Mayor Faulconer Delivers Final State Of The City Address, California Housing Crisis Mystery, How Climate Change Impacts Desert Tortoises, And Trafficking Victims Reclaim Their Stories.

Speaker 1: 00:00 In his final state of the city address. Last night, mayor Kevin Faulkner proposed an active agenda for his last year in office. He's asking the city council to approve more housing development by introducing a complete communities plan. The mayor also wants to address homelessness by partnering with the County on expanding mental health services and providing residential housing for drug addicts. Despite the challenges ahead. Mayor Faulkner's summed up his years in office as a comeback story for San Diego. No longer a city plagued by scandal and now a model for other big cities across the nation. Jordy Mays, KPBS, Metro reporter Andrew [inaudible] and Andrew. Hi. Hi. Thank you. Now, once again, the mayor devoted much of his state of the city speech to homelessness. Were there any major new initiatives unveiled in his speech last night? There were a couple of things that we hadn't heard yet before. Uh, so one of them is that he says the County will be providing mental health teams to, uh, the, uh, bridge shelters that the city is running. Speaker 1: 01:02 These are, um, three industrial sized tents plus a portion of golden hall, a building that sits downtown right next to city hall that are sheltering homeless people, individuals and families. Um, and those shelters already provide meals, laundry, shower services and, and other health services through some nonprofits and the county's public health nurses. But the addition of mental health services is something that appears to be new. You also mentioned a public private partnership that is going to be done in collaboration with a County supervisor, Nathan Fletcher, who represents the downtown area and much of the city of San Diego, um, for the first County bridge shelters. So the County, you know, if, if this thing actually becomes a, realized the County would have its own shelter that's running. Um, and then he of course took some time to promote my measure C, which is, um, one of his sort of biggest issues that he is always wanted ever since he got into the office of the mayor to expand the convention center. And, uh, of course, measure C also provides a not insignificant amount of funding for affordable housing and homeless services. Now, the mayor also blamed part of California's homeless crisis on state laws that lowered criminal penalties for drug use. Here's the mayor. Speaker 2: 02:14 These laws are letting people slowly kill themselves right in front of our eyes. These are cries for help and folks are not going to change without consequences for their actions. So I am building a coalition to craft a statewide initiative that brings solutions to our homeless crisis directly to California voters. Speaker 1: 02:34 So yeah, Faulkner spent, uh, quite a bit of time in his speech speaking out against, uh, propositions 47 and 57 and these were, uh, initiatives on the state ballot that reduced several crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and also made some other changes to the criminal justice system. And I think this is where we saw a bit of the Republican side of, of the mayor. He's really sticking with his law and order approach to homelessness using the San Diego police department to manage that, a homelessness crisis through issuing citations for encroachment on the public right of way, illegal lodging. Um, he also brought back the city's, uh, vehicle habitation ordinance, which makes it illegal for people to live in cars. The critics of the mayor and there were a few protesters outside the speech before it got underway. Um, say that this is criminalizing poverty, but Faulkner says that, you know, as we heard in that clip there that some people need consequences to actually change, um, about that voter initiative. This was something that we hadn't heard about before. So I'm certainly, I imagine details will be forthcoming on that. Um, it, but he did frame it in the realm of this, this, uh, issue that he has with, uh, criminal penalties for drug use. I'm actually contributing to the homelessness crisis. Speaker 3: 03:49 Housing was a big part of the mayor's speech and he's proposing a new idea to change NIMBYs into [inaudible]. And here again is mayor Faulkner. We are in this predicament because for far too long, we have been caught up in a false debate. Housing versus communities. We are conditioned to believe that communities that get more homes lose and communities that stayed the same when, so tell us about the mayor's complete communities plan. Speaker 1: 04:16 This is a concept that was actually first floated at last year's state of the city speech and it would get rid of the city's regulations on height and density for a new development in transit priority areas. So Atlanta, that's within a half mile of a major transit stop. If the developers set aside more affordable housing or housing for homeless than would otherwise be required and also pay for neighborhood infrastructure improvements. When I say eliminate regulations on height and density, that doesn't mean we're going to get skyscrapers in, in a single family home neighborhoods. Um, this new housing would still be regulated by other factors that might be a little bit less clear or that listeners might be a little less familiar with like the square footage of a building, which called the floor area ratio. It's a little bit complicated, but there are other design guidelines that that will still apply to new development. Speaker 1: 05:10 But a a hard cutoff at let's say 45 feet or 50 feet or whatever the case may be is something that this plan would eliminate if the developer then agrees to pay for neighborhood improvements. And he says that this is a way for, uh, to, to basically convince those skeptics of new development in their neighborhoods, uh, to get on board with it because that new development will mean quicker and faster and better infrastructure in their neighborhoods. He didn't give a lot of details on this complete community, his initiative in the actual speech, but [inaudible] after the speech, the city then unveiled a new website, a complete communities, sd.org and I was poking around at last night trying to get some more details on this. There's a lot in there and a lot more to research, so we'll be certainly following that as it makes its way to the city council in the spring. Speaker 1: 05:58 Um, but the bottom line is the mayor is really sticking with this approach to encourage developers to build compact, walkable neighborhoods near public transit, uh, to both, uh, alleviate the city's housing shortage and, uh, to promote the goals of the city's climate action plan to get more people out of cars and taking bikes and walking in public transit to work. Now you've kind of city hall and mayor Faulkner for several years now. Is he right to take credit for what he calls San Diego's come back? I think that he certainly deserves credit for, uh, stabilizing the leadership at city hall. Uh, you know, voters will remember that the, uh, he was elected in a special election after the re the resignation of Bob Filner in a sexual harassment scandal. Um, before that there was the pension scandal that got San Diego named and run by the sea and, and really decimated the city's finances. Speaker 1: 06:51 Uh, and so he has managed to, uh, keep library hours stable, uh, other neighborhood services afloat during, uh, the fallout of, of that pension scandal. And we're still paying for it nowadays. Um, but on the other hand, the city's infrastructure deficit has actually grown. The mayor has repaved a fair number of streets, and he's been, you know, very proud of that. Um, but there are other sort of unseen or less visible, uh, problems with our infrastructure, like dilapidated police stations, fire stations, a shortage of fire stations or storm water infrastructure that carries a, you know, storm water out into the ocean or, uh, what have you, um, is, is in really bad shape. And so, uh, you know, I think that he's provided that stable leadership, but, um, ultimately we won't really know what voters think of, of his final years in office because as he mentioned in his speech, he's not going to be on the ballot. And he can say pretty much whatever he wants. I've been speaking with KPBS Metro reporter Andrew Bowen. Andrew. Thank you. Thank you. Maureen. Speaker 1: 00:00 Anyone who pays rent in California knows how hard it can hit your bank account. The state's housing crisis means sky high prices, whether you're buying or renting. Data collected by researchers at UCLA shows while the median rent in California has increased 23% between 2011 and 2018 the number of times California landlord sued their tenants to evict them, dropped by nearly 40% over roughly the same period. So what is going on? Joining us to try and answer that question is Matt Levin housing and data reporter with the public interest journalism organization. Cal matters. Matt, welcome. Thanks for having me. So anyone who rents or has tried to rent a place in San Diego knows that rents are sky high. And yet, as I mentioned, instances of landlord suing tenants to evict them are way down. Generally speaking, what do experts think is going on here? Speaker 2: 00:54 So they're not 100% sure what the reason is. It's such a counterintuitive finding, right? You would expect as rents increase, that tenants would have increasing difficulty actually paying the rent. That's the number one reason a landlord tries to kick you out, tries to evict you, is you can't afford the rent anymore. Um, so it's a counterintuitive finding, not only for academics but also for tenants groups and even landlords. Speaker 1: 01:20 And when we talk about eviction, we're not just talking about a landlord going to court to get someone out. I mean there are different kinds of evictions. Right, Speaker 2: 01:28 exactly. And so that 40% drop that you referenced earlier, that's when landlords actually Sue a tenant to get rid of them from their property, which is relatively rare. There are plenty of other ways and landlord can get rid of a tenant. They could simply, um, harass them into leaving. There's things like cash for keys where basically they pay the tenant to get, uh, to have them leave the property. Um, not to mention if they simply put a eviction notice on your door and say you have three days to pay your rent or you're out and you decide to leave in those three days, that isn't going to show up in any data that the state collects. But it's still a, as I said before, incredibly counterintuitive. The data that we do have shows a significant drop Speaker 1: 02:11 and it's become much easier these days for landlords to screen tenants. Uh, you can find out all sorts of things about a person by paying a third party investigative service. So is the fact that it's so much easier to screen tenants maybe part of the reason for this? Speaker 2: 02:26 Yeah, so this is really, really interesting, especially considering some of the homelessness numbers that we've seen escalate in recent years. So I talked with a lawyer who basically does evictions for landlords and he was saying, look, part of the reason we're seeing this drop is landlords have just gotten a lot better at screening tenants who might miss rent payments. Um, basically it costs 50 bucks now to get a pretty thorough report on, um, what exactly the risk that a tenant might miss a rent payment in the future. So it used to just be, you got a credit report, right? And that was basically it. But now you get criminal history, now you get a history of their tendencies, you get a whole wealth of information that landlords can use to say, okay, maybe I would have rented to this person 10 years ago, now I'm not going to do so. Speaker 1: 03:20 Mmm. And new laws went into effect at the beginning of this year. That limit landlord's ability to increase rent or evict certain tenants. Are those laws anticipated to have any effect on those statistics? Speaker 2: 03:32 Yeah, there's an irony here. I'm one of the most controversial provisions of this new law is uh, an elimination of what's called no cause evictions. So prior to this year, in most parts of the state, landlords could basically say, okay, you got 60 days to get out of here if you're on a month to month lease. And I don't really have to tell you why. Now with this new law, landlords have to state a specific reason why that person is violating the terms of their lease basically. Um, what that means is that you might actually see an increase in tenants fighting these evictions in court. So the numbers actually might go up. Now that doesn't mean evictions overall are going up, but it is a ironic wrinkle to that new law. Speaker 1: 04:17 Okay. And, um, evictions are down in other expensive places to live as well. So could some of this just be people moving into cheaper housing further away from the expensive housing, thereby eliminating the need to evict? Speaker 2: 04:31 Yes. Um, this is not a uniquely California phenomenon. You see declining official evictions in Seattle. You see a client declining official evictions in Washington, D C both of those places have seen explosions in rent over the last decade. Um, and what researchers there say is, well, people are just kind of leaving, right? If you're lower-income and you can't afford those places anymore, you're just going to cheaper suburbs. What's interesting in California is you see declines in eviction filings in even cheaper places. So the Bay area saw eviction declines, San Diego sigh, eviction declines, but the central Valley also saw significant eviction filing decline. So Sacramento, Fresno, um, other places like that where you would think the lower income populations of these more expensive coastal places are moving. So it's not a yes, um, that's part of the explanation here, but it's not completely satisfactory. Speaker 1: 05:29 And you talked to a landlord that said it's now much more expensive to go to court to evict someone. It sounds like that could be part of this puzzle as well. Speaker 2: 05:39 Yeah, that's right. Um, so a lawyer that again does evictions on behalf of landlords said, look, uh, a decade at co it would cost my clients $1,000 to go to court. Now the state and local governments have put a lot more resources into um, uh, eviction defenses for low income tenants. And if a eviction lawsuit actually goes to a jury trial, which is what landlords really, really want to avoid, it could be 15 grand. And so the, the calculus there for landlords is, well, you know, if, do I really want to push this to the point of actually going to the courts and take the risk that this is going to be really, really expensive for me? Maybe I won't Sue to evict my tenant. And if you're not looking for a place to rent, why should you care about this issue? Oh, a for lots of reasons. Speaker 2: 06:35 Um, if you care about homelessness, there's increasing evidence that evictions are tied to homelessness. Um, once you get an eviction on your record in California and in most other parts of the country too, it is really, really difficult to find another place to live. So from that perspective, the fact that these official eviction filings are declining, Mike kind of be good news. Um, it doesn't fully explain why you might see an increase in homelessness numbers. There's, there's explaining this phenomenon I think is, um, kind of essential to understanding the broader dynamics of homelessness and gentrification in California. I've been speaking with Matt Levin of Cal matters. Matt, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Speaker 1: 00:00 She read 4,800 pages of American history books to find out what students are being taught in school. And she discovered numerous flaws in the way students from Texas to California are being taught thanks to politics from white resistance to black progress during reconstruction to gender and sexuality, even immigration and nativism, depending on which political party is in control of a state that shapes what version of history students are taught. National correspondent with the New York times. Dana Goldstein did the reporting on this. Dana, thanks so much for joining us. Speaker 2: 00:33 Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 00:34 So what made you want to read 4,800 pages of history books? Speaker 2: 00:39 Yeah, well, I have an education reporter for almost 15 years and earlier this year, um, well actually 2019 early in 2019 I was visiting some social studies classrooms and I noticed that there were really wonderful dynamic teachers that were still really using their textbooks. You know, we have the feeling that in this digital age, these books don't matter anymore. But these teachers had sticky notes all over their textbooks and they had highlighted them and underlined passages and dog-eared the pages. And I thought, you know, teachers still do look at the textbooks in terms of figuring out how to teach American history to their kids. And I knew that it's a very political process what turns up in these books. So I wanted to look at the two biggest textbook markets in the nation, which are Texas and California. They have very different political cultures. One's a conservative state, the other is a liberal state. What gets produced for those States makes it to many kids across the country. So I wanted to take a close look. Speaker 1: 01:37 And when you compare the textbooks in Texas and California, what did you find? Speaker 2: 01:42 I found that true to the reputation of Texas policymakers was conservative and true to the reputation of California policymakers as liberal. Each group was pushing for changes in the books or revisions in the book that reflect, um, those ideologies. So for example, California passed a law in 2011 that requires students to learn about LGBTQ history. So you'd see, you know, thousands of new words of writing produced by these publishers about LGBTQ history. You won't find any of that text in the textbook for Texas. Texas has a law on the books that asks for students to learn about the benefits of the free enterprise system. So you see a lot more positive portrayals of tycoons like Andrew Carnegie for example. California has more of an emphasis on how big business can pollute the environment. So very, very different. Speaker 1: 02:36 Hmm, that's interesting. I mean, so what do you think shapes these different perspectives of facts and how they're told in the history books? Speaker 2: 02:44 Well, basically the Republican party controls the process in Texas and the democratic party controls the process in California. So you have appointees of Democrats reviewing textbook draft and writing to the publishers. Here's what we want to see in the book, here's changes we want you to make in California. And then the opposite is true in Texas. The the folks that get appointed to review the textbook draft and influence the process are more likely to be conservative. Speaker 1: 03:09 And talk to me a bit more about this because one of the things you say you noticed was the partisan spin on the way historical events are depicted and even which ones are, are taught. Can you tell me more about that? Speaker 2: 03:20 I wouldn't say that the spin is partisan. I think it's more of an ideological preference that each state's policymakers have in terms of what's included and what's not. So for example, um, housing, housing discrimination is repeatedly mentioned in the California social sciences framework as something that students should learn about. So when you learn about the suburbanization of this country in the 1950s, you should know that that American dream was not equally accessible to African Americans because of housing discrimination and redlining restrictive deeds and those types of policies. California textbooks will mention that when you get to that chapter in the Texas textbooks, um, it's a much more positive story of suburbanization the baby boom, the sense of a prosperous time that Americans all benefited from. So it's, it's, it's a different, a different story, a different framework. Speaker 1: 04:12 Was there anything that surprised you in terms of things that were omitted from the history books? Speaker 2: 04:18 Well, I think, um, both States could have done a better job speaking frankly to students about the fact that the fact many of the founding fathers were slave owners. I think both States could have done better. Talking about how debates over slavery shaped the U S constitution. Um, the declaration of independence. So there were some common flaws to the textbooks and also some common benefits to these books, which were all published in the last several years compared to books from 10, 20, 30 years ago. There was much more sort of Frank information about how brutal slavery was that was depicted in much more vivid detail. There was a lot more on the displacement of native Americans. So in, in whole, I would say the books have become more inclusive over time. Speaker 1: 05:02 Hmm. And you know, about midway through your reporting process, you say you spent an afternoon, a few blocks away from the times headquarters at, uh, the New York public library. What did you learn there? Speaker 2: 05:13 Yeah. So I wanted to look at some books from my own childhood, which was back in the 1990s and also from the fifties and sixties when my parents were in school and even further back the 30s and forties to see how textbooks have changed and they really have become much more inclusive over time. You know, even 20 years ago there was hardly anything about the feminist movement. There were, you know, very problematic and troubling depictions of reconstruction, suggestions that African Americans were not prepared for freedom or you know, better off and slaves and free these sorts of assumptions over even the last five to 10 years have started to disappear from textbooks published by mainstream publishers. Speaker 1: 05:53 Hmm. And I'm curious because you sum up the different American histories being taught as an issue of, of partisan politics. Why do you attribute it to that rather than racism? Speaker 2: 06:05 Well, there is racist ideas inherent in these differences I think especially in what's excluded from the history books in Texas and also some of what's excluded in California. I mean the California books are not perfect either, but finding the root cause here I find that it is Repub the Republican party that controls the process more in Texas and the democratic party controls the process more in California. Speaker 1: 06:29 And what did you learn about how political divides shape what students are taught in history class? Speaker 2: 06:35 Well I think when you have partisan politics responsible for appointing those people in each state who get to review these textbooks and work with publishers to produce the text, you're naturally going to be giving kids, you know, somewhat different stories of America. And it's very important I think in shaping our citizenry. It's not necessarily that a student is going to retain and recall every sentence of their textbook. We know that that's not true. But as the teacher create their lesson plans and sort of imparts the big lessons of American history to students, there is no doubt that the materials that are in classrooms in Texas are giving more of a conservative spin. And those in California are giving more of a liberal spin and in this really deeply divided political time that we're in, that just seems extremely relevant to me. Speaker 1: 07:25 I've been speaking with Dana Goldstein, a national correspondent for the New York times. Dana, thank you so much for joining us. Speaker 2: 07:31 Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 00:00 A unique photo exhibit takes place in San Diego this Friday. The show called behold her, we'll feature the images of survivors of human trafficking and exploitation. The exhibit not only literally puts a human face to the issue of human trafficking, but also shows how former victimization does not define lives. January is national human trafficking awareness month. Joining me right now, our Cynthia lovely founder of an anti-trafficking group called shine San Diego. Cynthia, welcome. Thank you. And Monique? Ana is a trafficking survivor whose portrait is part of the exhibit. Monique, welcome. Thank you. Now, Cynthia, this exhibit features eight portraits of survivors of trafficking, but they have a wide range of experiences. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Yeah, I'd love to. So when we think about human trafficking, and we might just think about some of the typical stories that we hear around pimping and pandering, but there's such a wide range. Speaker 1: 00:59 There's familial trafficking, homelessness, drug addiction. Colts and foster youth are also a demographic that are disproportionately affected by this. And so there's so many stories and so many different ways that people are exploited. Really what it comes down to is the economics and the vulnerabilities that people face. And Cynthia, the portraits will be accompanied by pieces of writing by the women. Yes. So each of the women have been a part of this and creating this. Um, so they wanted to share a little bit of their story in their own unique ways. So not only will it be a portrait of themselves, the way that they want to be seen, but also there's writing that goes with those pieces so that they can tell their stories. Now, Monique, your portrait is one of the eight. That's right. Some women might not want to be identified as a survivor of trafficking. Speaker 1: 01:51 So why did you decide to be a part of this exhibit? So my story is that my parents joined a cult and, um, I was born into that. Um, I'm the oldest of 13 and it's something that I honestly have never hidden. I felt like it was the past and it was the legacy of, of where I came from. And, um, it's just been in the past few years that I've actually moved into an activated position where I feel like I'm ready to give back and help the general public understand what it is that we're looking at. Was it difficult for you to remove yourself from the Colton and start another kind of life? You know, my story was a little bit different than a lot of my counterparts who left. A lot of them had to escape. I was invited to leave because I communicated directly with the leadership of the cult and called them and set on what was happening and said, we want to be legit, we want to be truly doing missionary work and helping the public. Speaker 1: 02:50 Like we were saying that we were, and they, they looked at me as a dangerous mind, so to speak, and invited me to leave. So I left with my two week old baby. So you left with no resources on the outside? That's right. So what did you do? Um, I ended up in the home of a wonderful family who were ex members. They joined and left with their 10 11 children. So I was just another child with my child in the house and I stayed there with them for a few months and then just kind of took off and, and made things work. Uh, I was able to access resources when I started in my college education. And so that was a big help. Um, and I was able to access mental health fairly fast after leaving. Now Cynthia P, people who come in from perhaps other forms of human trafficking, like sex trafficking and so forth, they also transition into a world where they probably don't have any real resources to fall back on. Speaker 1: 03:48 So what does shine San Diego do? So I'm looking at this as a economic equity issue. So I approach it from a business standpoint and teaching entrepreneurship, nonprofit startup and business, small business skills to survivors. And it's not so much about where they come from, but where they're going. I was thinking about this exhibit and the eight women who are featured and just here in San Diego alone, if the numbers are right for each one, they represent a thousand victims in our city. So we've got a huge issue. And it's going to take all of us participating in different ways and I believe that there are lots of resources and sort of the piece that was missing was entrepreneurship because if you've got a criminal background, if you have tattoos on your face, if you maybe haven't even seen what survivorship looks like after leaving the life, you know that there wasn't somewhere that I could say that I could go to see that. Speaker 1: 04:47 And so I'm about supporting the survivors and their businesses and their missions and their vision. So there's a wide range that Cheyenne works with and we do teach those business skills on a regular basis, employment opportunities as well. And just educating the community that the women have value and they have purpose and that they have something to offer. How do survivors find your organization? Do you work with law enforcement? No, we don't actually. Um, because we're survivor led really interesting story. We got a call. Um, and I think it's through means like this through the media and through the news that more people are hearing about shine San Diego. But we got a call, um, December 26, the day after Christmas from a young woman that, um, her trafficker had been arrested. So she had a small window of opportunity to get out. And so I immediately called the survivor network and within three hours, Monique had met with her face to face. Speaker 1: 05:47 Marjorie had secured her emergency stay for the night and Lavonne had helped find a short term housing program for her so she could go into recovery. That was all within three hours. And I truly believe it's because the survivors come from that life and they understand firsthand what it takes and they're able to meet victims where they're at. Now, Monique, how have you survived and thrived in the new world that you've, Oh, you've built for yourself? So when, when I first, like I said, left, I was, I was withX members and actually lived with another young mother who also had a daughter the same age as my daughter and we really collaborated and her younger siblings helped with bait baby sitting and stuff like that. And I got really lucky early on to meet a woman named Carla who ended up being babysitter for me and really was my family for a good five years and was amazing. Speaker 1: 06:41 An amazing support system. Um, and really it's just been getting lucky meeting people who could help me make that next step into the next phase. Cynthia, this photo exhibit is really a group effort among several anti-trafficking groups. What will be happening at the opening night event? Yeah, so we're really excited that space that's being sponsored by you belong here. So it's a wonderful coworking creative space. Then they can stay. CF opened up for us. I'm DTR. Testic will be the MC and he's one of the best DJs in San Diego. So he'll be curating the event and um, we will have an opportunity to meet the photographer, Omari Dixon. She'll talk about the portrait project. All eight of the women will be there to share their stories as well. And then I'll be there to talk a little bit about community activism and really this, you know, grassroots social change movement that's starting with shine and with the survivor business network. Speaker 1: 07:41 And Monique, since your face is one of the faces people will be seeing at this event, what do you want them to take away from this exhibit? That we are the ones that understand better the pathway to survivorship and success? I think that, um, I've met a lot of people along the way who helped me. Um, we're focusing on the business network and developing that with Cynthia and shine. Um, victory gardens sanctuary is a nonprofit that I started that's going to become a transition home. Right now we're communicating with tiny home manufacturers. We're looking for land to develop, um, and we have a few potential opportunities that we're in. We're negotiating, but really we're active. We're making waves and we've just started, I've been speaking with Cynthia, lovely of shine San Diego and Monique Ana whose portrait is part of the exhibit. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. The opening night of the behold, her photo exhibit will be held Friday night at you belong here and events space on El Cajon Boulevard. It will be on display through the 31st.