The claim: Former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer and his supporters claim County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer hasn’t attended a single meeting of the group that coordinates the regional response to homelessness despite serving as vice chair.
“My opponent is vice chair of the county’s regionwide homeless committee, the Continuum of Care. A vice chair is a leader, and do you know how many meetings she’s gone to in the last three years, as the vice chair? Zero,” Faulconer said at a Sept. 16 debate.
Lawson-Remer interjected, claiming that Faulconer was lying.
The verdict: Tony Manolatos, a spokesperson for the continuum and nonprofit collectively best known as the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, confirmed Lawson-Remer hasn’t “personally attended a meeting.”
He wrote in an email that representatives for Lawson-Remer rather than the supervisor herself has attended 10 of the 13 meetings the continuum has held since 2022, when she joined the board.
Lawson-Remer spokesperson Spencer Katz acknowledged she misspoke during the debate.
“She meant to say, ‘As vice chair of the Continuum of Care board, my team attends almost every meeting,’” Katz wrote in an email.
Katz disputed campaign mailers and commercials that have referred to this group as the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, which technically has a separate nonprofit board that Lawson-Remer is not on.
This amounts to splitting hairs. Though there are two separate boards, the continuum is commonly referred to as the Task Force, including when it conducts and shares the results of the annual homeless census.
James Canning, a spokesperson for Lawson-Remer’s office, argued that her work on homelessness deserves more attention than her meeting attendance record.
“Supervisor Lawson-Remer’s work on homelessness is focused on taking action and delivering results, not just talking about it,” Canning wrote. “She’s worked to open nearly 1,000 new shelter beds and safe parking sites countywide, increase the County’s homeless outreach workforce, and bring philanthropy and government together to keep people housed.”
Unsurprisingly, Faulconer spokesperson Gustavo Portela had a different take.
“Her troubling pattern of absences tells us how deeply unserious she is about helping people get off the streets and into the safety of our shelters,” Portela wrote in a text message. “She can’t have it both ways, she can’t claim homelessness is her No. 1 priority while attending precisely ZERO meetings of the homeless task force she’s supposed to lead.”
It makes no difference that she is supposed to be leading the group, and she proved she’s thinking about it, by sending a rep. and no one knows if she’s getting all the info necessary or her rep’s version of the meeting. If she’s going to accept being chair, then SHE needs to be there, or resign from the Board.
Faulconer’s representative misnamed the task force, which Lawson Remer is not on, so she answered correctly. And, sending your representatives is perfectly acceptable. Here is the fact: “Katz disputed campaign mailers and commercials that have referred to this group as the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, which technically has a separate nonprofit board that Lawson-Remer is not on.”
Aubrey that seems like a red herring. As this article notates, falconer was using a colloquial term for the continuum (the “task force”). Trying to evade the central point that you haven’t actually attended a “continuum” on homelessness that you are the vice chair on this weird technicality is lame. The gist of his argument is accurate, and she did nothing to actually address it.