San Diego is cracking down on income discrimination by landlords with a new policy prohibiting the rejection of potential tenants based on their use of federal housing vouchers.
“This is long overdue,” City Councilman David Alvarez of Logan Heights said on Tuesday before the council voted 6-1 to adopt the policy. “Allowing people to discriminate based on income is a way of continuing to segregate our community.”
What will David Alvarez bring to the San Diego City Council? We speak to Councilmember Alvarez about his goals for District 8, and we discuss how he thinks the council should go about cutting the city's $73 million budget deficit. "The district is actually, I think, one of the most exciting in the City of San Diego. We've got everything from a border with Mexico from in the southern portion in San Ysidro and Otay, we've got agricultural land in the River Valley area, we've got bayfront both down in the south, and also in the Barrio Logan part of town, we've got historic neighborhood, in Barrio Logan and the northern portion of the district. Then we've got bran new communities in Bay Side and in Ocean View Hills. And so it's a very diverse district. So I'm really, really excited about the opportunities and challenges that that brings."
Read MorePresident Barack Obama weighed in on the San Diego mayor's race Saturday, endorsing fellow Democrat David Alvarez. "As a native San Diegan, David Alvarez has been a fierce advocate for his city, and on the Council, has led efforts to build a strong middle class, put neighborhoods first and expand opportunities for kids in and out of school," Obama said in a statement.
Read MoreThe 33-year-old Democrat has spent much of his adult life fighting for social, economic and environmental justice and began his career as a social services worker and after-school teacher. "San Diego has a bright future. In the next decade, I believe that we have the opportunity to invest more heavily in our neighborhoods and communities that have been neglected for years in favor of large downtown projects and special interests," Alvarez said.
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