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Gloria’s Homeless Czar Leaving City Hall
Mayor Todd Gloria announced Monday that Hafsa Kaka, who has served as the city’s director of the city’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department since 2021, is departing her post at the end of the week.
2023 Parent’s Guide to San Diego Schools
MORNING REPORT
Morning Report: Top Homelessness Official Leaving Immediately
The top city official focused on addressing the city’s foremost crisis is leaving City Hall at the end of this week. Mayor Todd Gloria announced Monday that Hafsa Kaka, director of the city’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department, has accepted…
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Editor picks
Politics Report: What Did Faulconer Know and When?
We have fielded dozens of comments this week from people who feel that Jason Hughes, the prominent real estate broker who pleaded guilty this week to a misdemeanor violation of…
VOSD Podcast: The End of 101 Ash
And I would have gotten away with it, too! If it wasn’t for that damn asbestos. That’s the Scooby-Doo mask reveal moment we have this week, as former real estate…
Cup of Chisme: You’ve Never Had a Picnic Here
City officials are considering opening a safe campsite for homeless residents at a parking lot on the edge of Balboa Park. That news has some people shook. Here’s what you…
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Education
The Learning Curve: Understanding a Chronic Absenteeism Crisis
Every school that feeds into Logan Memorial’s high school has chronic absenteeism rates well above the district’s average. The school’s head counselor thinks there’s no “silver bullet” to solve the…
Of the 15 San Diego Unified Schools with the Most Chronic Absenteeism, 14 Are South of I-8
Chronic absenteeism has reached sky-high levels nationally and locally, but the bad news isn’t evenly distributed.
The Learning Curve: What the Latest School Data Doesn’t Tell Us About Teachers
A change to the way the state reports teacher experience offers less insight into just how experienced teachers at each school are.
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ENVIRONMENT
San Diego Should Now Definitively Know How to Reduce GHGs. It’s Done the Math, Over and Over.
If San Diego made a list of all the climate decisions it could make, in order of which cut the most greenhouse gases from the local economy, it’d probably look…
San Diego Business Groups Balk at City’s New Climate Policy Guide
At the city’s Environment Committee meeting Thursday, industry representatives during public comment argued the city was too focused on cutting emissions, and not enough on other considerations.
How San Diego Climate Action Works and What it Might Cost
San Diego would have to find $30 million in new money to reduce its carbon footprint. The city has just a dozen years to remove the equivalent of 2.2 million…
NORTH COUNTY
North County Report: Lack of Funding Shut Down Aid to Families on the Brink
A homelessness prevention program for families in Escondido came to a standstill after losing its federal funding source. Now program leaders are hoping the city will help them find new…
She Was Proof Oceanside’s Self-Sufficiency Program Works. When the City Suspended it, She Spoke Up
A program for low-income families helped a single mom in Oceanside achieve financial independence. She hopes her story will bring awareness to the program that often goes underutilized nationwide.
North County Report: The Majority of Homeless Dollars from Escondido’s General Fund Went to Cops
A new city staff report detailing how Escondido spent dollars earmarked to address homelessness is garnering backlash from residents. They say too much of it went to the police department…
opinion and commentary
Commentary: ‘I Was Living a Nightmare’
Christopher Edmonds moved from Knoxville, Tenn., and settled in San Diego. No longer homeless, he is an advocate of the homeless and an active member of Voices of Our City…
Commentary: A Homelessness Journey Is Anything but Linear
I’ve been in and out of homelessness since the 1990s. The journey has been long and difficult. This is my story.
Putting a Face to a Statistic: How I Became Homeless
In the span of three years, I lost my job, home and family, checking off five of the six primary causes of homelessness. This is my story.
POLITICS
10 Years after Managed Competition, City Turning to Contractors for Key Services
San Diego’s mayor is bringing in contract workers to fix the city’s broken streetlights.
Advocates ‘Livid’ After Local Assemblymember Pulls Bill to Help Black Students
Last February, Assemblymember Akilah Weber introduced AB 2774. The bill was something of a redux of efforts made by Weber’s mother, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, to improve the…
Behind the Late Lobbying Disclosure That Earned Midway Rising a Fine for Breaking City Ethics Laws
The city of San Diego’s Ethics Commission is fining Midway Rising $5,000 for neglecting to file a lobbying disclosure months after it was due.