Category: Homelessness

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego

Let’s cut to the chase. San Diego must have a new football stadium for five good reasons.

1. We have already solved the problem of homelessness.

The mayor has made it his priority this year; so that is fixed. Forget that the official count of those on the streets is now 8,700 — an increase of almost 3 percent from last year.

The city can and does just move them out of sight (so if you can’t see them, they don’t exist). Move them from downtown to Hillcrest. From Mission Hills canyons to the bridges and overhangs near Fuller Liquor and along the San Diego River. Ocean Beach doesn’t count because everyone there looks almost homeless.

No need to waste precious money on the homeless. Build a stadium. Let the homeless sleep in the old one.

Progress at Apple Tree Market on Newport

Community Beach Cleanup – Jan. 7th

Larry Himmell Remembered in OB Son’s Foundation

Local Muralist Puts Brush to Wall – Paints Storefront

Silver Gate Students Get New Crosswalk

OB’s Serial Sharpie Tagger – “Mama Bear” – Gets Some Press

Suspect Jumped into San Diego River in Midway Area – Refused to Leave Sandbar

Sensory Deprivation in OB?

Now that La Jollans Are Upset with Planned Flight Route Changes – Something Might Happen

Worries About the Eucalyptus in Loma Portal

Sleeping Toddler in Jeep Stolen in Point Loma Heights Found After Thief Calls Cops

COME INSIDE FOR THE STORIES

It’s that time of the year when media and press outfits turn reflective and ponder the “best” or “most important” stories they’ve published over the last 12 months. We’ve done something similar here after reviewing our archives from 2016, and have come up what we think are the “top stories” from OB and Point Loma for the year.

The “stories” are really news, photos, analysis and opinions about real issues within the communities of the Peninsula, a number of which have continued from last year. So, here they are, the top 15 stories – not in any precise order, but in some kind of semblance of importance, with the mostest at the beginning

1. Short Term Vacation Rentals

Definitely a hold-over issue from 2015, short term vacation rentals continue to spark an invigorated opposition from coastal communities – including OB. The loss of community that vacation rentals pose for Ocean Beach and other beach communities was explored here in The Loss of Community .

Editor:We received a report of police confiscating the blankets of OB homeless at the beach, we commented recently about Park and Rec crews removing homeless sleeping material from a tree in Robb Field, and below is a post by Anna Daniels who lives in City Heights with an accompanying video of trash workers removing tents and belongings of homeless. (If you cannot view the video, go to the original store at San Diego Free Press.)

Finally, at the end of the article is a petition being circulated calling upon Mayor Faulconer to confront the nightmare of homelessness. They are demanding Emergency Humanitarian Action to stop criminalizing homeless people in San Diego. It would be very Christian of him.

Did You Wake Up this AM in a Warm Home? Thousands of San Diegans Didn’t

By Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press

The first of two storms expected to move through the San Diego region this week arrived last night with steady moderate rainfall here in City Heights. It was sixty degrees on the porch at 6:00 am this morning. The cats had taken shelter there and were curled up in loosely strewn bedding. I was still bed warm and savoring the first cup of coffee. Then I remembered this:

OB Boy Uses Savings from Lemonade Stand to Buy Backpacks for Homeless

A community has rallied around one little boy’s “Pay it Forward” project to create backpacks to distribute to the homeless of San Diego. 7-year-old Dylan Rodrigues of OB saved $120 he earned from putting up a lemonade stand to buy backpacks … .

Elizabeth Sullivan’s Death Called Homicide

Elizabeth Sullivan, the young Navy wife and mother of two who went missing 2 years ago, and whose body was found in early October off Liberty Station, was the victim of a homicide, police say.

Developments in Yoga Guru Death – Autopsy Results Weeks Off – No Suspects

The autopsy of CorePower Yoga founder Trevor Tice has been completed, but the results won’t be released for weeks, …

MORE NEWS INSIDE ………………>>>>>>>>>>

A developer and political insider – a former chairman of the San Diego Planning Commission – appears to have benefited big-time from a City of San Diego affordable and sustainability housing program – that he was ineligible for – by being allowed to construct single-family McMansions at the coast.

Tim Golba of Golba Architecture was given the green light by the City’s Development Services Department to obtain the permits for his single family home projects through the city’s “Affordable/In-Fill Housing and Sustainable Buildings Expedite Program.” We know this, thanks to the diligence of the Voice of San Diego.

The program is supposed to allow for building permits to be processed in half of the normal time, for a $500 fee, …

Seems the Village of Ocean Beach has been swamped lately – between someone dumping gallons of paint near the tide pools and a homeless woman named “Mama Bear” covering lots of surfaces with a black marker pen.

10News did a pair of news stories Tuesday, one about the paint dump and the other about “Mama Bear”.

One of the members of the OB Graffiti Task Force, Kevin Hastings, was asked about the mess so close to the ocean and precious pools of life:

Editor: The following is an opinion piece by the Rev. Richard Lawrence, a retired civil rights leader and an affordable housing advocate. It was first posted at San Diego Free Press

By Rev. Richard Lawrence

It is a huge mistake for the Union Tribune to throw rocks at the glass house in Sacramento, as it has recently done, while ignoring our local shrine of good government.

Somehow, the City of San Diego was able to dissolve the “State of Emergency due to a Severe Shortage of Affordable Housing” without having taken any substantial actions of any kind—most specifically ignoring the Affordable Housing Task Force (AHTF) Report of 2003.

Hearing all the recent news accounts about how elements in the highest reaches of our top national law enforcement agency – the FBI – have worked to flip the Presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor, made me pull up a definition of “coup d’etat“.

Wow, you might say, how extreme, how hyperbolic – how over the top you’re getting these last few days of the election campaign.

But isn’t it a significant intervention into this election when James Comey, the head of the FBI, announces that the agency is reopening its investigation into a new batch of emails that may involve Hillary Clinton – a bombshell meant to disparage her certainly? And isn’t it intervention when sources within the FBI leak damaging and false information about Clinton to both right-wing media and the Trump campaign?

And when an anchor and reporter on Fox News announced that according to his FBI “sources”, Clinton is likely to be criminally indicted, and this is supposedly confirmed by others close to the agency. So, is all of this an attempted coup d’etat by FBI agents immersed in Trumpland to throw the election to their favorite candidate?

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.

The Business of America is No Longer Business — It’s Finance

By John Lawrence

The rich today are making money not from making things, but by manipulating money. This is being done in such a way that it is driving the inequality process. It is ruining the middle class while exporting their jobs.

The tax structure of the US engineered by Ronald Reagan, Alan Greenspan and their Republican followers has incentivized the creation of great wealth in a few hands while driving the majority of people into poverty.