SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — Jasmine Seafood Restaurant turned into "Nights of the Roundtables," where political candidates running for office throughout San Diego County and California answered questions on issues important to the Asian Pacific American Coalition.
“We want to promote everybody's awareness that your vote is important and your vote counts,” Asian Pacific American Coalition Board Chairman Steve Hsieh said.
The meet and greet had a twist, each candidate joined a table for about ten minutes, answered questions and rotated to the next table.
Homelessness in San Diego County
Event attendee Toai Goins has lived in San Diego County for about 49 years. She is concerned about the homelessness crisis.
“I am very concerned about the homeless people,” Goins said.
She wants to know what candidates will do to help address it.
San Diego County Supervisor District 3 candidate Terra Lawson-Remer, who's running for reelection said shelter beds are critical.
“Target helping our seniors, we got to target helping with people with mental health issues, we have to target people with substance abuse issues and we got to make sure we have more shelter beds,” Lawson-Remer said.
Meanwhile, the former City of San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer who is also running for the District 3 seat also had a message for the community regarding the homelessness crisis.
“They need a supervisor that's going to stand up for them, somebody whos going to support prop 36 and to make sure we have accountability back on the streets,” Faulconer said.
APAC has hosted the event for about a decade, promoting direct interaction from community members and candidates.
Addiction recovery in San Diego County
“I was wondering how they are going to implement compassion into addiction treatment,” event attendee Gia Ngo said.
Ngo would like to know how candidates will implement kindness, fairness and compassion to help people facing addiction.
“We need to intervene, we need to break that cycle of addiction, we need to give people the help and support that they deserve but we also have to have consequences for actions,” Faulconer said.
“More than anything is we just need to build up the bed capacity and that's one of the things I've been a big champion in, its not easy,” Lawson-Remer said.
Candidates running for the City of San Diego, County, State and National City participated although organizers said some candidates were invited but declined.