San Diego Senior Centers Unprepared For Over 65 Population Surge And More Local News

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Wednesday, August 28th I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up in 10 years. One in four people living in San Diego County will be a senior citizen and a San Diego based organization has been doing its part to help preserve the rainforest. Speaker 2: 00:17 We help to legally designate the new protected areas, so putting new lands into conserved status, Speaker 1: 00:25 more San Diego news stories coming up right after the break. Speaker 3: 00:31 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:33 thank you for joining us for San Diego News Matters. I'm Deb Welsh. In 10 years, one in four people living in San Diego County will be a senior citizen KPBS reporter Prius re there says a new study show San Diego maybe unprepared for that reality. According to the last census, almost half a million people in San Diego County are over the age of 65 that number will grow to more than 1 million by 2030 Bob Kelly, president of the San Diego Seniors Community Foundation, a nonprofit supporting senior programs says we need to improve senior centers in the area to accommodate the growing population. Speaker 2: 01:13 If society doesn't deal with it on the front end, like keeping people mentally healthy and healthy, physically healthy, a socially healthy and financially healthy. Yes. What we're going to end up taking care of them in other facilities. Speaker 1: 01:26 The study from the foundation shows San Diego senior center is lack the needed staff and funding Prius. Sure. Either k PBS news. A new report shows the Trump administration's remain in Mexico policy has dramatically expanded KPBS reporter Max Rev. Linda Adler says San Diego immigration courts now lead the country and the number of asylum seekers sent back to Mexico to await their court hearings. Speaker 4: 01:52 A new study by Syracuse University shows almost 3,500 asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico in July after being processed at either Santa CGO or Calexico ports of entries. This is part of a major ramping up of the program across the southern border. Since the beginning of the program in January 10,667 asylum seekers have been sent back to Mexico from California last week, the Department of Justice announced that it was moving all of the cases involving asylum seekers in the remain in Mexico program to a so called rocket docket. That means their cases will be heard much sooner than asylum seekers who are not currently in detention. The future of remain in Mexico is in doubt. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hold a hearing on October 1st on whether to follow a lower court's decision to immediately stop the program. Max Rivlin, Nadler k PBS news, Speaker 1: 02:44 thousands of grocery store workers across southern California are out demonstrating for better pay. KPV As reporter Matt Hoffman says they could soon be going on strike union representing Speaker 4: 02:56 Ralphs, Albertsons and Vons workers have voted to strike, but workers, they just want to livable Speaker 5: 03:00 wage. This week. United Food and commercial workers are demonstrating outside grocery stores throughout San Diego. They're asking customers to support them. Jose Yama says he's worked at Vaughn's for three decades. Speaker 6: 03:11 We gonna make Harris. Otherwise you go in and strike. I mean, I'm ready. I mean I'm, I'm pretty upset. What Jeff for Nicholson dies does disgusting. Speaker 5: 03:23 Union leaders say most grocery store employees are making around 15 to $16 per hour, which they say is not a livable wage. They say the stores are offering pay increases of just nickels and dimes. Ralph says it is committed to higher wages for its employees, but right now it and the union are quite far apart on wages. A spokesman for Vons and Albertsons say the company is committed to providing employees with competitive pay and benefits. Matt Hoffman, KPBS News, Speaker 1: 03:48 the unions and the grocery stores. We'll head back to the bargaining table next week. If an agreement isn't made, they could go on strike. San Diego County's nearly 2 million voters can expect to get a notice in the mail this fall asking them to check their voter registration. Here's a news source reporter Lauren j map to explain why county registrar, Michael WVU is sending the mailers after the rollout of California's Neila Motor voter program led to about 7,000 duplicate registrations in the county last year. You also had to cancel nearly 600 registrations that the State Department of motor vehicles accidentally filed for people not eligible to vote. He wants to make sure the system works better for next year's election. Speaker 7: 04:30 So we want people who are citizens to participate in each and every election and be eligible, but it's gotta be also equally balanced out with the administrative tasks, the readiness of of the system. Speaker 1: 04:41 If you want to check your registration status, you can go to s d vote.com for KPBS. I'm I new source reporter Lauren g map. I knew source is an independently funded nonprofit partner of KPBS San Diego Rep and a Migos. Dell Rep will hold the third annual Latin x new play festival at the lyceum space theater. KPBS arts reporter Beth lack Amando previews this weekend of staged readings from new playwrights. San Diego Rep strives to create a more inclusive community through artistic works that celebrate a diversity of voices. The Rep has a long history of highlighting Latin x stories and one way they continue in this mission is through Amigo still rep, a theater council of community members and artists who advocate for Hispanic, Latino, and Chicano work at the theater. One of the results of its advocacy was the creation of the Latin x new play festival, a showcase of new works from up and coming playwrights, Santiago and sinned t is directing to saints and Stars and has been working with the festival since its inception. Speaker 6: 05:44 With my work, I aim to stage new features for people of color and the LGBT community. I feel a responsibility to create visibility for the communities that I come from. Amigos is dedicated to doing that work. I mean NGOs operate to San Diego Repertory Theater and I'm grateful to have been given the opportunity and to create this home base that has been supportive of artists like me and I think it's important for, for artists of color to be able to tell their own stories. Speaker 1: 06:09 The third annual San Diego Rep, Latin x new play festival takes place this Friday through Sunday at the lyceum space theater. Beth like Amando KPBS news, the U S State Department is calling on the Mexican government to carry out a fair and thorough investigation into the murder of a journalist in that country. It's at least the 10th murder of a journalist in Mexico this year. Jorge Valencia reports from KJ Zzz Front terrorists bureau in Mexico City Speaker 8: 06:36 Navy. Coindesk Armijo was an independent journalist in a small town about a hundred miles southwest of Mexico City. He ran a news website called the southern observatory. Get done. We came through the loops at [inaudible]. He posted videos like this one for Friday. Neighbors were complaining local government hadn't fixed a dangerous pothole. It was so big on this kind of major joke. It looked more like a meteor strike. [inaudible] later authority saved gone. This Academy Joe was found stabbed to death media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says he'd received threats as recently as two months ago. Most journalists, homicides in Mexico go unpunished. The U s embassy is calling on Mexican authorities to protect the freedom of the press in Mexico City. I'm encore. Hey Valencia. Speaker 1: 07:23 Mold was found last month and nearly 2,500 dorm rooms at joint base San Antonio Lackland and it wasn't the first time the military faced criticism for housing conditions, but some advocates say it could be a turning point because air force members of the base took to social media to publicize the situation. Carson frame reports for the American homefront project. Speaker 9: 07:45 Facebook photos show dorm environments riddled with the stuff mold creeping up a uniform sleeve across a pillow and along the edges of a box spray. After the photos were posted, more than 500 airmen were temporarily relocated and workers ripped up carpet and treated the mold with bleach and other measures. Around 20 people have reported minor symptoms in connection with it. General John Diego's of Lachlan's 59th medical wing says mold usually doesn't cause serious complications in healthy people or the primary health concern with exposure to mold or allergy like symptoms. Uh, it'd be itchy, watery eyes, runny nose, sore throat. Those who have asthma could have an asthma flare, but it wasn't those health concerns that sparked the unusually quick response from military officials. It was the fact that airman posted pictures of the mold which went viral on social media general Laura Lenderman commands the five-o second airbase wing, which performance logistics for joint base San Antonio. Speaker 9: 08:44 She says the mold is a familiar problem based on the environment where we live on the circumstances, the heat and humidity, the aging infrastructure. What we didn't know was the extent of the problem and is that social media blast allowed us to understand the extent Lenderman points out that a dorm and campus improvement plan was already in the works, but she says the photos of the mold on social media, it sped up the process and we were able just to implement pieces and parts of that plan as well as some other new ideas. Do you provide momentum in a catalyst to the solutions? The military has long struggled to manage complaints about mold. In February, the Senate Armed Services Committee had a series of hearings which exposed problems that families were facing with mold and private housing on bases across the country. Lawmakers took military leadership to task over their lack of responsiveness and passed the defense budget with more housing protections. Kelly resco is with the national military family association. She says that although the majority of those hearings focused on private housing, they also revealed problems in dorms and other work buildings Speaker 10: 09:48 in bits and pieces. You would hear that privatized housing was just the tip of the iceberg and that when you looked at some of the barracks and you looked at some of the older work buildings that they were facing similar problems with mold. Speaker 9: 10:07 Raska says that photos of widespread mold at Lackland are helping to spotlight the problem and says the use of social media is telling Speaker 10: 10:13 the fact that they were posting the pictures on Facebook tells me that there may have been a breakdown in the reporting. Um, and I will say that a lot of the focus has been on the housing. So this tells us that we need to expand some of these protections to make sure that it includes all installation facilities Speaker 9: 10:38 back at Lackland general. Lenderman says she's committed to transparency and is determined to rebuild faith in her wing and if we've lost any amount of trust with our Aaron because of the situation in the dorms, then that's my job is to rebuild that trust. In the weeks since life ones mold problem exploded on social media base leaders have used some of the same tools to respond. They created a mold remediation website to keep service members and the public updated. They've also documented their cleanup efforts across Twitter and Facebook in San Antonio, I'm Carson frame. Speaker 1: 11:08 This story was produced by the American homefront project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans funding comes from the corporation for public broadcasting. The smoke from the burning Amazon rain forest is so intense that NASA says it can be seen by astronauts on the International Space Station. These manmade fires that burn out of control or nothing new acres of the Amazon rain forest had been set ablaze for the last 20 or 30 years. One organization working to protect the rain forest is based in del Mar. Matt Clark is the CEO of nature and Culture International. He spoke to KPBS mid day edition host Maureen Cavenaugh, Speaker 9: 11:49 you know, some in the press have referred to the fires, Brazil's Amazon Speaker 11: 11:54 rain forest in apocalyptic terms. Now others say what's now burning is not primary rainforest but has already cleared land adjacent to it. So what is your take on the scale of what's happening in Brazil? Speaker 8: 12:08 Um, I think there's truth in both of those statements. I think that what is happening in Brazil is very alarming. Um, particularly the recent uptick, uptick of deforestation, which is about 50% higher than it was for the same period, uh, last year. And so it's, I think there's truth to both of those statements, but I think that this is something that we should take very seriously. Speaker 11: 12:31 What do we know about the causes of these fires? These fires Speaker 8: 12:35 are, are manmade, uh, and they reflect farmers, ranchers clearing land for, uh, crops in their cattle. And some of these are fires that are set on existing agricultural lands that are for weed control and things like that. Um, and as we know, being a Californian's, uh, fires can quickly get out of control. So even if they're set on, on existing agricultural lands, they can encroach into primary forest and burn primary forest. And then in other cases, this is, these are fires that are set, that are clearing new lands, uh, to put into agriculture on cattle ranching. Almost a hundred percent of these fires are, are manmade. Speaker 11: 13:16 Can you remind us about what the Amazon rain forest actually is? How big is it? What does it made up of? Speaker 8: 13:23 The Amazon rain forest is a, a, an ecosystem that is about the size of the continental United States and about 400 billion trees. So we're talking at about an immense, immense forest that is large enough that it actually generates and effects climate patterns, uh, across the world that generates cloud cover and ocean currents that affect us and literally affect us in San Diego, California. Speaker 11: 13:54 No, your organization, nature and Culture International, which is based here in del Mar. As been running since about 1996, what has your organization been doing to help preserve the Amazon ecosystem? Speaker 8: 14:08 Our mission is to conserve nature, so to conserve rain for us and other irreplaceable ecosystems, primarily in South America. Also in Mexico we help to legally designate new protected areas. So put new lands into conserved status and then help to create the structures so that those protected areas are effectively managed. And so that, that could be something like ensuring sustainable financing for the management of a park. Um, ensuring the monitoring systems to, to prevent additional deforestation, provide capacity and training to local peoples to be effective managers, effective park. And in the last 22 years we have conserved 20 million acres. It would be an area from, from San Diego almost to Phoenix. And then north, south and area from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Speaker 1: 15:06 Do you see as a way to resolve what's going on in the Amazon rainforest now? Speaker 8: 15:11 So Brazil in the mid two thousands did a really remarkable job of reducing deforestation and so it can be done. I think that I would like people to take away that this is not an intractable problem. Um, but it will require political will and it will require international support that will require policies of greater enforcement monitoring processes to support, um, indigenous peoples in managing their lands as they have for hundreds of years. Speaker 1: 15:44 That was the CEO of nature and Culture International. Matt Clark, to hear the whole interview, find the mid day podcast on kpbs.org thanks for listening to San Diego News matters. If you're not already a subscriber, take a minute to become one. You can find San Diego news matters on apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.