Pam Marino
Staff Writer
Staff Writer
Pam Marino joined the Monterey County Weekly—the largest circulating newspaper in the county with a robust news blog—as a staff writer in November 2016. She covers health, hospitality, military and veterans, crime and courts, higher education, two cities—Carmel and Pacific Grove—and two unincorporated regions of Monterey County. For the 2018 Health Journalism Fellowship Pam intends to report on using health care dollars for creating housing in Monterey County. The county’s affordable housing situation is at crisis levels, creating serious health issues and rising costs as the most vulnerable residents are pushed into crowded and/or substandard housing or homelessness.
Pam graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A., majoring in Political Science with a minor in Journalism. She served for a year as editor-in-chief for the student newspaper, The Daily Aztec. She started her professional career working as a reporter for community weekly newspapers in San Diego County, before returning back to her roots in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to working at the Weekly, Pam freelanced for a variety of news organizations and publications, both online and in print.
"Only until people really realize there are 70 – and 80-year-old women living in their cars will we as a society be forced to change,” one local nonprofit leader says.
Like most of us, Doris Beckman, 67, had a plan for how life was going to go. But real life has a way of interrupting the imagined one.
Joy and Ben Langford know how difficult it is for a young family to afford a home in Monterey County. They rented for several years as they had three children. At the same time, Ben’s parents wanted to downsize and relocate from Texas to California to be closer to them, but they couldn't afford it.
The goal is to convince health care organizations, government agencies and community leaders to redirect health care dollars to create more affordable housing for Monterey County's vulnerable seniors.