On the story about the tax increment of CCDC, San Diego Downtown News, 7/2010 page 3. I moved to downtown San Diego in 1982 fresh out of the University of Minnesota in Mechanical Engineering. I worked day labor trying to find full time employment for 12 years in the street and in homeless shelters for sometimes $5 a week helping the homeless. In 1995 I was employed by the Sun Cafe and was able to move into the Golden West Hotel. We worked at the cafe 6 and sometimes 7 days a week serving the people of San Diego the best fair priced meals in town until January 1 2009 when the building was leased out by the owner to Funky Garcia's. For all the success that is claimed by CCDC and with the story on the Gaslamp tax revenue to CCDC on page 6 about contributing $86E6 in taxes. I think we at the Sun Cafe contribributed our fair share of that tax and I have lived in the Golden West Hotel since 1994 paying almost 50% of my income per month on rent. Now with the Sun, New, Moon and Lees cafe's gone, there is no where for us low income residents to eat anymore. The New Cafe did reopen but is now on 9th and E, a long way from the core downtown for the old people how can not walk that far. The homeless population has only become larger and the downtown standard of living has become worst for the people who live here. It seems the only people who are better off now than in 1992 are the foreign investors with empty buildings and homeless agency investors who spent all the money on black-hole projects that did nothing for people except give them a part time tent and a half-full stomach twice a year. I feel you should take a second look at the real World out here and see who is better off today from who was better off in 1992 or 1982. Living here for all this time I think the ones living here are much worst off or have died and never had a better life from the change.The next two stories on page 5 on the homeless service center and 23rd annual stand down seems to prove the point.The stories on page 6 about the civic center and new central library do give some credibility to CCDC's claims of a better city for the residents as I spend 2-3 hours a day in the library, but all this has not moved me from my 8 by 10 foot room in the Golden West Hotel for the last 16 years. By the way I now work at Brian's 24 next to the old St. James Hotel on the deep night shift to keep my self going with less money than I made at the Sun Cafe.
On the story about the tax increment of CCDC, San Diego Downtown News, 7/2010 page 3. I moved to downtown San Diego in 1982 fresh out of the University of Minnesota in Mechanical Engineering. I worked day labor trying to find full time employment for 12 years in the street and in homeless shelters for sometimes $5 a week helping the homeless. In 1995 I was employed by the Sun Cafe and was able to move into the Golden West Hotel. We worked at the cafe 6 and sometimes 7 days a week serving the people of San Diego the best fair priced meals in town until January 1 2009 when the building was leased out by the owner to Funky Garcia's. For all the success that is claimed by CCDC and with the story on the Gaslamp tax revenue to CCDC on page 6 about contributing $86E6 in taxes. I think we at the Sun Cafe contribributed our fair share of that tax and I have lived in the Golden West Hotel since 1994 paying almost 50% of my income per month on rent. Now with the Sun, New, Moon and Lees cafe's gone, there is no where for us low income residents to eat anymore. The New Cafe did reopen but is now on 9th and E, a long way from the core downtown for the old people how can not walk that far. The homeless population has only become larger and the downtown standard of living has become worst for the people who live here. It seems the only people who are better off now than in 1992 are the foreign investors with empty buildings and homeless agency investors who spent all the money on black-hole projects that did nothing for people except give them a part time tent and a half-full stomach twice a year. I feel you should take a second look at the real World out here and see who is better off today from who was better off in 1992 or 1982. Living here for all this time I think the ones living here are much worst off or have died and never had a better life from the change.The next two stories on page 5 on the homeless service center and 23rd annual stand down seems to prove the point.The stories on page 6 about the civic center and new central library do give some credibility to CCDC's claims of a better city for the residents as I spend 2-3 hours a day in the library, but all this has not moved me from my 8 by 10 foot room in the Golden West Hotel for the last 16 years. By the way I now work at Brian's 24 next to the old St. James Hotel on the deep night shift to keep my self going with less money than I made at the Sun Cafe.