Morning Report: Escondido Is Pulling Funding from the City’s Only Homeless Shelter

Interfaith Community Services’ 49-bed Haven House, the only homeless shelter in Escondido, has received between $40,000 and $70,000 from the city since 2013. But after providing financial support for 10 years, the City Council voted this month to pull funding from the coed, low-barrier shelter.

Interfaith expected to receive $50,000 from the city this year. Despite being a small portion of the shelter’s $1 million operating budget, Interfaith’s CEO said the loss of those funds will have an impact. Haven House is one of only four homeless shelters in North County.

Interfaith was told by city officials that Escondido made the decision because only 60 percent of the shelter’s residents became homeless in Escondido. The about-face is the latest example of cities saying the quiet part out loud – that they want to look out for their own local homeless population.

Read the whole story here.

“As schools embark on a new year, one question is at the forefront of my mind: Will kids show up consistently?” asks our education reporter Jakob McWhinney in his newest Learning Curve newsletter. The question has been keeping our sensitive reporter boy up at night.

When kids came back to school after the pandemic, attendance tanked, as Jakob has previously reported. Now, as a new school year begins, one question is whether school districts’ efforts to bring them back are working. Jakob details a few of those efforts.

Fears over attendance are greatest in the younger grades, where the crisis is hitting hardest. The problem with poor attendance in early grades is that children fall behind. And the more they fall behind early, the more unlikely it is they will ever catch up.

Read the full Learning Curve here.

The concessions management company at Petco Park, Delaware North, is now also reviewing its procedures for verifying charities, Padres officials say.

As our Will Huntsberry has been reporting this week, a fake charity at Petco Park, known as Chula Vista Fast Pitch, has been raking in potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars by staffing concession stands at the stadium. (Charities are allowed to staff the stands and, in return, receive roughly ten percent of the stand’s take.)

The phantom charity has been operating at Petco unnoticed for nine years.

The group was also operating at Snapdragon Stadium, which has also said it would review its procedures for verifying charities.

The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney and Will Huntsberry. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.

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