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>> coming up next on "evening edition", san diego county has a dramatic shortage of affordable housing. a new initiative hopes to improve matters. >>> a scare this week from the san o{nof} rey power station. "evening edition" starts now.

. >> hello. i'm joanne faryon. the city of san diego says it has a plan to fix broken roads faster. >> and i'm brain {droun} -- i'm drain browne. we'll hear from a city council

member. >>> but first, today was the end of our summer-like weather here. a cold pacific storm is on the way, and we can expect rain, wind, and snow in the mountains, possibly as low as 1,000 feet by tomorrow afternoon. >>> a border fence that runs

into the pacific is getting rebuilt. the surf fence was built back in the 90s and extends about 300 feet into the ocean. time and tide have both taken their toll, and now the border patrol says new steel pipe will replace it.

the intention is to keep people from crossing illegally and keep contraband out while letting marine life through. >>> a navy contract will allow for pulse power systems research and a supergun, which uses electricity to fire up to 200 miles.

the navy says such a weapon could reduce the need to store dangerous explosives abord ships. >>> the first artificial heart-valve replacement was created by an irvine company. it's designed for elderly patients who are too fragile for

open-heart surgery. the valve is inserted into an artery in the leg. once it reaches the heart, it is expanded with a balloon. those with it can breathe better and become much more active. and they were more likely to suffer strokes but more likely

to survive one year after surgery. >>> a survey from the auto club of southern california finds economic concerns and record-high gas prices are making consumers more careful about how they spend their money.

gas prices are about 75 cents higher than they were this time last november. we're asking people in this shopping center here in mission valley whether that's going to affect their gift-giving budget. >> i'll probably send less. at this point in time, the

economy is not one where we should be spending a lot of money on extravagant gifts. kids like new shoes. beyond that, probably less. >> yeah, cuts in the budget a lot. >> reporter: so you'll probably spend less or more this year on

gift-giving? >> less. >> reporter: and generally, how do you go about doing your holiday shopping, on-line, in stores, what? >> mostly on-line right now. >> reporter: why? >> it's easier than having to

drive somewhere, and if you don't find something, then you've got to drive somewhere else, use more gas. >> reporter: this man recently celebrated his birthday and got this pickup truck as a gift. this is the first time he's filling it up.

>> this is a test. >> reporter: we'll find out in just a moment. he is like the majority of people in the triple-a survey who say high gas prices are affecting their decisions on eating out, saving more, and spending less on gifts.

$95. >> yes, that's a lot. >> reporter: now what do you think about that holiday budget? >> it's going to be a lot less. [ laughter ] >> reporter: about 75% of those surveyed plan to change their gift-shopping habits this year

using free-shipping offers on-line, and shopping more at discount stores and on-line. >>> san diego is launching a new effort to help the homeless. it's one of the things joanne is talking about with her guests at the "evening edition" roundtable.

>> we often hear about the recession changing the face of homelessness. people who have never been homeless before are finding themselves unable to pay the rent, many of them families with children. oday officials from throughout

the county announced a new collaborative effort to help these families. first, let's take a look at the problem. more than 13,000 children in san diego county are homeless, and children make up one third of all san diegans living in

poverty, and the county is short by more than 90,000 affordable housing units. joining me now to discuss the new initiative is san diego city councilman todd gloria. thanks for being here. >> my pleasure. >> tell us about this

collaborative effort. >> it involves elected officials and others from across the county to go through best practices from across the country and see what we can agree to. it makes no sense for the city of san diego to be the only one

working on this issue. 1-1/2 years of research has culminated in today's keys to families are finding themselves homeless. >> a lot of attention is often paid to the chronically this is a different group. >> it is, and it's unique to our

times. when we talk about homelessness, we talk about diagnosed or veterans. now we're seeing families with kids. since 2008, we've seen an 85% increase in families that are perhaps they're couch-surfing or

perhaps staying on the street. at any rate, we're seeing this growth, and we've got to do something about it. the first principle is to adopt this as an issue and make it a priority. that's encouraging, is that you have people from across the

county saying this is a problem we'll focus on. >> we've had these conversations in the past with you, and i know that homelessness has been a big issue of yours, and that as recently as a year ago, the city of san diego was always on the hook for the homeless shelter,

where we know there are homeless families throughout the county. here you have brought everyone to the table. >> that's right, and for an extended period of time. this was month after month of people {kunl}ing, folks from places you wouldn't imagine, the

city of coronado and solana beach and encinitas, who can help be a part of the solution. our adjacent jurisdictions are also affected, and we're only successful if our whole region works {clab} {ras}ively. >> you need other jurisdictions that have money.

>> well, there are block grants. you can use it to create affordable housing, which is one of the best ways to prevent family homelessness, and given the opportunity to spend this dollar here or there, we hope people will make the investment of tax dollars.

the only thing we know is for family homelessness, it's very easy to prevent. this is episodic, not mental illness. this is often a security deposit, short-term income assistance, that we can prevent a family from falling into the

cycle of homelessness. so i think it what we have is a consensus, this was hard fought and took a long time, but it's a document we can all agree to. the san diego city council had a committee adopted, tonight the city of chula vista is expected to adopt it.

>> and it's interesting, too, if there is money available, when you go to the special website, it's keys to housing.org? >> that's right. >> there is a section that says tell your policy makers how you would like this money spent, so you would like the public

involved. >> it's critical. the public speaking out on this issue is going to solve this. you can go to that website, or to the policymakers' sites. if you care about this issue and want to do something more than serving a meal at thanksgiving

or christmastime, write a letter to an elected official. we are all part of this solution, and it has to be something people to commit to 365 days a year. >> we're talking about finding solutions. i want to switch topics.

tell the people at home, the city council made some decisions yesterday, or were trying to, in terms of fixing the potholes. you can't go anywhere in the city without people talking about the roads. what was the problem? >> the problem -- there were

many problems. the first, we haven't prioritized road repair for decades. this was long before the economy went down. we have migrated more money toward this problem, and actually dedicate more of our

budget to this, but we're finding it takes too long to make the repairs, so the money is just sitting there. we're amending our municipal code so the money can get to the roads first, and create jobs when money is sitting in an account, no one is working.

if we get the money on the streets, the construction workers, paving and bulldozer drivers, whether you're a motorist or a neighborhood that doesn't like the way the neighborhood looks, or an unemployed worker who needs a job, this is good for everyone.

>> so you've eliminated red tape. if i wanted to repave university avenue in north park, there would have to be a vote, then on the bidder, and every time it goes to city council, it can cost $5,000 and take six to eight weeks.

if the council once blessed it and says we want to repave university avenue, as long as staff is following the rules, they don't have to come back then, and that shortens the process by months if not year, and we can then spend that money on road repair.

>> thank you for being here, todd gloria. >>> nuclear power, what's the ris {snk} we take a look in just a moment on "evening edition". >>> and getting creative to save the arts programs at san diego public schools. from our community desk.

this is kpbs "evening edition". kpbs. >> san diego has efforts to go green. the white house praised the group for efforts that are saving taxpayers money. >>> north county neighbors are speaking out against nuclear

energy. joanne and her guests are talking about it tonight at the "evening edition" roundtable. >> today a report in the "north county times" describes the genesis of an anti-nuclear movement in solana beach, calling for the closure san

onofre nuclear generating station. there was an incident which cause {td} to be evacuated tuesday. joining me to explore the sustainability side of the debate is andrew mcallister, from the california center for

sustainable energy of the thanks for being here. >> glad to be here. >> when the u.s. started selling nuclear power plants, nuclear power to the rest of us, take us back. >> the idea was that nuclear power would be too cheap to

meter, it was a new technology, it -- the u.s. was still building out it's electric infrastructure, you had increasing economies of scale, so the bigger the plant, the better, the next kilowatt hour you were going to produce would be cheaper than the one before

-- it was sort of the land of plenty. and a very -- there was a technological optimism about nuclear power that i think we've since gotten over, and as we've gotten more population and these increasing economies of scale and the declining structure of

the electrical power -- the next plant is more expensive than the last one, so the context in which we make decisions about how we're going to get our electricity is more constrained. >> when we look at san onofre, it's in the middle of a highly populated area.

what sorts of questions should we be asking today? >> the discussion got started in san clemente, and i think the resolution that the city council passed reflects concerns, which is basically that the local government should be asking questions to the federal nuclear

regulatory commission to really look at those key issues that concern their jurisdictions, things like what are we going to do with all this waste. back in the day, in the 50s and 60s, when the nuclear -- most of the nuclear plants in this country wrote being built, you

really had -- you had this assumption that the waste issue, for example, would be solved, and when san o{nof}way -- san onofre would be solved, but now we have 1200 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel on site, with no end in sight, and that was one of the issues at fukushima.

we're constantly revisiting the question. >> nuclear is often billed as being cleaner, cleaner than coal, and now we have competing clean forms of energy, solar and wind. can they compete with nuclear? >> well, it's a very good

nuclear tends to be base-load power, so once you get a nuclear generating station up and running, you want to keep it up and running at most of its capacity all the time, that's day and night, weekends, weekdays, so it doesn't really follow the load profile of the

utility itself, so you need things like natural-gas-fired power plants to follow the peak load and you need redundancy and diversity. solar and wind are the resources we can take advantage of, but they're not purely dispatchable, you can't turn them off and on.

so they're more complementary to nuclear and the electrical system is more robust if we have that redundancy and diversity. >> we only have two nuclear generating stations in california. >> yes. the two units in operation in

san onofre generate {230}2300 megawatts, which is about the equivalent of half of sdg & e's load. it would take a lot of solar and wind to offset that amount of generation capacity, not that that's not doable. it's an alternative vision that

a lot of people have, and i i'm a big solar and wind advocate, that we would be able to avoid building new power plants of whatever flavor, but i think that decommissioner san onofre in the immediate future would be a heavy lift. >> andrew mcallister, thank you

>> it's a pleasure. >>> you may have been one of those kids who spent hours screeching out notes on the violin or playing "chopsticks" endlessly on the piano. budget cuts are threatening those kinds of memories. we learn how staff are getting

creative to support the district's award-winning visual and performing arts programs. >> reporter: it's been an exciting couple of weeks for the 4th graders at zamorrano students. they've just gotten their instruments for two years of

music classes. >> what i like about music is having fun and showing classmates how you play. >> it helps me relax. >> i like playing it because it makes me learn new stuff while having some fun with an instrument.

\m \m >> reporter: 4th graders at all city schools start learning through the county's visual and performing arts program. they were given a national award last year by the kennedy center in washington, d.c., in part because schools expanded access

to arts education even in the face of major budget cuts. laara smith says those cuts have still been felt. >> we have been fortunate to be funded, but money for instruments or special field trips for kids to go to the symphony have been often cut and

are no longer available. >> reporter: this year the program's quarter of a million dollar materials budget was cut to about $30,000. that means the department still has about 25 teachers traveling to each of the districts more than 100 elementary schools

twice a week, but they don't have funds to do things like repair instruments. >> they get very frustrated, as do i. i do my best to fix everything i can, and they don't understand that it's their instrument and not them, especially because i

can't maintain them like i used to. i used to be able to take them all in. you want a perfect working instrument for a new student. >> reporter: but the director has made up for as many of the cuts as possible.

the department has been selling a $5 cd, and this saturday they're holding a particularly special fundraiser. >> \m \m >> we decided to come up with this idea of glee, since it's hot right now, and we would see who wanted to sing, and i

thought we would get 30 people, maybe 20, if i was lucky, and we came up with over 60 people. everybody came to the call. and i thought, okay, this is good! now, can they sing? >> wooh! >> reporter: those staff have

been practicing since the middle of october. ticket proceeds will pay for instrument repair, textbooks, and field trips to the symphony. and it's more than arts and music teachers who stepped in to form the choir. >> this is totally outside the

box, you know, bringing people in the district together to raise money for a wonderful cause for children. >> i make my kids do hard things. i have kids who have social anxiety, they're stutterers, so singing is a challenge for me,

so i figured i would take a risk. i work at an art magnet school, so i wanted to support the arts. >> i studied music as a child, i had my own band, and it really made a difference in my life in terms of who i am, my ability to be comfortable in front of a

crowd, all things that are important in our lives. >> reporter: karen children-evans says: >> we all know the research that the students involved in the arts do better in school, they behave better, their attendance is better, they're more prepared

to go on to college, and they're more successful socially as well. so these are really wonderful we can't give our students a better gift than the arts. >> reporter: choir volunteers think it's an important-enough gift that students should keep

getting it, even as the district faces further funding cuts. >> the glee club concert is this saturday night at 7:00 at taft middle school in {serks}, ra mesa. >>> which san diego communities have the most homes underwater? we have number, along with a

recap of our top stories. >> welcome back to the public square on kpbs "evening edition". last week we told you about a new federal initiative to help people refinance if they owe more to the bank than your house is worth.

the san diego union-tribune did some number-{oops}tracking and tracked it neighborhood by neighborhood. logan heights has the highest percentage of homes with underwater mortgages, more than 50%. sorrento valley had the least,

at about 19%. go to signonsan diego.com if more details. >>> if you would like to follow us, you can follow us on twitter, faceback, or e mail us. >>> a border fence that extends into the pacific ocean is about to get replaced.

it is made of steel pipes placed four inches apart, big enough for fish get through, but not big enough for people to get through illegally. >>> higher gas prices have people turning to discount stores or spending less on the holidays.

>>> an artificial heart valve tested by scripps health has received fda approval. it doesn't require open-heart go to kpbs.org/eveningedition for more information. >>> get your umbrella out. a cold pacific storm is headed our way friday.

we leave you with a look at the forecast. have a great night. captions provided by ecaptions.com