, the extraction and burning of natural gas to produce electricity is a dirty process. This dirty process impacts the clean water and air we need to live.   [Read more…]

When Will Muslim Americans Accept Gay Muslims?

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By Kilian Colin

When I started protesting the Muslim ban, a lot of people told me that I was blind, especially given that I’m a LGBTQ Muslim myself. The far right trolled my tweets with pictures of gay people being thrown from buildings and stoned to death in areas that ISIS controlled.

I had to spend a lot of time explaining to these people that ISIS controlled only a few villages in Iraq and Syria, and not the whole Muslim world. I also had to explain that the number of ISIS fighters only total a few thousand, whereas the global Muslim population is 1.5 billion.

Despite being an uphill battle, I’ve been able to make friends with many people who originally thought that Muslims come here for the sole purpose of killing Americans. One of those friends is a white female who lives in Lebanon, Missouri. She had never met a gay, a Muslim, or a refugee in her life. After being friends on Facebook for a few months, she told me she regretted her vote for Donald Trump in 2016.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: City of a San Diego Needs Dept of Public Health and Housing

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By John Stump

I am submitting a proposal, for the next appropriate ballot, on behalf of poor, homeless, and displaced San Diegans and their families. The proposal, in summary, would require that the City of San Diego annually budget for Public Health and Housing, as part of its regular and routine “Department” level budgeting. The proposal would require the addition of a “Public Health and Housing Department” to the regular city budget.   [Read more…]

D2 City Council Candidate Campbell Apologizes for ‘Fake Homeless’ Remarks Caught on Video

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Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your article in the San Diego Free Press.

My comments referenced were regrettable and off-the-cuff and I apologize. They do not reflect my values or my beliefs of what we must do to responsibly and effectively address homelessness. This is a multi-faceted, difficult issue and I must stay focused on the right paths forward. Our latest movement toward Housing First and Wrap Around Services through the work of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless must be held sacrosanct.

As a new candidate, I have learned that I need to choose my words more carefully. I vow to use this opportunity as a candidate to contribute to a better civic dialogue, focused on the right approaches.   [Read more…]

For Many Young Immigrants, This Holiday Season Will Be Filled With Anxiety

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By Roberto Alcantar

A few years ago, 21-year-old Xiomara Herrera was afraid to leave her home for fear of deportation. Today she’s contributing to society as a student working towards a degree in sociology.

Xiomara is one of 800,000 young undocumented immigrants who came forward in good faith to enroll in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a federal program that promised law-abiding, immigrant youth brought to the U.S. illegally, the freedom to live, study and work here.

She and 97 percent of DACA recipients are employed or enrolled in school. They lived up to their end of the bargain.  Xiomara is in school, has a job to support her and her four siblings’ rent.

Since age 6 when she arrived from Guerrero, Mexico, Orange County and San Diego have been her only homes. Now childhood nightmares of being deported have re-emerged – since September 5, to be exact, the day Trump said he would renege on this deal and end DACA. Now suddenly and cruelly, young immigrants such as Xiomara can no longer rely on the peace of mind that DACA provided.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Rep. Issa Needs to Stand Up for DACA

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By Perla Davis

President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Children Arrivals (DACA) program endangers the lives of countless Californian immigrants like myself, and now the Dream Act is being held hostage in return for more dollars that will be spent on ripping immigrant families apart by expanding Trump’s deportation force in the borderlands and beyond. If we have ever needed our Congressperson to demonstrate strong leadership, it is now.

So far, Rep. Darrell Issa has, at best, a mixed record when it comes to the safety of the thousands of immigrant families in his community.

Even though he voted “No” on the Dream Act in 2010, he is now pushing for a DACA fix. But when 34 of his fellow Republican House GOP members signed a letter asking Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to hold a vote to protect Dreamers before the year-end, Rep. Issa decided not to sign it.   [Read more…]

ACLU Demands Naturalization Hearing for Deported Veteran Hector Barajas

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The ACLU and the law firm of Latham & Watkins have petitioned the federal court to conduct a long-overdue naturalization hearing for deported U.S. Army veteran Hector Barajas, who received an honorable discharge after serving nearly six years in the military. 

Barajas, a decorated veteran, and founder of the Deported Veterans Support House in Tijuana, Mexico, was granted a full pardon last year by Gov. Jerry Brown for a conviction that led to his deportation. But U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has not issued a decision on his naturalization application, even though Barajas successfully completed the required portions of the process in November 2016. According to regulation, that decision was supposed to be issued within 120 days, a deadline that has long passed.  

In taking this court action, the ACLU Foundations of Southern California and San Diego & Imperial Counties, and Latham & Watkins ask that the U.S. District Court take over the matter and conduct a naturalization hearing for Barajas.     [Read more…]

KPBS Honors Our Everyday Hero: Diane Takvorian

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By Environmental Health Coalition

This week, KPBS recognized Environmental Health Coalition’s Executive Director Diane Takvorian as its environmental sustainability community hero.

For more than 37 years, Diane has empowered community members living in low-income neighborhoods of color.

She credits her passion for social justice to her own family’s struggles that stretch back to the early 1900s. Her grandparents survived the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and came to the United States two years later. Diane and her parents lived in Pasadena, where she says she experienced some discrimination because of her ethnic background.   [Read more…]

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