Photo by Vito Di Stefano for Voice of San Diego

VOSD Podcast host Scott Lewis has this idea — a hypothesis — that there’s a moment when high-minded, well intentioned policy meets the inertia of the real world: a collision of two realities.

These are the moments “real people” (i.e., not policy wonks, politicos or elected officials) have a chance to see what’s coming their way and react.

Often, residents don’t know about the next big policy update, sales tax or neighborhood development until change is imminent — years after some state law or band of policy professionals and advocates concluded the best ways to advance the region.

And these, as argued in this week’s podcast by Lewis and co-hosts Andrew Keatts and Andrea Lopez-Villfaña, are often the moments that kill or cripple policies — the moments when leaders falter.

Further, as Lewis argued in the podcast, these small world collisions, can ultimately sew distrust in leadership and our political system at large.

Listen up this week as we pour through climate action goals, the coastal height limit, lowriders and more to examine the friction that quakes local politics.

Plus: San Diegans are falling into homelessness faster than the region can house them. We’ve got some new data from the Regional Task Force on Homelessness.

We will explain those numbers with some context — and consider the ways we think about progress in the homelessness crisis.

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Nate John is the digital manager at Voice of San Diego. He oversees Voice's website, newsletters, podcasts and product team. You can reach him at nate@vosd.org.

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