United Way Hits Streets For Census Push, Older Adults On Their Own When Wildfires Hit And Weekend Arts Events

August 21, 2020 at 10:00 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:04 Speaker 1: 00:13 Speaker 3: 00:32 Speaker 1: 00:40 Speaker 1: 01:00 Speaker 2: 01:46 Speaker 1: 02:35 Speaker 2: 02:38 Speaker 1: 02:54 Speaker 2: 03:01 Speaker 1: 03:35 Speaker 2: 03:47 Speaker 1: 04:17 Speaker 2: 04:29 Speaker 1: 05:07 Speaker 2: 05:29 Speaker 2: 06:28 Speaker 2: 07:57 Speaker 3: 08:33 Speaker 2: 08:38 Speaker 3: 08:52 Speaker 4: 08:56 Speaker 4: 09:56 Speaker 5: 10:53 Speaker 4: 10:57 Speaker 5: 11:05 Speaker 4: 11:14 Speaker 5: 11:17 Speaker 4: 11:23 Speaker 5: 11:32 Speaker 4: 11:35 Speaker 5: 11:45 Speaker 4: 11:50 Speaker 5: 11:59 Speaker 4: 12:17 Speaker 5: 12:27 Speaker 4: 12:36 Speaker 4: 13:07 Speaker 4: 14:13 Speaker 3: 16:17 Speaker 4: 16:20 Speaker 3: 17:48 Speaker 1: 18:25 Census caravans. We'll cruise through San Diego. We've had a lot of different caravans just to raise awareness. Let people know the census is still here. We need to take it today. The importance of the census I'm Maureen Kavanaugh. This is KPBS mid day Older people living on their own need to prepare for wildfire. People freeze up. They have a hard time thinking. They can't Make decisions. They're too concerned about not knowing where their meds are. They get locked up and are, And preview ranges from Beethoven, at Summerfest to the princess and the frog at the drive in stay with us for mid day edition. Coming up next, The U S census count is nearing its final weeks and there are a number of efforts underway to reach San Diego who haven't yet responded today. The United way is sponsoring car caravans through San Diego to raise awareness about the census in low responding communities. This year, the census has faced a number of challenges from the pandemic and the Trump administration, but advocates want to remind people about the important role this once a decade count plays in people's lives. Joining me is Michelle Silverthorne with the count me 20, 20 coalition and the United way of San Diego County. And Michelle, welcome to the program. Thank you so much. So what are these car caravans? Like? What will people see? We've had a lot of different caravans just to raise awareness, let people know the census is still here. We need to take it today. The importance of the census. And so today we have account may 20, 20 census day of action. We have five. This is like world record for us hearing, seeing you, we have five simultaneous caravans that are happening this evening. So from national city Chula Vista, this does San Marcos and Escondido we will have up to. I think there's even up to 30 cars in some of these caravans that will be decorated. They'll have balloons, they'll have signs that say, count me, um, count our community, our community counts. Um, at a couple of them, we'll have media trucks as well. So they'll have the led trucks sending some census messaging, some psh and just sharing out how important is to take the census. What is the county's response so far? We've already hit the 2010 rates. So we're closing in on 2000 rates, which is 73% in San Diego. So we're getting close to the best census numbers in 20 years, but we, that's not a hundred percent. So we still have a ways to go. Now, DOR census takers have been hampered by the COVID pandemic. What kind of responses have they been getting? Good question. And just as a reminder, our work is the County 2020 coalition is for outreach and education to ensure our community members are taking the census, but the outreach workers or excuse me, the enumerators or the census takers began about two weeks ago, going door to door. Um, I've had some, um, some connections to a few of them and they're getting good responses, but they're also noting that there are people that are a little bit hesitant to answer the door. So I've heard that rates are, are doing well. Um, this isn't data that we have on hand, but that numbers are continuing to increase and that data is being received. Now the date to end the census has recently been moved up to September 30th. It had been extended to the end of October because of the COVID pandemic. Why was that day changed? It's a good question. So the date was changed. It actually was originally July 31st due to COVID. They did extend it to October 31st and it has since been rolled back to September 30th. So this has caused a little bit of confusion in the community and curiosity as to why this is happening. It's important to remember that regardless, we need to take the census today and rolling this back could hurt it's thoroughness and even produce inaccurate data. Um, but we'll have less lasting effects for the next decade. So Angeles and several other cities are suing the census Bureau to force it, to keep to that October deadline. How much would that extra time, that extra four weeks or so mean to the count Having the extra time, those extra four weeks we'll allow a couple extra weeks for the enumerators, for their census takers to return to the homes. They right now have up to six visits to visit a home. If they do not get a response, they do go to a proxy. So a neighbor or a, a male person or a landlord to gather that data. So having that extra time would give us an opportunity to ensure that everyone is counted. We are hearing anecdotally that people still are not familiar with the census, that they, they're not sure if it's safe to take the census. So having that extra four weeks would give us extra time to ensure that our community is completely counted along Those lines of people being wary of the census. So one of the threats I mentioned up top, it came from the administration when they wanted to add a citizenship question, that whole idea was thrown out by the Supreme court, but it was feared that the F that threat alone has had a chilling effect. In your opinion, have people been more reluctant to respond because of that? I would say that we are continually saying that there is not a sin, a citizenship question. Um, even though this happened over a year ago, that the citizenship question was never included on this census, um, there's still is concern that, that, that that's not true. Um, we're ensuring that in all of our outreach and education, that we mentioned that there is not a citizenship question, your data is safe, um, that it security take the census, that the data is encrypted in, essentially that the census information that is provided is data. It is provided to the census Bureau as data, and it's tallied as data. And additionally, it is prohibited by law to, um, to share out this data. Now an undercount can have real life consequences. Remind us what the census count determines. Sure. The census count determines up to 1.5 trillion annually in federal funding that is allocated back to the States back to, to local jurisdictions. This includes things like headstart, um, other child development programs, um, services for seniors, um, snap programs. It really determines a lot, um, roads schools. There's so many things that the census count determines this also impacts jobs and businesses and how people make decisions. Now, when people see these car caravans or they see other census reminders, what are ways that they can respond? There are many ways to respond to the census. The first way, the easiest way is to go to my 2020 census.gov and complete it online. It's nine questions. It takes about nine minutes. The other way to complete it is to call. So you can call the census phone number. There's up to 13 languages available. There are also 13 languages available on the online form. If you received a paper form in the mail, you can still return that, make sure it has a postmark of September 30th. And if you do receive a knock on your door, go ahead and answer that door and talk to the new Raider and share the information that they're asking. There's many ways you can tell if it is a numerator, they will have a badge. They will have census information and you can actually scan some of their information to ensure that that is a census enumerator. Okay. I've been speaking with Michelle Silverthorne with account me 2020 coalition. I'm the United way of San Diego County. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Marie. All week, we've been talking about the threat of wildfire to care homes, but the fact is most older people aren't in care homes. And we know when a wildfire hits, they suffer the most in the North Bay fires and the campfire three quarters of the people who died were over the age of 65 in the conclusion of a KQBD investigation called older and overlooked reporters, Molly Peterson, and April Demboski explore how to protect elderly people who live independently. We begin with April in fire prone, Nevada County, Hills of the Sierra Nevada, a new hero. I drive in theaters. This fall moviegoers in grass Valley. We'll see a trailer like this one. It shows people packing, go bags, cleaning gutters, kids, showing their grandparents how to get emergency alert. This fire season. You're the hero. The message Is clear. Get ready because if a fire comes you're on your own many residents here have taken it to heart. During fire season, Katrina harden falls asleep to her police scanner every night, listening for early signs of wildfire. I use it like a radio until recently harden lived with her mom, Rosemarie reader. Who's 77 Nevada County has one of the highest rates of residents over 65 in the state. It's a lot of retirement up here. Various people have walkers. Some are in wheelchairs. The mother and daughter helped create a buddy system, pairing every elderly neighbor with a younger one, someone to check on them in an emergency and help them get out. People freeze up. They have a hard time thinking. They can't make decisions. They're too concerned about not knowing where their meds are. They get locked up. The buddy pairings are mainly informal agreements decided while out walking the dog reader believes they will save lives. It's vitally needed in, especially in these days with this much climate changes we have had, we really don't know what's coming next and we need to prepare for it. She wishes the buddy pairings were part of a systemic response for all neighborhoods. My colleague, Molly Peterson explains why that's unlikely during a disaster. No public agency has legal responsibility for checking up on elderly people, not the County, not the state. Debbie [inaudible] is an advocate for seniors living independently. She says, ageism causes more deaths and disasters. I'm saying people's reactions to it. Like these are just disposable people. They're elderly. They're at the end of their life. Anyway, like there's no value there. Disabled people, poor people, old people. These are the vulnerable communities that California emergency officials want to find. And Warren, they are vulnerable physically, emotionally and financially, but so are the systems meant to protect them? It's another one of those one step forward, 12 steps back. Jerry candidate is 68 going on 31. He likes to say with an ambitious grin. And three years ago, fire came for his house in Santa. I woke up from the noise. And so I go out in the front and big chunks of debris were falling off, know Rescuers knocked on his door. He slept through it. Everybody has gone. There was nobody there. There was no fire department. There was no neighbors. They, everybody had been evacuated. His house burned to the ground. No insurance lived in my car. He moved to a shelter in a cop there one night. He almost stopped breathing, Smoke inhalation, pneumonia, and congestive heart failure. After all of that candidate can't sleep well. Now he is depressed and anxious. He rents a room in someone else's house in Oakmont, and he can't drive anymore. For medical reasons. I feel isolated. I don't feel connected so much as I'd like to By nature. Candidate is hopeful. He has cat rescued from paradise. He says, they're survivors. The Kincaid fire forced them to evacuate again. Last fall, Just when you think you're safe and nothing is going to happen, but here it comes again. And so I had to relive the experience again, for those who might have trouble evacuating that have mobility issues, it's even more important that their communities be designed to reduce their risk. Max Moritz is a wildfire specialist for the UC cooperative extension. He says, we know how to build and cluster homes more safely near Wildlands. We basically need stronger and more deliberate, urban planning, guidance to address where and how we build our communities, especially in the face of climate change Says we have to learn to live with wildfire Californians. Don't like being told where to do it. Even after disaster strikes, as long as that's true, we have to work harder to protect the people who are overlooked. I'm Molly Peterson, KQBD news. You can read more about the older and overlooked series on the KQ ed website. This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Kavanaugh. How about taking the edge off this scorching hot weekend with a little art and culture, whether it's in person or broadcast from an empty concert hall, there's a chance to catch a striking work of art with COVID style appointment viewings, a couple of free options from the LA Jolla music societies. Some are fast kicking off today and a beloved animated musical drive in style. Johnny Mae is KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dixon Evans with all the details and welcome Julia. Hi Maureen. Now let's start with a new space from the people behind Quint gallery. What's special about Quint one and what's on display right now. Yeah. Quints opened a new smaller space in LA Jolla this summer on Girard. And it's dedicated to showing one significant piece of work at a time. Right now they're doing socially distant appointment, only viewings for it to, um, they opened with a work last month by Robert Irwin. But right now there's a massive work by legendary artist. Mary course, I've pretty much guessed when I saw there was a work by Mary course in town. It's hair, light painting grid series piece. And that was part of the Guggenheims 1971, 10 young artists show. It's this huge canvas, eight feet by eight feet uses hair signature glass microspheres to refract light. Her work has really vibrant. It buzzes with light. So it really warrants an in person visit none of this online viewing stuff. So if you've been waiting for the perfect messy thing to try out appointment only gallery, this is the one. Okay. Mary courses, light painting grid series is on view at Quint one in LA Jolla through Monday. Now, earlier this week on mid day edition, we spoke with music director on Barton on about this year's Summerfest re-imagined, but Julia, you found out about a few free Summerfest programs. Yeah. In addition to streaming these fully produced performances from that stage, they'll also host several public discussions and dress rehearsal, livestreams of select pieces on YouTube today at two o'clock. You can sound check with festival director Barton on, along with cellist, Clive green Smith and violinist Tessa Lark bell rehearse Beethoven symphony, number two in D major arranged for a piano trio, which will be part of tonight's performance program [inaudible]. And then on Saturday at TPM, you can catch a rehearsal of Mendelssohn's piano trio. Number one in D minor. These are both live stream from the concert hall at the new Conrad previs performing arts center. And they'll also be a Q and a with the performers at the end of the rehearsal. These are free, but you'll need to register to get to the link to participate in that Q and a free open rehearsals are alive stream today and tomorrow at 2:00 PM on YouTube, the new pop-up drive in at the Westfield North County parking lot has a good family option tonight. Yeah, and unfortunately, we haven't been able to sneak away from this heat wave by heading to a nice air conditioned, maybe theater, but the California center for the arts. Escondido's trying to approximate that a little they're bringing movies and concerts to the mall parking lot tonight, they're showing Disney's 2009 animated musical, the princess and the frog. And this summer, we got the news that Disneyland's revamping that problematic splash mountain ride to be princess and the frog theme. So it's the perfect time to brush up on, on this movie. It's set in 1912, new Orleans kind of a twist on the frog kissing trope. And it was notable for Disney for being a returned to hand drawn traditional animation. And Randy Newman's music is pretty catchy too. Gonna have to slow down people. He know exactly what [inaudible] don't care. That was almost there from the princess and the frog, which shows tonight at eight at the new pop-up drive in, in the parking lot of Westfield North County for more arts events or to sign up for the weekly arts newsletter, go to kpbs.org/arts. I've been speaking with KPBS arts editor, Julia Dixon Evans. Julia. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Thanks you T Maureen.

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With the shortened census deadline approaching and fears about a possible undercount, the United Way of San Diego County organized a car caravan Friday to increase census participation in historically hard to count communities. Also, millions of older Californians live in wildfire prone areas and most are on their own. And, chamber music, a drive-in with a Disney film and a new cross-border mural project, it’s all happening this weekend.