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Southwestern College Students Struggle With Homelessness

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By Cristofer Garcia / The Southwestern College Sun

Georgia really wanted to earn a good grade in a class she loved. So she turned on the overhead light and spread her books across the dashboard of her car. It was cold, her mother was asleep and they were parked near the Chula Vista Marina. Georgia was homeless, but loved being a college student.

Georgia (a pseudonym) is a 19-year-old nursing student and one of the 32 percent of California college students experiencing housing insecurity. A recent study by the College Equity Assessment Lab (CCEAL), a research lab under the Interwork Institute at San Diego State University, found that homeless students across California are silently facing a grim struggle to survive.

Southwestern College is no stranger to the problem.   [Read more…]

Compassion as a Radical Act

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By Dave Patterson / Vets for Peace

On a cold night in January I joined Stan Levin and Gil Field delivering sleeping bags to the San Diego homeless, what we call the compassion campaign. Dealing directly with the homeless is painful because there they are in our faces with their cold, hunger and suffering laid bare. What’s surprising is the number of people with just a thin blanket that will decline a sleeping bag because others nearby need it more. How ironic that people with nothing can have more compassion than those of us with plenty.   [Read more…]

PETITION: Use Qualcomm Stadium Parking Lot as a SafePark-Camp for the Homeless

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By Women Occupy San Diego

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer touts the 640 of 3000 miles of City street repaired during his 32 months in office. Good for you, Mr. Mayor, this shows you can accomplish something when you set your mind to it.

NEXT UP: Get people made homeless by the past 6 years’ replacement of 10,000 units of affordable housing by market-rate housing, vacation rentals, hotels, offices and retail OFF THESE STREETS.   [Read more…]

Homeless Advocates Plan Response Tonight To Mayor Faulconer’s 2017 State Of The City Address

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By Women Occupy San Diego

After attending the Mayor’s 2017 State of the City address at the Balboa Theater, Women Occupy San Diego, Voices of Our City Choir and other concerned San Diegans will gather nearby to share reactions to what he proposes as solutions to homelessness.

  [Read more…]

The Obstacles to Navigating San Diego’s Housing Crunch

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By David Jackson / San Diego UrbDeZine

A Population Boom and a Housing Crunch. Rising prices and short supply are making it increasingly difficult to pay the rent in San Diego. If you’ve attempted to search for a place to rent in San Diego you’ve probably encountered more than a few roadblocks and had your fair share of frustrations. The challenges multiply if you’ve tried to find something affordable anywhere near where you work.

Housing prices have soared over the last several years to the delight of homeowners and landlords, but to the dismay of renters, especially those with lower incomes. The effects are being felt most directly by low income residents and millennials. New low income housing is needed in the short term with further developments in the coming years to prevent the city’s housing crisis from turning into an economic one.

A study by the London Group published by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce highlights one of the root causes for the housing shortfall, a lack of new building permits being issued in San Diego County.   [Read more…]

Call to Action for Homeless San Diegans!

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By Women Occupy San Diego

On Tuesday, January 3, 2017, at 10:00 am, Women Occupy San Diego will host a Press Conference and Rally on the Civic Concourse by San Diego City Hall, before delivering over 1,000 signatures on a Change.org petition calling for Emergency Humanitarian Action by Mayor Kevin Faulconer to suspend the ticketing, arrest or stay-away orders of homeless people.

As Mayor, he is responsible for the safety of these San Diegans who are left to our streets as a direct consequence of the decisions and actions by him and other San Diego government and business leaders over the past decade, which have decimated San Diego’s affordable housing stock. This is a man-made Disaster, and requires Disaster Relief, NOT ticketing, arrest and stay away orders from services and resources desperately needed by homeless people.   [Read more…]

Take Your Football Stadium and Shove It, Mr. Spanos!

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These are extraordinary times, and for a passionate progressive like myself, it’s hard to look away from the Basket of Deplorables being assembled to run the country’s executive branch.

But for today we need to discuss something both local and deplorable. Another hair-brained idea to build a downtown stadium for the San Diego Chargers is making the rounds, coming out of a Wednesday sit-down between Mayor Kevin Faulconer and team owners Dean Spanos.

After getting his ass handed to him at the ballot box in 2016 (56% voted No on a stadium measure requiring two-thirds approval), Spanos is counting on a future court ruling lowering the threshold to a simple majority, and on Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s desire to have the Los Angeles market all to himself.   [Read more…]

Hope on Wheels

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By Linda Hutchison / head wind journal

A few years ago, in between jobs, I started hanging out at nearby Mission Bay during the day when I needed a break from my computer. I’d take a beach chair or blanket, a sandwich, a notepad and pen and sit under a tree for an hour or two. Peaceful, balmy, fewer distractions than at the oceanfront beach (also nearby). If people came along, they kept a respectful distance, cycling or strolling by on the path, arranging a lunch picnic at one of the many tables. Kayakers glided by on the glistening water.

I began to notice that several large RVs ringed the outer edges of the parking lot. How cool, I thought. What a great idea. Roll on down for the day. Bring kids or grandkids and your own kitchen. Play ball, fix whatever you want to eat whenever. Memories of my in-laws parking their RV at Disneyland so we could duck in out of the heat and then head back into the maddening crowds.

Around that same time, I also began to notice an old green and rusty orange van parked on my street. Specifically, I noticed the owner, craggily dark and handsome, in a seedy-around-the -edges way. The exact type that made my heart leap 20 years earlier. What caught my eye one day was him dragging clothing and bedding from a neighboring house to his van. (Since I was out of work I had more time to look out my window.)   [Read more…]

Beneath The Halloween Mask: San Diego War on Homeless and Poor People Is Ugly

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

How do I write about a wrong without shutting down respectful communication with those who hold the power to block all efforts to find a humane solution to the growing number of people who are homeless in our region?

The way I found out about the Homeless Town Hall held on Wednesday evening at Town & Country Resort and Convention Center should have been a clue that that this wasn’t a serious effort to find solutions. It wasn’t announced through the usual channels that would reach those who are working every day for solutions to homelessness. There was a mention on the Facebook post of Homeless News San Diego, from Michael McConnell, a highly respected a local advocate, who was one of the early leaders in the 25 Cities Campaign to End Homelessness, who had been asked to be part of the forum.

  [Read more…]

Why Does Dean Spanos Hate the Homeless?

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By Bill Adams / UrbDeZine

“Why does Chris Cate want the Chargers to leave San Diego? Please call and ask him.”

That was the headline in an ad Dean Spanos, the Chargers owner, ran this past week targeting 2nd year City Council member Chris Cate, who is on the leadership committee of the No Downtown Stadium – Jobs and Streets First! coalition. Nearly all of the City Council members have voiced opposition to Spanos’s audacious public money grab to fund a downtown stadium for his pro-football team (Ballot Measure C. – disingenuously entitled “Citizens Initiative” – full text). But Cate has taken the extra step of being a leader on the coalition. David Alvarez has also endorsed the coalition, Todd Gloria opposes the Spanos initiative because it prevents a contiguous convention center expansion, and Scott Sherman has authored a study critical of Spanos’s reliance on Indianapolis as a favorable example of combined stadium and convention facilities, such as Spanos proposes.

In an age of partisan politics, this coalition has been a rare instance of bipartisan agreement.   [Read more…]

Slumlord To Evict 20 San Ysidro Children By October

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Owner of Gateway Inn, a last hope hotel, hands eviction notices to families, elderly

All occupants residing at the 40-room Gateway Inn received a 60-day termination notice on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2016. The hotel, located one block from the U.S.-Mexico border, is a single room occupancy (SRO) hotel known to provide units to those who might otherwise be homeless.

The owner of the property, listed in public documents as Francis Lin, submitted a permit to the City of San Diego to demolish the two-story hotel, according to the San Diego Development Services Department. However, the permit – filed on Jan. 13, 2016 – has not yet been approved.

Rachel, an occupant of the Gateway Inn says, “Sixty days is not enough time…In my case, I have nine children. There’s not somebody that’s just going to take us in.”   [Read more…]

The Non-Death of the Drunken Man on the Library Plaza

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By Micaela Porte

From a true event at the Pacific Beach Library
June 27, 2015, Saturday, 11 am

The drunken man, his home under the acacia tree on the library plaza,
Last night, laid himself down to die after a few bottles.

Next morning around 11,
Al, the guard, noticed him,
And called Christina the Librarian,
Who called 911 and more,
Ran to get the defibrillator.   [Read more…]

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