San Diego’s Military Families Battle Food Insecurity — Voice of San Diego
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An Armed Service YMCA San Diego volunteer prepares to distribute bags of groceries to military families at a food distribution in Murphy Canyon on October 28, 2021. / Photo by Adriana Heldiz
Many families in San Diego are lacking healthy foods.
However, a growing body of research suggests that Food insecurity particularly affects members of the military, which has one of the largest budgets in the United States.
The reasons are different and both housing and childcare costs play a role. But soldiers, as Julia Woock reports, face additional barriers that the general population lacks in the face of military life.
Families move frequently, which makes it difficult for spouses to find stable jobs. According to one group, the payment of families, especially for service employees with only a few years of experience, is not structured in such a way that they can support an entire household.
Proponents also point out that military families are effectively discouraged from receiving food stamps because the housing allowance they receive is counted as income when applying for federal grants or CalFresh.
It is an open secret in military circles, but families are not always ready to speak out publicly on the issue. Some refer to a culture of independence. The Armed Forces YMCA has seen an increase in families at its bi-weekly distribution events due to the pandemic.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
Political report: A busy week in the town hall
Last week began with Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and his fellow councilors removing Councilwoman Jen Campbell from chairing the panel. It ended with Mayor Todd Gloria pulling the rug out from under the feet of SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata’s two-year campaign to put the region on a course to charge drivers for every mile driven.
In other words, it wasn’t a tough week for Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts to put together a policy report.
However, they learned what tasks Elo-Rivera gave his colleagues after he took office as Council President. Councilor Chris Cate, who voted for Campbell last year but backed Elo-Rivera this year, retained his chairmanship of the city’s budgetary audit committee. Councilor Monica Montgomery Steppe retained her position as head of the Public Safety Committee. Campbell is the only member not to chair a committee, despite being co-chair of the pandemic recovery committee.
Click here to read the full policy report.
In other political (ish) news … The podcast took to the streets this week, metaphorically speaking. Take hosts Scott Lewis, Andrew Keatts and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña a journey through some of the week’s great stories. They talked about public toilets, a proposal to charge drivers per mile, and the surprising dismissal of Jen Campbell as Council President.
- UT columnist Michael Smolens also writes that scientists are looking for ways to make cows and livestock in general more environmentally friendly to slow down climate change. Americans are showing no sign of giving up meat, and demand in developing countries is rising.
Reports shed light on the federal unit targeting journalists and others
Yahoo News published an incredible story about this weekend a secret unit within US Customs and Border Protection that operates without rules and used the tools of surveillance to target journalists and their families – as well as congressional staff – to investigate leaks.
San Diego plays a role in the story, as the agent who once ran the unit now runs a café in Barrio Logan in his spare time. Have fliers began to appear in the mostly Latino neighborhood called him a racist, among other things, according to an NBC7 report last month.
He has been publicly portrayed as the state’s rogue agent, but a general report from a U.S. Department of Homeland Security inspector – also obtained from AP – indicates that his actions were known and authorized by his superior. The border official was charged with attempting to blackmail a reporter in order to spread stories useful to the federal government. The prosecution declined to bring charges.
There are so many stunning details in the story, but the very existence of the entity is the main scandal. It was “designed,” Yahoo News reported, “as a bridge between law enforcement and the intelligence community that took pride in pursuing ‘out of the box’ approaches.”
From the safe: NBC 7 reported in 2019 that federal immigration services Persecution of journalists and immigration advocates through a secret database. The line between domestic law enforcement and intelligence agencies has become increasingly blurred in the aftermath of 9/11 thanks to technology.
To name just two examples: Jesse Marx reported earlier this year that Chula Vista Creation of a real-time crime and that have local police officers from across the region Access to data analysis software from a company that got seed capital from the CIA’s venture capital fund.
Elsewhere in the Empire
- Karlovy Vary police and a public prosecutor bugged a courtroom in Vista Obtaining evidence against accused in a murder case. The prosecutor defended the tactic as legal but is now banned under a new directive. (Union grandstand)
- The UT also took a closer look the recently filed conspiracy charges against a group of anti-fascists. Prosecutors cite black clothing and the sharing / liking of social media posts as evidence that people prematurely agreed to commit violence in a protest.
- Was a former La Mesa police officer Found not guilty of lying on a police report attributed to a controversial arrest of a black man near a tram stop in 2020. Meanwhile, another inmate from San Diego County has died from drinking too much water, the third in a decade. (Union grandstand)
The Morning Report was written by Jesse Marx and edited by Andrew Keatts.
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