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The Spokesman-Review
Habitat for Humanity gives three families keys to brand-new homes
The Center Square
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Question persists: Are homeless people flocking to San Diego?
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The Spokesman-Review
Habitat for Humanity gives three families keys to brand-new homes
Project continues to add houses
By Nina Culver
FOR THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Children played under overcast skies Friday afternoon as three families prepared to receive the keys to their brandnew Habitat for Humanity homes in a development on the southern edge of Deer Park.
The dedication topped off a two-week Blitz Build that started June 6. During such events, hundreds of volunteers gather together to build as much as possible. It’s something that Habitat for Humanity-Spokane has done for the last 21 years.
Volunteers were still hard at work Friday afternoon but came down from the roof of a new twin home to watch the ceremony. “Today we celebrate the end of our Blitz Build and three new Habitat homeowners,” said CEO Michelle Girardot.
She thanked a lengthy list of sponsors who she said have continued to support Habitat even in the face of soaring construction costs and material shortages. She noted that the Habitat development in Deer Park has provided housing for 80 families.
Among the families receiving keys Friday were Alex and Valentina Semivrazhnov and their 9-year-old daughter, Eliana. He spoke briefly to the gathered crowd to express his thanks. “We were waiting for this moment for a long time,” he said.
Semivrazhnov said he and his wife used to own a home, but he got sick and couldn’t work his job as a long-haul trucker. The family got behind in their mortgage and lost their house. It was at that point that the family moved in with Valentina Semivrazhnov’s parents.“Now, they can go free, finally,” Semivrazhnov said. “They gave us a roof over our head for seven years.”
The couple came to the United States in 1997 from Mariupol, Ukraine, which has been the site of many battles in the country’s current war with Russia. Semivrazhnov asked the gathered crowd to pray for his former country.
“We are blessed that instead of war and destruction, we have peace and a new home,” he said.
After receiving their keys, the couple made their way up their driveway to their new home. They paused in front of the door to pose for pictures taken by family members before stepping inside. As they began exploring, Valentina Semivrazhnov reached toward a door in the kitchen. “I have a new pantry!” she said as she swung it open.
It was a scene being repeated in two other homes next door and there will be more to come in the next few years. Girardot said Habitat is usually able to build between eight and 10 units a year. “At the finale, it will be 114 units,” she said.
Deer Park is home to one of two Habitat developments, with the other in Airway Heights. Girardot said the land in Deer Park was purchased at a discount in 2007, though it took a few years before the first house was built.
“We’ve had this land for a long time,” she said. “It just took a long time to get up and running.”
The Habitat for Humanity program has been helping families obtain affordable housing in Spokane County for 45 years and there’s a waiting list for families hoping to get their own piece of the American dream. In order to qualify, families need to make less than 80% of the area’s median income and volunteer building other people’s homes for at least 250 hours. They’re also required to attend classes on home ownership.
Girardot said that helping families find affordable housing is more important now than ever in the face of rising home prices and apartment rent. “We need way more multifamily (housing) for affordable home ownership,” she said.
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The Center Square
Spokane City Hall Building sign entrance.
Shutterstock/cascade creatives
(The Center Square) – An ethics complaint filed last month against Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs is moving forward, according to Assistant City Attorney Sam Faggiano.
“The [Ethics] Commission is in the process of coordinating schedules for the next meeting on this matter, which could potentially decide the merits of the complaint,” he wrote in a June 16 email to The Center Square.
The commission is the arm of the city charged with holding public employees and government leaders accountable for improprieties.
In early May, an allegation of wrongdoing was filed against Beggs by Tom Bassler, a retired pathologist in Spokane.
He accused Beggs of disclosing confidential information that contributed to Mayor Nadine Woodward’s decision to restart the Request for Proposals process to select a homeless shelter operator.
One of the reasons given by Woodward for stopping the process was that information about the applicants had been publicly released.
Beggs said he obtained the applications from the Continuum of Care Board, charged with reviewing candidates to bring a recommendation to the council. He then forwarded that information via email to city staff and council members for review before an upcoming meeting.
On Friday, Beggs emailed a statement to The Center Square about the commission’s decision to proceed with an investigation into the matter.
"I was pleased that commissioners noted during their meeting that there was no specific allegation of an ethics violation under the code and look forward to responding to anything mores specific that the complainant brings forward at the next hearing beyond the general allegation that there 'may' have been a violation,” he wrote.
Beggs had written the commission a letter asking for the complaint to be dismissed outright. He said the information he received about shelter provider applicants was never provided to the public, and he stood to benefit nothing by passing it along to city officials.
He reiterated that it had been his understanding when sending out the information that the review committee of the Continuum of Care Board had completed its scoring process, which meant it was time for council involvement.
Bassler did not reply to a request for comment about the commission’s June 15 decision to look further into the complaint.
In May, he said city law requires that council members be held to a strict code of ethics, uphold the highest standards of responsibility, and be above even the appearance of unethical conduct.”
Bassler said he was “inspired” to take action after Councilor Jonathan Bingle filed an ethics complaint against Ben Stuckart, chair of the Continuum of Care board, about a related matter.
Bingle filed his complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for investigation.
Bingle said Stuckart participated in the review process of three applicants. One of these was Jewels Helping Hands, which provides the unsheltered with food and other basic needs. Under the Jewels proposal, Stuckart was suggested to serve as a first-year project manager with a salary of $151,200.
He said it wasn’t enough for Stuckart to have refrained from voting because the COC board’s charter states that members must fully disclose the nature of a conflict and “recuse themselves from discussing, lobbying or voting” whenever they or any immediate family members have a financial or personal interest in a matter before the board.
Stuckart was unable to be reached for comment.
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The San Diego Union-Tribune
Question persists: Are homeless people flocking to San Diego?
Are the shelters and services offered to the homeless community actually making the local situation worse because people are flocking here from other cities and states?
The Regional Task Force on Homelessness has looked at the question for the past several years and found the majority of homeless people surveyed said they were living in San Diego when they became homeless. The survey conducted during this year's point-in-time count found 85 percent of people who responded said they became homeless in San Diego.
There are doubters, however, and there is anecdotal evidence that some people do indeed come to San Diego because they hear it is more accommodating for homeless people. There even are web sites that list San Diego as one of the best places in the nation to be homeless.
In March 2021, a man staying in the temporary shelter at the San Diego Convention Center told The San Diego Union-Tribune that he had recently arrived from Corpus Christi, Texas, where he had been paying $10 a night to stay in a shelter. After learning about the free shelter at the Convention Center, he said he bought a one-way ticket to San Diego.
Outreach workers in downtown San Diego also say they are running into more homeless people who are from out of state, though in other areas of the county homeless service providers say their clients are almost all from their cities.
The belief that homeless people are moving to San Diego from out of state is so persistent that the Regional Task Force on Homelessness began asking people if they became homeless in San Diego a few years ago as part of their annual count.
"We ask it every year, and I think our volunteers ask it a couple of different ways," said Tamera Kohler, president and CEO of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness.
The question always finds that most people in shelters and on the street were living in San Diego when they became homeless, and heads of homeless service providers concur with the finding and say most of their clients are local.
Kohler said the question isn't just to dispel a myth. Rather, she said, the data can help inform policy makers when deciding how to address homelessness in their cities. Recognizing that people tend to stay in the community where they became homeless can result in more cities taking local action such as expanding services or opening shelters in their area, she said.
Bob McElroy, president and CEO of the homeless service provider Alpha Project, said he often hears the claim that homeless services in San Diego attract people from outside the area, but doesn't believe it.
"I’ve heard that since day one," he said. "It's the 'Build it and they will come' scenario.'"
But while McElroy said most homeless people he encounters are locals who became homeless in San Diego, he suspects the 85 percent figure may be high.
"It's self-reporting," he said. "Everybody says they're from San Diego because they feel that if they tell them they're from Phoenix, they might not get services."
That perception isn't true, as services are not denied to people who are new arrivals to the county, and the Alpha Project doesn't distinguish between new arrivals and natives.
"Regardless, they're here," McElroy said. "So what do we do now that they're here?"
Alpha Project outreach worker Craig Thomas, however, said he has noticed a rising number of people from out of state in downtown San Diego over the past two years, or roughly since the start of the pandemic.
“I’d say on an average day we speak to 20, 25 people, and at least 12 of them are not from San Diego," he said. "From my understanding, they become homeless for various reasons in other states, and they do their research and travel here due to the information they read."
He said he’s heard people say they are moving from cities that had fewer resources and fewer shelter beds.
"And when they look into the resources we have here, they’re just blown away and immediately want to come here," he said.
At a recent homeless outreach with the Alpha Project in downtown San Diego, some people on the street did say they were from out of town.
Their individual stories, however, did not back up the idea that they were lured by services and shelter.
Matt Tucker said he came to San Diego from Missouri last November, but he expected to find a job and be self-sufficient.
"I came here with 400 bucks thinking I'd get a general labor job," he said, explaining a friend had told him he'd be better paid here.
He did find work, but without a car he couldn't make it to his job. As a registered sex offender, Tucker said he isn't allowed in shelters, and if things don't improve he plans to move to Texas, where his wife has family.
In another encampment, Beverly Chatman said she recently arrived in San Diego from Texas, where she was homeless.
Chatman is a native San Diegan, however, and was homeless in Texas for a month and a half after being released from prison. Her sister invited Chatman to come live with her in San Diego after learning of her situation, but she said things didn't work out.
Matt Southworth is living in a vehicle with his wife, and arrived in San Diego from Georgia just two months ago.
But he also has roots in San Diego. Southworth said he originally moved to San Diego expecting to work as a truck driver 10 years ago, but didn't get the job and became homeless. He briefly moved back to George last year because his grandfather was dying, and recently returned because his wife's friend and child are here.
Thomas said the pandemic may have driven more homeless people to San Diego over the past two years, but it could be a phenomenon limited to downtown.
"Our experience is 70 percent of homeless people in Escondido are from Escondido," said Greg Anglea, president and CEO of Escondido-based Interfaith Community Services.
Anglea said 82 percent of all Interfaith clients are from San Diego County. At Interfaith's 49-bed Haven House shelter in Escondido, only three out of 142 clients said they were from outside of San Diego County over a one-year period, he said.
Broken down more, 56 percent of the shelter's population said they were from Escondido. Anglea said he suspects the shelter serves a number of people from neighboring cities because there are no other low-barrier shelters in North County.
While the numbers repeatedly show Interfaith's clients come from the local area, Anglea said the perception that they are from other areas remains.
"It's one of the most common myths I get," he said. "Our unsheltered neighbors are 'other people's homeless.'"
Anglea said homeless people tend to stay in the area where they were living when they became homeless for a number of reasons. Many have friends and family in the community, and some may have a primary care physician or even a job in the area.
While it's true that some homeless people do move to the area, the same goes for people who are not homeless, as San Diego County has long attracted new residents from other cities or states.
In 2018, the Voice of San Diego asked a demographer and urban planning professor from the University of South California to analyze data from the 2017 U.S. Census, and he found just 46 percent of San Diegans were born in California.
The belief that homeless services attract homeless people from other areas is not unique to San Diego, but persists in many major cities with large homeless populations. San Diego County had the seventh-largest homeless population in 2020 and was 13th in receiving grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2021, suggesting that other cities also have well-funded homeless programs.
Reporter Kevin Fagen, who covers homelessness for the San Francisco Chronicle, said about 80 percent of the homeless population in almost every major city nationwide became homeless while living in their city.
The figure is closer to 70 percent in San Francisco, and Fagen said the city does draw people from other places. But he also noted that homeless and housed people occasionally move to new cities, and he said homeless people probably move less often because they tend to stay where they have found a place to sleep and eat.
Despite the consistent data, Fagen said people still ask him to write about homeless people coming to San Francisco.
In 2018, an article in the Seattle Times quoted a researcher who had studied the claim in various cities and found each community believed their homeless population came from other places.
In reality, a survey of 900 people in King County, which includes Seattle, found 83 percent of the homeless population were from the county, and almost all said they had been living there at least a year. About a quarter said they were natives or had grown up in the area.
In 2016, Portland, Oregon news station KGW8 reported on a growing perception that the city was attracting homeless people. A survey that year, however, found just 12 percent of people said they were homeless when they came to the area and 20 percent had been in the county less than two years.
In North County, Rodney McGough said he was living in his home in Oceanside when he moved out during a divorce and became homeless in 2006. He once organized a homeless encampment in the city and keeps in touch with others living on the street.
McGough said he believes a minority of homeless people in Oceanside are from the city, and many others came from other cities in the county or from out of state and are just passing through.
"There's a constant stream from San Diego all the way to Seattle, Washington and back," he said. "There's been a back and forth."
His perception differs from data collected by the city of Oceanside's homeless outreach team.
Assistant City Manager Michael Gossman said about 77 percent of people encountered by the outreach team are from Oceanside, about 8 percent are from Carlsbad and about 8 percent are from Escondido.
In the South Bay, Community Through Hope Executive Director Sebastian Martinez said the nonprofit's outreach teams in Chula Vista find about 80 percent of homeless people are from the area, but there has been a change in the past two years.
"We do get folks who are from out of town, typically from Nevada or Arizona," he said.
Martinez said he does not think the out-of-towners are drawn to the area because of homeless services, however. From his encounters, he has found many of the newcomers are addicts, and they came to South Bay believing they could easily get drugs because they would be near Mexico.
"I find that in a lot of cases, they’ve exhausted options where they’re from," he added. "There seems to be a coalition of out-of-town folks with co-occuring issues like substance abuse. They'll say, 'I'm from out of town and kind of ran through my resources there.'"
Still, he believes that the notion that the local homeless population is composed of people from other places is a myth, and he wondered if it was created by folks who do not want to accept that the homeless individuals around them once may have been their local grocery clerk or neighbor.