S.D. Owes Homeless Agencies Over $1 Million

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 23, 2007 at 2:15 PM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

San Diego City Council will consider Tuesday whether to honor a deal made when Point Loma's Naval Training Center was closed in 1996. The city owes homeless agencies more than a million dollars for an

San Diego City Council will consider Tuesday whether to honor a deal made when Point Loma’s Naval Training Center was closed in 1996. The city owes homeless agencies more than a million dollars for an agreement not to put homeless services on the site. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

According to the Federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission or BRAC, homeless services were part of the Reuse Plan for the Naval Training Center. Instead the city offered homeless agencies several million to build transitional housing elsewhere.

Sister Raymonda Duval of Catholic Charities says the full amount was never granted.

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Sister Raymonda Duval: For a couple of years the city had no money to give us and no suggestions of where we could go. If they don’t honor the commitment that means that the agencies need to become more assertive and go to BRAC and say remember that agreement they totally haven’t honored it.

The original agreement was the result of months of community workshops. The money was to come from tax dollars generated by the massive redevelopment on the site. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.