Letters

‘What’s wrong with Hillcrest?’

Hillcrest has always been held up as a place for new urban ideas. In the past, new developments like Village Hillcrest and the Uptown Center (now the Hub) won awards for leading the way in creative urban development. Even as recent as 2010, Hillcrest won an award as one of the American Planning Association’s 10 great neighborhoods nationwide. However, recently, people have been asking, what’s wrong with Hillcrest? Why do some parts of Hillcrest have such high business turnover, they ask? There seems to be an abundance of “cursed locations” that have a rotating door of businesses. Has Hillcrest lost its cool factor? It’s clear that something is going on, but it’s not a mystery. Hillcrest needs to grow and it isn’t.

Neighborhoods that followed Hillcrest’s creative urban lead a couple of decades ago, like North Park, Bankers Hill, Little Italy, East Village and (surprisingly) Mission Valley, have overtaken Hillcrest as exciting and energetic places because of new residential development. The type of customer that will keep Hillcrest’s restaurant and retail community thriving are choosing to move into new, pretty and convenient apartments in other neighborhoods. And they’re spending their time and money in those neighborhoods and not ours. New buildings, walkable neighborhoods, attractive apartments, and new restaurants are all the things that people are looking for in modern San Diego. Customers who would love to move to Hillcrest are choosing to move to the East Village or Little Italy because they just can’t find any new reasonably priced quality places to live. It is very difficult to even find a reasonably priced apartment in Hillcrest, let alone a new one. Beyond a few buildings, Hillcrest hasn’t seen any real new residential development in almost ten years.

The benefits of reasonable development within the character of the neighborhood are clear. New customers who live in the neighborhood are customers who will patronize our retailers and restaurants. New residents won’t require on-street parking because they’ll be walking to dinner. New buildings will also bring new quality of businesses. Many business people don’t want to deal with a building that is 50 years old and falling down in Hillcrest, when there is a developer in Little Italy will outfit a new space for them with exactly what they want. Another benefit of new development is the growth in the fees that developers pay for community improvements. As new buildings are built, older infrastructure gets upgraded, that could mean brand new sidewalks or parks for Hillcrest.

With buildings literally falling down in our neighborhood, it’s clear to many that Hillcrest needs to embrace reasonable development. In order to keep our characterful and unique restaurant and retail community, we need to attract customers to live here, not simply visit and go home. The good news is that the City Planning Department recently released the new draft of the Uptown Community Plan, which includes zoning and density proposals for Hillcrest. We need to make sure that this proposed plan encourages reasonable residential and commercial growth. This will encourage new residents to want to move to Hillcrest and support our business district. The alternative is what we’ve got, and that is slowly but surely not working.

—Benjamin Nicholls
Executive Director 
Hillcrest Business Association

Build more homeless shelters

Imagine you are homeless, and it is raining. You have nowhere to go, and you and your kids are cold. You are very wet and can’t get dry. Do you think we should help people who can’t help themselves? I think we should build more homeless shelters so people can have a safe and somewhat stable environment.

We should build more homeless shelters because it costs less to build a homeless shelter than to send them to prison or feed them a lot. For example, in Hawaii it cost $4 million to have 1,751 homeless people hospitalized. To have a homeless person under a roof, with health care and food, it costs from $199 to $701 each month.

Studies show that instead of sending the homeless to prisons and hospitals, we could save about $211 million. That’s a lot of saved money. Then, we could use that saved money on our community. For example, we could use the money for botanical gardens, schools, and even family programs.

Also, according to Minnesota Public Radio, a study in Colorado showed that the average homeless person cost $43,000 a year, whereas housing that person would cost just $17,000 a year. We sure could save some money by building homeless shelters.

Another reason we should build more homeless shelters is that at the shelter there would be people to help them with their problems. At homeless shelters, there is physical, emotional and spiritual support. There is also staff and volunteers who assist the homeless and help them, through time, return to the community as an active member. There would be less people stealing things or taking drugs, which would result in less people going to prison.

One night when my family was asleep, we were awakened by banging. My parents got up and looked out the window. There was a homeless man yelling and banging on our door. We were scared. My mom told me he must have been drunk or on drugs. We had to call the police and they came and took him away. This is why we need more homeless shelters with help.

The last reason we should have more shelters is because kids who are homeless need a safe place to stay. There are about 1.3 million children in the U.S. who are homeless. Children who don’t have a stable home are vulnerable to different outcomes. Children without a stable home are more than twice as likely as others to repeat a grade, be expelled, or drop out of school.

I think everyone wants their kids to have a good education Also, many children have witnessed violence and could have problems such as anxiety. Staff at the homeless shelter could be there to help the kids with their problems. If the family stays at the shelter, there is also a chance that the kids might not have to leave their parents and become foster children. Kids need to have a safe and stable environment.

My request is an important one. We have to build more homeless shelters for the people in need. We need them to know they’re safe and able to stay the night.

—Lydia Monney, age 10
Hillcrest

Why we should not litter

Imagine taking your 5-year-old son to a park with candy wrappers, chewed-up gum, old boxes and cups everywhere! How would you feel if our water was polluted? How would you feel if you were an animal who was harmed by litter?

My cat choked and died because it ate a bottle cap when I took it outside. This is why I think there should be more litter signs around the city to remind people to pick up their trash.

I think there should be more litter signs because the litter will wash down storm drains and will go into the ocean, causing the litter to pollute the ocean. This might make the sea animals sick or die from the litter we put in the ocean.

For example, a sperm whale was found dead on a North American beach. It was discovered that it has starved to death because a plastic gallon bottle, which it had swallowed, had plugged its small intestine.

On the other hand, some of us might not survive because you need water to survive, but the water will be too dirty to drink. To add on, animals are attracted to the litter and could carry germs.

According to green eco services, 70 billion little pieces of plastic enter the ocean every year. This is why we need to pick up after ourselves to save little and big lives!

I think there should be more litter signs around the city reminding people to pick up their trash because it’s sometimes hard to clean and the city will look terrible. So this is why we need to clean, clean, clean.

—Harmony A.
Normal Heights
fourth-grader at Alice Birney Elementary School

Follow school rules

Have you ever seen a kid get in trouble because he or she was breaking school rules? Does it bother you when you see kids doing something wrong? Do you want to take action when you see kids behaving wrongly?

Well, I do, because once I saw a bunch of kids fooling around and breaking some rules when one of the kids got hurt. He was bleeding, just a little bit. He had a scrape on his knee, but that doesn’t mean that his little scrape couldn’t turn into a huge infection.

One reason that all kids should follow all school rules is that if one kid breaks the rules then the other kids could get hurt. For example, no one would want to be around the kid who broke the rule. If the kid who got hurt got really hurt, then the parents might have to pay a lot of money if they got sued.

Another reason is because kids could get suspended, and you could lose a lot of education, which is very important. You could also lose all of your friends and live a lonely life filled with shame.

—Molly Haven
student from Uptown