S.D. Postpones Decision on Homeless Agencies' Payment

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 23, 2007 at 2:40 PM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

San Diego city council has postponed a decision to fulfill an agreement made with homeless agencies ten years ago. At stake is more than a million dollars. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

San Diego city council has postponed a decision to fulfill an agreement made with homeless agencies ten years ago. At stake is more than a million dollars. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more. Homeless agencies want the city to come through with the final installment of money promised them after the Point Loma’s Naval Training Center closed. The city offered the agencies $7 million to give up their right to build homeless facilities on the site.

Sister Raymonda Duval of Catholic Charities says the money is for new beds for the homeless.

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Sister Raymonda Duval: We have been waiting over 10 years for the finalization of this project.

But City Councilman Jim Madaffer says the agencies should have produced annual reports. He coined a new term when he conjured up the image of the $20 million Kroll consultants' investigation recently forced on the city because of financial misdeeds.

Jim Madaffer: There’s not one of these groups up here that I don’t support, but how many times did this city do things fly by night and then we find out that we get “Krolled” – no thanks!

The council will take the matter up again next month. 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.