Tenant protections in San Diego
Good Morning, I’m Annica Colbert….it’s Monday, April 4th>>>>
San diego’s looking at more tenant protections
More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….######
Next month, more than 1 million immigrants could regain access to the US asylum system.
On Friday, the CDC published an order announcing the end of Title 42.
That’s a pandemic order started by former president Donald Trump. it’s since been used more than 1.7 million times to block migrants from accessing the U.S. asylum system.
Ginger Cline is a staff attorney at Al Otro Lado based in Tijuana.
itle 42 has had devastating effects on migrant families across the US Mexico border who have been forced to remain in dangerous conditions for far too long.
The order will be terminated on May 23.
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The number of people with covid-19 in San Diego county hospitals increased by 2, for a total of one hundred and thirty two (132). That’s according to the latest state data. San Diego county public health officials reported two hundred and forty six (246) cases and seven additional deaths on friday.
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California health officials say at least 34 people statewide have contracted norovirus in the past few weeks after eating raw oysters harvested in British Columbia, Canada. In California, people who ate oysters at nine restaurants between march 11 and march 19 reported getting ill. Similar cases have also been reported in other states. norovirus is contagious and causes inflammation of the stomach and intestines.
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From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.
Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
California extended its statewide eviction moratorium last month for those still waiting for rental relief. As for here in San Diego… KPBS Race and Equity Reporter Cristina Kim says on Monday the city could adopt even stronger tenant protections.
Council President Sean Elo Rivera of District 9 will introduce a new ordinance to ban “no fault” evictions until 60 days after the end of the local state of emergency.
we want to make sure that we're not creating conditions where people are unnecessarily being evicted from their homes and as a result, unnecessarily being placed at risk of homelessness.
As their name suggests, No Fault evictions are when a tenant is evicted despite paying rent and obeying the lease BUT the landlord wants to leave the rental market, move into the property or substantially remodel.
Elo Rivera is taking the ban to the city council for a vote.
Cristina Kim. KPBS News.
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today is the last day of early voting in the special election for california's 80th assembly district… which covers the southern part of san diego, chula vista and national city.
kpbs's debbie cruz says two democrats and one republican are in the race to fill the open seat.
in january, the seat opened up, after lorena gonzalez resigned to take a job with the california labor federation. democrats david alvarez and georgette gomez, and republican lincoln pickard are the three candidates on the ballot. gomez, was president of the san diego city council, and ran an unsuccessful campaign for congress in 2020. like gomez, alvarez is a democrat, who served on the san diego city council. lincoln pickard is the third candidate, a republican, who has run for the seat in four previous elections. the special election is only to fill out the remainder of gonzalez's term. if no candidate wins a majority of votes, the two front runners will go to a run-off on june ,the same day as a regular election for the next term… which begins in december…the same three candidates are running in that race, too. vote centers are open today from 8am through 5pm for early voting, before voters go to the polls on election day, april fifth. debbie cruz, kpbs news.
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san diego restaurant week is back.
kpbs reporter john carroll says restaurateurs hope this year’s event will help bring more customers back to their tables.
WITH HIGH MARKS FROM RESTAURANT RATING ORGANIZATIONS LIKE MICHELIN AND ZAGAT, THE RESTAURANT SCENE WAS THRIVING IN SAN DIEGO… THEN THE PANDEMIC HIT. RESTAURANTS AROUND THE REGION STRUGGLED, SOME DIDN’T MAKE IT. BUT THINGS ARE SLOWLY TURNING AROUND FOR SAN DIEGO EATERIES. SAN DIEGO RESTAURANT WEEK 2022 RUNS FROM THIS SUNDAY THROUGH NEXT WITH FIXED PRICE LUNCH AND DINNER MENUS AT MORE THAN 100 RESTAURANTS. TOM HAM’S LIGHTHOUSE OWNER ANDY BAUMANN SAYS RESTAURANTS NEED THE SUPPORT OF THE COMMUNITY MORE THAN EVER.
“THE PUBLIC, THEY SEE THIS AS WE’RE PAST IT, IT’S OVER AND THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT. THEY WANT IT BACK TO NORMAL, WHICH IS WHAT WE WANT TOO UNFORTUNATELY WITH THESE STAFFING OBSTACLES AND SOME OF THE OTHER OBSTACLES THAT WE HAVE, IT’S TOUGH.”
MORE INFORMATION IS AT SAN DIEGO RESTAURANT WEEK DOT COM. JC, KPBS NEWS.
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Coming up.... Moving can be tough in any circumstance, but when the military says it’s time for a new duty assignment, the situation can be unnerving.
“I was a ‘deer in the headlights.’ Like ‘what do you mean we’re moving in 30 days? We have to start all over? Our whole life?’”
We’ll have more on that next, just after the break.
Frequent moves are normal for members of the U.S. military. That means uprooting every two to three years… and sometimes even more often. The Pentagon says the constant shuffling of troops is necessary to meet its staffing and training needs. But as Eric Schmid reports for the American Homefront Project, it creates hidden challenges for military families.
The military moves its members around a lot. Maria Reed has made six of them in the past 19 years with her two children and husband, a first sergeant in the Army stationed at Fort Hood in Texas.
She says it was tough to adjust to, especially the first ones.
“I was a ‘deer in the headlights.’ Like ‘what do you mean we’re moving in 30 days? We have to start all over? Our whole life?’”
Reed says she would get a bit overwhelmed trying to coordinate every aspect of a move… beyond just packing everything up.
She says she often spends hours learning as much as she can about the place her family will move to next.
“Neighborhoods, school districts… What are the things we like as a family? Are we able to live close to that?... Are there any photos, layouts, any sort of floor plans I can see ahead of time?”
Reed says she’s come to embrace the transient nature of her husband’s career. But that doesn’t remove any of the challenges her family and others with military members face when they get orders to move.
Sarah Meadows is a senior sociologist at the Rand Corporation.
She says military families with children face an additional set of obstacles with every move.
“One is the education piece and the other is the medical piece.”
Meadows says these challenges are amplified for military families who have kids that need additional support.
“Where they need a specific kind of physician. You have to think about if I’m going from installation A to installation B. I have that kind of care at installation A, where am I going to get care at installation B?”
Alicia Steele has faced this struggle with her two sons, who both have medical conditions that require extra care. She’s moved about five times in the sixteen years she’s been married to a pilot who’s now stationed at Scott Air Force Base near St. Louis.
Steele says the Air Force considers her family’s specific medical needs when moving them because they’re in the military’s exceptional family medical program.
“They won't even give us an assignment unless the base we’ll be going has checked and believes there are people in the community that can handle our situation.”
But she says this doesn’t mean her son’s doctors have been closeby, like when they moved to Travis Air Force Base in Northern California.
“People in the community said there was good access to physical therapy for my son, but it turned out that that physical therapy was an hour away through California traffic.”
They now live on the corner of a quiet cul-de-sac in O’Fallon, Illinois and much closer to the specialists her older son needs to see.
“Here we live one block away. Purposefully.”
There are other ways the military has tried to lessen the burden of frequent moves. The Army has a high school stabilization program, which delays a family's move until their child graduates.
Maria Reed and her husband were allowed to stay at Fort Hood until both her daughter and son finish high school.
“We were so lucky. It’s such a huge blessing academically and socially.”
But Reed says it does come with a downside.
“We knew… when we got high school stabilization for my daughter, that my husband was going to do an unaccompanied tour in Korea. It’s kind of the trade off.”
Reed says she’s grateful her family has stayed put for the past five years and adds longer says at a single post would make life much easier for military families.
It’s a solution Kathy Roth-Douquet agrees with. She’s the CEO and Founder of Bluestar Families, a non-profit that supports military and veteran families.
She says the military could also help by giving families more notice and time to plan each time they have to move.
“People are often moving with less than a month’s notice, sometimes with days’ notice. That’s enormously disruptive. If we don’t have an emergency going on there is no reason why we can’t do a better job planning six months, nine months.”
She says that would also help military families address some of the many other challenges frequent moves bring.
I’m Eric Schmid in St. Louis.
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.
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And one more before you go…
The San Diego Repertory Theatre’s 2nd Annual Black Voices Reading Series continues tonight (Monday) with Marti Gobel’s Food Day. KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando spoke with the playwright.
For playwright Marti Gobel the family dining room table provides the starting point for her play.
MARTI GOBEL …So the play Food Day is a play in five courses. You have breakfast, lunch, appetizers dinner, and a snack with the family as they talk about a big decision that is going to affect them all that is moving from the Midwest to San Francisco so that the mother can work with maximum security inmates and teach them how to cook. (:23)
San Diego Rep’s Black Voices Reading Series seeks out work that serves up a diverse range of stories. Each online reading will be followed by a discussion about the issues raised in the plays. The series continues on Mondays through April 18th.
Beth Accomando, KPBS News.
That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Annica Colbert. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
