Addressing Housing Insecurity in Linda Vista

Affordable housing remains a critical need in Linda Vista and throughout San Diego and we know that this is a big issue that will take significant collaboration and effort before every resident has an affordable and secure place to call home.

Linda Vista has one of San Diego’s most socio-economically distressed neighborhoods with residents facing housing insecurity, the effects of gentrification, overcrowding in complexes, and sometimes even unsafe or unlivable conditions. More than a quarter of Linda Vista’s 33,461 residents are considered “extremely low income,” and almost 50% are “very low income,” according to data from SANDAG and HUD. Additionally, residents are being priced out of their homes as rental rates continue to climb.

That’s why we take a two-pronged approach to addressing housing insecurity. Our team provides direct, on-the-ground support by means of forms assistance and resource referrals. Our team makes services accessible in three languages, English, Spanish, and Vietnamese, to bridge language barriers. We also provide one-on-one case management and forms assistance in these languages to clients in need of assistance locating and acquiring stable, dignified housing.

Additionally, we are proud to work alongside elected officials, other non-profit organizations, and resident leaders to advocate for long-term systemic changes that prioritize affordable housing in local and regional development. Bayside leverages its voice on the Linda Vista Planning Group, as the chair of that group’s Affordable Housing Task Force launched in September 2021. The Task Force’s goal is to ultimately offer policy choices that policymakers and other communities can act on that support the development and prioritization of affordable housing in neighborhoods like Linda Vista. Bayside is also an active participant in community bodies like Live Well San Diego North Central Team, SANDAG Social Equity Working Group, and the Linda Vista Collaborative which work to advance equitable and sustainable regional development.

If you would like to help support our efforts on-the-ground or behind-the-scenes contact us at kheinle@baysidecc.org.

Helping Seniors Empower Seniors

Senior citizens have been severely affected over the past year by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting stay-at-home orders for public safety. But that hasn't stopped them or us from improving the quality of life for others. Watch how Bayside's Seniors in Action are supporting seniors during this difficult time.

Living Our Mission to Empower All Year Long

Despite the pandemic and long-standing challenges facing our neighborhood, our team spent all of 2020 hard at work empowering our diverse community to improve the the quality of life through services, education, and advocacy. Watch the video below to see what we were able to accomplish together.

2020 End of Year Campaign Recap

Despite the unprecedented challenges our community faced last year, our supporters rallied together in an amazing way. Here’s what we accomplished together!

Board of Directors Expansion

Despite the many challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, Bayside Community Center grew in important ways last year. One exciting area of development was the expansion of the Board of Directors from six to nine members. Note the heartfelt expressions of board members.

Vice President of Bayside’s Board of Directors, Ilana Lopez, comments, “Bayside is one of very few boards that is diverse and reflective of the community in which it serves. We have several board members either actually grew up in the community in which Bayside serves or are currently living in the community, which is a critical perspective to have on the board. The new additions to our board are a continued reflection of Bayside's commitment to having board members who are from or live-in the community and having a strong representation of women and people of color on the board. Each of the new board members also brings an important skill to the table, whether it be financial knowledge, donor connections, or leadership experience, which shows that it is possible and necessary to have a board that is diverse in every way and possess the knowledge and experience necessary to push the organization forward.”

Board of Director’s Secretary, Demi Brown, adds, “I feel that Bayside's board is special because it consists of a diverse group of individuals who are all truly passionate about serving the Linda Vista community. Board members are not here just to check a box, they are engaged and are active in order to help ensure the organization is successful. We are really excited to add these three new passionate members to our board!”

Regarding his decision to join Bayside Community Center’s board, Juan Aguilar, Director of Operations for Rowling & Associates LLC says, “My passion for helping the community and giving back is what drew me to Bayside. I decided to get involved as a board member at Bayside because I believe in their mission and have a passion for helping those in need. I feel honored to have been invited to join the board. I admire the leadership at Bayside and look forward to helping the community.”

Similarly, recent board member, Danielle Hartman, US Bank- Linda Vista Branch Manager, remarks, “I work and live right next to the Linda Vista community and after learning more about the needs of the community and the mission of Bayside Community Center I wanted the opportunity to be involved with such a great organization and help make an impact by doing whatever I can to help make a difference. I believe that my passion for helping others and volunteerism, as well as my skills and resources relating to financial education, community outreach, relationship management, fundraising, and networking, will allow me to help contribute to the growth and mission of Bayside Community Center.”

Additionally, new board member, Toaono “Ono” Vaifale, US Federal Court Southern District Supervisor, shares, “Since moving to San Diego, I immediately drew an interest in Bayside largely due to the organization's decades-long consistent and meaningful impact in the culturally diverse community of Linda Vista. I have been a Pacific Islander youth advocate in Orange County for many years. After moving to San Diego, it was important to me that I continue my community efforts. I grew great concern for the increasing gang violence in our neighborhood and was excited to find a team of dedicated community builders at Bayside to work with. By joining the Bayside Board, I am also able to help perpetuate the value of community work by setting an example for my two sons and generations to come.”

Truly, Bayside Community Center’s Board of Directors is an encouraging reflection of how the organization is empowering a diverse community to improve the quality of life in Linda Vista. See Bayside’s whole team here.

Flexibly Meeting the Dynamic Needs of Our Diverse and Distressed Community

At Bayside Community Center, we take a holistic approach to providing our services and programs to the community. We tend to the critical, immediate needs that require an urgent and dignified response, while simultaneously working to address the underlying root causes of the challenges through our educational and advocacy-based programs.

This pandemic has challenged our diverse communities in new and profound ways. Senior citizens who were coping with the dual challenges of isolation and food insecurity before the pandemic are now threatened by the increased risk of exposure to a deadly virus. Immigrant families who were struggling to academically support their children before local schools closed now face the additional obstacles of distance learning and widening technology gaps. Low-income families who struggled to make ends meet before the economic impact of COVID-19 was fully seen are now in need of support and solutions like never before. In one survey conducted by our staff in May, 89% of program participants experienced a loss of work hours and income.

We understand the immediate need for flexible responses to this still emerging and dynamic crisis. We also believe that deeper, systemic solutions are required to fully address the needs and support the aspirations of our diverse community. Here are three ways we’ve been accomplishing this.

Food Security

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Bayside has distributed over 20,000 lbs. of fresh prodce and 2,140 lbs. of fresh bread to more than 6,600 individuals. In the last two months alone (September and October), we’ve distributed 3,030 lbs. of fresh produce and 660 lbs. of fresh-baked bread to the community. Programs include on-site, walk-up, and drive-through emergency food distributions as well as home deliveries to dozens of Linda Vista seniors.

Additionally, we have developed a number of new partnerships in order to supplement emergency food distributions and deliveries with fresh produce. Associate Director of Communications, Adam Osorio, notes, “We see partnerships with produce farmers as absolutely essential. We’re glad to be able to provide so many shelf-stable emergency food items to our neighbors but the nutritional quality of our various programs is really increased when we can get freshly grown fruits and veggies into the hands of residents as well. Without these important partners we would not be able to address food insecurity and inequities in Linda Vista nearly as well.” For more information contact rose@baysidecc.org.

Avery Cramer, founder of SD Co-Harvest and Bayside partner comments, "Having fresh, local produce distributed alongside shelf stable emergency foods is important for a variety of reasons. Most important is introducing and sustaining nutritional and diverse ingredients so that all members of the community have the opportunity to access high quality produce. We know that in the United States, most food insecure households are not lacking in calories, but in nutritional uptake. This lack of access and division between the food system and public health is leading to disastrous levels of dietary disease and racial/economic inequalities in public health. Co-Harvest's mission to increase access to healthy produce through Bayside's distributions also benefits the environment because offering farm fresh, local produce directly to urban populations drastically cuts out emissions from transportation or storage and increases the ability for the community to build sovereignty and stewardship into the food system."

Academic Support

Since March 2020, Bayside’s after-school literacy support program has moved 100% online and has served 48 students. This school year, new students entered our program reading an average of 2.5 years behind their actual grade level. In order to address this critical need, our team has found new ways to support students and their families including weekly wellness calls, redirecting donations to prioritize the technological needs of our families, and teaching new skills to help families successfully participate in online learning. Regarding these efforts, Academic Club site supervisor, Alexia Mercado says, “We’ve been highly involved in the education of our students since COVID began. We have been supporting our students every way we can to help them adjust to virtual learning. We do a weekly wellness check-in with our families to find out what the needs are and strive to provide every tool, skill, or resource they need. The families have been very grateful for our support during this difficult time.” Rahab Wanjiru, an Academic Club parent, comments, “My student really loves your program, she is upset when she can’t get online for class. Your teachers are like a second set of parents for our kids and we want to make sure that you are well and being taken care of too.”

As a result, after only 9 weeks of student-centered, data-driven instruction English literacy gaps among new students have been reduced by an average 54%! See for yourself how some of our students read on the first day of class compared to several weeks later. For more information contact aosorio@baysidecc.org.

Watch a 2nd grade student read an early Kindergarten level text on September 12 (left video) and a mid-Kindergarten level text on November 6 (right video).

Watch as a 3rd grade student reads the same mid-Kindergarten level of text in the beginning of the school year (left video) and 4 weeks later (right video).

Census 2020

It is estimated that each individual respondent will bring in $1,000-$2,000 per person, per year in government funding for critical needs like hospitals, roadways, and education systems in their communities. That amounts to tens of thousands of dollars generated by a single person filing their Census. Bayside is proud to have been a part of the Count Me 2020 Coalition this year which educated and mobilized our hardest-to-count census tracts. We focused on reaching Vietnamese and Spanish speaking residents, 0-5 and 80+ year old community members, those with no access to internet or working phones, English-language learners, and other hard-to-count populations. In one of Linda Vista’s hardest-to-count census tracts (90.0), we are proud to have played a significant role in the 7.4% increase in self-response rates among residents in 2020 compared to 2010 rates. This increase paralleled numbers throughout Linda Vista and across San Diego.

Regarding the importance of this work, Andrea Ruiz, a Bayside volunteer shares, “Census outreach was crucial this year, as it is every ten years. It is important for our community members to have a well-rounded understanding of what the Census actually is, and why it matters. Once people realize that there is nothing to fear, and that it's actually a quick process, it opens the door for maximum participation. This way, we are accurately represented in Congress and have appropriate federal funding for our most essential community resources." Not even a pandemic could stop us from getting out the count! In addition to being perhaps the most inclusive and representative Census of Linda Vista in our lifetime up until now, we are confident that this work will have positive impacts on our community for many years to come. For more information contact kheinle@baysidecc.org.

We are so proud of our staff, volunteers and community members for rising to meet the many new and, at times, seemingly overwhelming challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. We look forward to continuing to adjust and adapt to the dynamic and ever-changing needs of our community with short-, medium-, and long-term solutions. 

Bayside's Academic Club Closes Literacy Gaps

Illiteracy remains a barrier to social equity and has been linked with reduced economic opportunities, long-term mental and emotional disorders including low self-esteem, and has even been used to project future growth trajectories of prison populations. Since language skills are typically learned at a young age from parents, unaddressed illiteracy can become intergenerational and contribute to cycles of poverty.

Bayside Community Center has designed and refined a student-centered, data-driven afterschool program to address the impacts of illiteracy and close existing gaps. “We know that not every student learns the same way, faces the same challenges, or even has the same interests,” comments program creator Adam Osorio. “That’s why we say that our program is student-centered because we take all of these factors and more into consideration when we design our instruction.”

Adam Osorio evaluates student progress.

Academic Club instruction does not follow a preset curriculum course, but rather takes a modular approach to teaching and reinforcing specific literacy hard skills. “Data collection is a major part of what we do. It allows us to understand exactly what areas our students need help with and what they’ve already mastered,” comments Nina Aguele, Academic Club Site Supervisor at Kit Carson Elementary. Upon enrollment, every student is evaluated to discover their initial grade level equivalent with regard to reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.

On average, new students enter the program 1.35 years behind their current grade level; the equivalent of a 2nd grade student reading at a mid-Kindergarten level. Osorio adds, “This type of scenario is not just about what our students haven’t learned. Often times we see students confronting behaviors they may have developed over the years to cope with not being able to read. We’re helping students and families to address things like trying to blend into the background during group discussions, or asking for help when they need it. We want our students to appreciate that we’re all learning and improving as we go. The data is just one tool to help all of us understand where and how we can improve together.”

Bayside’s Academic Club team designs lessons for individuals, partners, small groups, and large group instruction. When assigning student partners and groups, Academic Club instructors take individual student strengths and needs into consideration. Alexia Mercado, Academic Club Site Supervisor at Linda Vista Elementary notes, “Many of our students are actually really good at some aspect of what we’re doing in class. While some may be shy, we can always count on a few outgoing or engaging students that can draw out some of our quieter students." Osorio adds, “We take note of what our students like about our class or what they’re good at, and then we pair them up to compliment other students who are still learning or developing in that area. This also helps create a really supportive classroom environment where everyone feels comfortable learning new and challenging things.”

Throughout the school year, students are reevaluated similar to their initial assessment. “Testing throughout the year helps our team tailor and fine-tune our teaching to our students. It’s also really encouraging for our students to see the progress they’ve made in concrete terms,” Aguele adds.

On average, first-time students who enroll in Bayside’s Academic Club demonstrate more than one year of literacy progress and actually reduce their incoming literacy gap by 38%.

Similarly, returning students begin the school year only .61 years behind grade level. By the end of the year they, on average, demonstrate more than a year’s worth of growth and have actually reduced their literacy gap by an additional 50%. 11 out of 25 returning Academic Club students have caught up to or surpassed their grade level before leaving the program.

As summer comes to an end, we’re looking forward to helping even more students close literacy gaps in the 2020-2021 academic year. For more information about Bayside Community Center’s Academic Club program please contact Adam Osorio at aosorio@baysidecc.org.

Nina Aguele with 3 of 11 Academic Club students who have eliminated literacy gaps.