FREE
Cities with the fastestgrowing home prices in the Riverside metro area
Oscar-nominated screenwriter honored on Palm Springs Walk of the Stars
PG 02
PG 27
VISIT SANBERNARDINOPRESS.COM
MONDAY, JUNE 03- JUNE 09, 2024
San Bernardino County homeless census shows flattening numbers, but unsheltered homelessness increases
Point-in-Time Count participants speak with a man experiencing homelessness. | Photo courtesy of San Bernardino County
Deputies helped this family connect with housing. | Photo courtesy of San Bernardino County
with 2023 data. “This data shows a flattening of our homeless numbers, which is a promising sign that we are heading in the right direction,” 4th District Supervisor Curt Hagman said in a statement. Hagman and 5th District
Supervisor Joe Baca Jr. serve on the County Homelessness Ad Hoc Committee. “The County of San Bernardino is taking significant strides to address this issue head-on,” Baca said in a statement. “We are investing in projects
like Kern Street and Pacific Village to provide essential services like substance use treatment and recuperative care beds. These efforts are crucial for improving the health and well-being of our community.” In September, Board of Supervisors Chair Dawn Rowe started the formation of the ad hoc committee under the direction of the county’s Chief Executive Officer Luther Snoke. The committee’s purpose was to explore the root causes of homelessness and provide recommendations to the board on policies, strategies and partnership options to address the issue, officials said. Earlier in 2023, supervisors approved a $72.7 million Homelessness Spending Plan, with an additional $20 million “reserved for bridging the gaps in current See Homelessness Page 28
NO. 174
Corona eighth grader ties for ninth in National Spelling Bee By City News Service
A
n eighth grader from Corona was eliminated in the eighth round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Wednesday, finishing in an eight-way tie for ninth, three places higher than last year. Avijeet Randhawa misspelled Abitibi, the name of a lake in Canada on the Ontario-Quebec border and a river in eastern Ontario. He spelled it “Abatibby.” With the bee limited to students in eighth grade or below, this was Avijeet’s final bee. The eight spellers who spelled their eighth-round words correctly advanced to Thursday’s finals. There are two Californians in the finals — Shrey Parikh, who completed sixth grade at Day Creek Intermediate School in Rancho Cucamonga last week, and Rishabh Saha, an eighth grader at Herbert H. Cruickshank Middle School in Merced. Avijeet reached the semifinals for the second consecutive year on Wednesday when he correctly answered his fifthround multiple-choice word meaning question, “A person described as woozy is:” by selecting “experiencing dizziness, mild nausea, or weakness.” In the sixth round, he correctly spelling larid, a bird of the family Laridae. He correctly answered his seventh-round word meaning question, “What does it mean to be mercu-
By Staff
T
he homeless population in San Bernardino County increased 1% during the past year, compared with a 26% last year and 6.6% the year before, officials announced Wednesday. Data from the county’s Jan. 25 Point-in-Time Count showed the homeless population added 42 people, totaling 4,237 from 4,195 last year. The count also showed a 3.1% decrease in the number of individuals that had temporary living arrangements in a public or private shelter at the time of the count. However, the number of unsheltered homeless individuals increased by 79 individuals, or 2.6%, compared
VOL. 10,
projects,” according to the county. This augmented the San Bernardino County Behavioral Health Department’s efforts to get nearly $89 million in grant funding to establish or expand facilities and the number of shelter beds. Over 500 volunteers including county supervisors went throughout the county on Jan. 25 for the annual homeless census. The count and a “subpopulation survey” was a collaborative exercise involving the San Bernardino County Homeless Partnership, the County Office of Homeless Services and the Institute for Urban Initiatives. A total of 24 cities and towns contributed staff time and office space for volunteer training and deployment. Twenty-four law enforcement agencies
See Spelling Bee Page 28
IE reaction swift to verdicts against former President Trump
O
By City News Service
ne of former President Donald Trump’s biggest boosters in the Inland Empire Thursday dismissed the notion that the guilty verdicts in the ex-commanderin-chief’s felony trial will keep him from winning the November election, while a congressman said the jury’s findings proved he wasn’t “above the law.” “I’ve got news for you, a guilty verdict isn’t going to keep Donald Trump from being the 47th president,” former state Sen. Melissa Melendez of Lake Elsinore said via Twitter. “You may want to get used to that idea now. MAGA.” Melendez, who was termed out of office in 2022 and a vocal backer of Trump throughout his presidency, reacted within minutes of Thursday’s verdicts coming out of New York City in the so-called “hush money case” related to exporn star Stormy Daniels. The Manhattan jury of five women and seven men found the former president guilty of all 34 charges tied to falsification of business records. Prosecutors alleged Trump provided $130,000 to attorney Michael Cohen for his payments to Daniels to keep her quiet about relations with the defendant prior to the 2016 election. See Trump Page 27