Alliance For Regional Solutions Plans To Expand In North County

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published May 7, 2012 at 12:48 PM PDT

This story was published more than 12 years ago.

Social service agencies in nine north county cities have decided it’s better to work together rather than compete for scarce resources. The Alliance for Regional Solutions plans to expand.

The Alliance for Regional Solutions began about six years ago, and has built a network of shelters to help keep North County’s homeless off the streets in winter.

The group’s chair, Donald Stump of North County Lifeline, said now they want to build on their experience of coming to the table and working together on homelessness.

“Now we have this great collaboration and we’d like to keep building on it,” Stump said. "So we can build coordinated delivery systems, and so we’re not competing against each other all the time - we’re not fighting over tough resources, we’re coordinating it in a better way.”

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Stump said, for example, North County has a Food Policy Council that landed a federal grant to study food availability -- where there are “Food Deserts” and where fresh food is easily available. That report is due to be released this Thursday.

Another initiative, Stump said, could be to better match jobs and job training in North County. Another might be to create some kind of year-round shelter where the homeless can go, at least during the day.

The group, which includes social workers, the League of Women Voters and local churches, has decided to expand its membership and invite members of law enforcement and education to join them.

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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.