Everyone likes free money, right? No.
The Encinitas City Council recently rejected the opportunity to receive nearly $4 million in state funding for homeless housing.
“Just because someone wants to give us money doesn’t mean it’s consistent with what we do,” Councilman Jim O’Hara said.
O’Hara was referring to Encinitas leaders’ longstanding objection to a state policy called “Housing First,” which focuses on housing homeless people before requiring them to achieve sobriety or other steps toward stability.
Although research has shown that Housing First can be an effective approach to homelessness — and although the current round of federal grants gives cities more flexibility in how they use the funds — Encinitas leaders were unconvinced.
Local residents supported them. Speakers at last week’s council meeting urged council members to pass on the money, saying supporting the homeless would only encourage more of them to come to Encinitas.
Meanwhile, as our Tigist Layne reported, the neighboring cities of Carlsbad and Oceanside have used their state funds to clear out encampments and house dozens of homeless people.
Read the North County report here.
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On July 9th, you can meet Tigist for a special event in Solana Beach. She will be speaking about all things North County at our next Meet the Beat at the La Colonia Community Center.
This is an opportunity for you to meet the reporter behind the newsletter and discuss local news with the entire Voice of San Diego community.
Meet the Beat North County
La Colonia Community Center
715 Valley Avenue, Solana Beach, CA 92075
You can register for this event by clicking here.
“Pay Raise Day” for hospitality workers
Nearly a year after the San Diego City Council passed a law mandating higher wages for hospitality workers, employees at hotels and other venues are finally seeing the results.
The regulation, which took effect Wednesday, increases the minimum wage for hotel workers to $19 an hour. Workers at large event centers like Petco Park and the San Diego Convention Center now earn at least $21.06 an hour. The city’s minimum wage for other workers is $17.75 an hour.
Under the regulation, pay rates will increase to $25 per hour annually by 2030.
The law applies to hotels with more than 150 guest rooms, several amusement parks and the city’s large event centers.
City leaders took a victory lap Wednesday, streaming across town to meet with hotel workers.
“For too long, the people who make San Diego the place millions of people want to visit have not been able to afford to live in the city,” said Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera, who authored the ordinance last year. “Today we are fulfilling a promise to these workers.”
Former speaker Kelly Davis has died at the age of 53
Kelly Davis
When the local Society of Professional Journalists awarded Union-Tribune reporter Kelly Davis its highest honor of 2023 for her tireless reporting on prison deaths, a long line of relatives of those who died stood at the ceremony to share what their stories meant to them. Many in attendance, including me, were moved to tears by the recognition of a tenacious but humble reporter who more than deserved a standing ovation.
Davis, whose reporting on county jail deaths spurred reforms and a state audit, died early Wednesday after a years-long battle with cancer. The UT published its last story just two weeks ago. Davis previously wrote for publications such as Voice of San Diego and San Diego CityBeat, where she also wrote about homelessness, criminal justice and vulnerable people who are often forgotten. Davis never forgot her. She is committed to telling tough stories – and holding authorities accountable.
As Davis’ UT reporting partner Jeff McDonald writes in an obituary spot, Davis stuck to that mission even after district attorneys subpoenaed her notes and other unpublished materials in 2017 after she reported a prison suicide. Davis, with the help of a team of volunteer lawyers, fought back and won.
Sam Schulz, who persuaded Davis to join UT in 2025, aptly summarized Davis: “She challenged herself and all of us to be better journalists and better people, to question our assumptions, to examine human suffering, and to relentlessly pursue accountability and ultimately relief. And she did so even when – especially when – these details and questions seemed the most difficult or easiest to avoid.”
Thank you, Kelly Davis, for inspiring me and so many other reporters and fighting so hard to tell stories that otherwise would have gone untold. Because of your work, San Diego County is a better place. We’ll make sure the stories you’ve fought so hard to tell aren’t forgotten.
– Lisa Halverstadt
DMV shares license data despite immigrants’ fears
The California Department of Motor Vehicles will begin sharing driver’s license and other information with a statewide database, despite immigration authorities’ concerns that it could be used to identify undocumented immigrants.
Our partners at CalMatters report that state lawmakers approved the release of the information after putting in place safeguards to ensure federal agencies couldn’t misuse it. State leaders say the data sharing is necessary to meet federal REAL ID requirements
Under terms included in the new state budget, the DMV will begin sharing information with a statewide database that will allow other DMVs to determine whether driver’s license applicants already have a driver’s license in another state.
“The guardrails will not prevent the misuse of immigrants’ personal information,” said Ed Hasbrouck of the civil rights group Identity Project.
Read the full story here.
“YMCA” singer dies at age 74
FILE – Victor Willis, a member of the disco group The Village People, performs during a Halloween party in Los Angeles on October 31, 1979. (AP Photo/George Brich, File)
You know the song. They went through everything.
Maybe you didn’t know that Victor Willis, lead singer of The Village People, whose hit “YMCA” became a global gay anthem, called San Diego (more specifically, Rancho Santa Fe) home for many years.
Willis died this week at the age of 74.
Willis left the band in the early 1980s and fell into a years-long drug and alcohol addiction, as he described it in a 2015 interview with the Union-Tribune.
He found sobriety, married a lawyer and music manager from San Diego and settled in Rancho Santa Fe.
Willis embodied some of the tensions and contradictions of our strange political moment.
The idea for the Village People arose in a gay bar in New York and the group’s hits became an integral part of gay culture.
But Willis threatened to sue a media company that called “YMCA” a gay anthem. And later he became associated with President Donald Trump, performing at Village People concerts and using “YMCA” as a song at his political rallies.
Somehow the song surpasses everything.
“Everyone knows ‘YMCA,'” Willis told the Union-Tribune. “Everywhere I go, people tell me their little kids know ‘YMCA.’ They don’t know Village People, but they know ‘YMCA.’
In other news
- The rental vacancy rate in San Diego County is at its highest in at least a quarter century. The rapid increase in housing construction and tenants’ increasing reluctance to pay high rents are forcing landlords to offer deals to attract new tenants. (Union Tribune)
- Dozens of San Diego State University employees formed a picket line outside the university president’s office Tuesday during ongoing contract negotiations. They demanded fair wages for the union that represents more than 36,000 non-teaching employees in the California State University system. (KPBS)
- Rachael Borrelli, former deputy director of the San Diego County Department of Animal Services, sued the county last month for defamation and whistleblower retaliation. Borrelli, who was fired by the county in January, accuses department employees of spreading rumors about her and then retaliating when she complained to human resources. (KPBS)
- That massive traffic jam in Mission Valley yesterday? The reason was a police manhunt for a parolee who had fled from officers and hid in the reeds along the San Diego River. Officers arrested the suspect. (NBC San Diego)
The Morning Report was written by Jim Hinch and Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Will Huntsberry.
Related Posts
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2026/07/02/encinitas-to-state-screw-your-money/
