On Tuesday morning, Margo Velez walks through a Mission Valley shopping center. It’s one she knows well because she, along with her two teenage daughters, used to sleep in the car on the adjacent corner.

“It wasn’t a very comfortable or good feeling while working,” Velez said, adding she worked two jobs but still could not afford rent.

Velez represents the demographic lawmakers at every level of government hope to help — people who are working but cannot afford to make ends meet.

The San Diego City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to form a new committee dedicated to addressing the cost of living in America’s Finest City, which is also one of its most expensive.

“To bring our costs down a little bit here, a little bit there that will add up so that we can finally make this place a place where everyone sees a future for themselves because it’s really tough to do that right now,” said Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera.

Elo-Rivera is chair of the committee. The former council president said he passed the gavel so he would have more time to focus on policy that makes San Diego affordable for working people.

“It is the thing that threatens people’s ability to believe that they have a future here,” said Elo-Rivera.

Councilmember Henry Foster is vice chair of the committee, and Councilmember Marni von Wilpert rounds it out.

Politicians in D.C. also list lowering the cost of living as a top priority. San Diego Rep. Scott Peters founded a “YIMBY Caucus” in Congress to facilitate housing development, which he said is the best way to make California housing more affordable.

With attention on the dollar reaching a fever pitch from City Hall to Capitol Hill, some San Diegans may wonder when they will feel those policies reach their pocketbooks.

Elo-Rivera said it will not happen overnight, but that the new committee is already exploring one piece of legislation that could help people save money at the grocery store, and another that would ban algorithmic price-fixing in the housing market.

“It’s a little bit at the grocery store. It’s a little bit when we fill up our gas, take a little bit through unfair practices when we’re paying for our housing. And our job as a committee is going to be tackle tackling those things one at a time,” said Elo-Rivera.

Now, the council will have to put its money where its mouth is, in the form of policy that reaches households and keeps workers in San Diego.

“The only reason why I stay is because of the weather and the beautiful people you meet,” said Velez. “But it’s getting to the point where I’m almost ready to leave and seek elsewhere.”

• OpenAI on Wednesday rolled out a new way to talk to its viral chatbot: 1-800-CHATGPT.
• U.S. users can dial the number for 15 minutes of free access per month.
• Any user globally can message the number via WhatsApp.

OpenAI is giving users a new way to talk to its viral chatbot: 1-800-CHATGPT.

By dialing the U.S. number (1-800-242-8478) or messaging it via WhatsApp, users can access an “easy, convenient, and low-cost way to try it out through familiar channels,” OpenAI said Wednesday. At first, the company said callers will get 15 minutes free per month.

The news follows a barrage of updates from OpenAI as part of a 12-day release event. The most notable announcement was the official rollout of Sora, OpenAI’s buzzy AI video-generation tool.

OpenAI recently hired its first chief marketing officer, indicating plans to spend more on advertising to grow its user base. In October, the company debuted a search feature within ChatGPT that positions it to better compete with Google, Microsoft’s Bing and Perplexity.

It’s all part of an aggressive growth plan for OpenAI, as the company battles Amazon-backed Anthropic, Elon Musk’s xAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon in the rapidly expanding generative artificial intelligence market, which is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.

OpenAI closed its latest funding round in October at a valuation of $157 billion. The company also received a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion.

For the 1-800 number, users can call without an account, but the company said in a livestream that it’s “working on ways” to be able to integrate WhatsApp messages with a person’s ChatGPT credentials.

The team built the tool “just a few weeks ago,” an employee said on the livestream.

WATCH: How Sam Altman is tackling a growing threat to the future of OpenAI

• Erwin Jacob Miciano left the Navy in 2021 to focus on his real estate business full-time.
• Miciano and his wife used VA loans to buy a triplex and start their business, Semi Homes.
• Semi Homes helps homeowners avoid foreclosure and launched Miciano’s real estate career.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Erwin Jacob Miciano, a 27-year-old real-estate investor and the owner of Semi Homes in South El Monte, California. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m a dedicated dad, a committed husband, a real-estate investor, and the co-owner of Semi Homes, a real-estate company specializing in direct-to-seller transactions and marketing strategies. I co-own the company with my wife, Theressa.

I don’t have a college degree. I graduated from high school in 2015 and first worked at Wetzel’s Pretzels. I decided to join the Navy to support my family abroad in the Philippines and my mom and brother in the US.

In March 2016, after three months of boot camp, I completed the basic training to become a photojournalist. Until September 2021, I served as a mass communication specialist, with most of my overseas years based in Japan, stationed on the USS Ronald Reagan.

I separated from the military in 2021 to pursue real estate full-time

My Navy job included writing press releases, aerial photography, videography, and printing. In later years, I was stationed at the Naval Hospital Balboa in San Diego, where we covered COVID-19, and I was deployed with USNS Mercy to San Pedro in Los Angeles during the pandemic.

I was presented with an “early out” program because of overmanning in my job, and it allowed me to complete my contract a couple of years early. I had already started my business, but leaving the military allowed me to pursue it full-time.

I also wanted to spend more time with my young family. My eldest was born in January 2020.

My wife and I met on the day I arrived on the USS Ronald Reagan in 2016

We became friends through the first-response/firefighting team, where she worked as an electrician. We also noticed each other at church services, and she invited me to her baptism ceremony, where she was baptized inside an open jet fuel tank.

Early in our relationship, we lived together in a small Japanese apartment. Then, we spent about a year doing long-distance, with me still deploying on the carrier and her based in San Diego.

After a year of dating, we got married, and soon after some vacation in the US, we discovered we were expecting our first child. During most of her pregnancy, Theressa lived alone until I got stationed in San Diego around her seventh month.

That same year, I became deeply interested in personal finance and real-estate investing, inspired by stories of blue-collar workers achieving financial freedom through real estate. I learned the most from the BiggerPockets podcasts.

We were motivated to become first-time homebuyers

We were eager to apply what we had learned and planned to use the VA loan entitlement from our military service. VA entitlement is how much lenders can lend to a veteran or active duty member without providing a down payment.

We aimed to buy a multifamily property — ideally a duplex, triplex, or fourplex — so we could live in one unit and rent the others to offset our mortgage. Today, this strategy is known as house hacking.

Being stationed in San Diego gave us a few key advantages

The housing allowance we received as military members was higher than in most US locations, boosting our household income to about $10,000-$12,000 monthly. This allowance was discontinued once we both left the military. Theressa left the Navy almost a year before I did at the end of 2020.

Second, the VA loan allowed us to buy a multifamily property with zero down payment.

Third, we included 75% of the gross rental income from the property in our loan application, increasing our approved loan amount. On paper, our monthly gross increased to $15,000-$17,000.

Finally, new legislation removed local VA loan limits for first-time users, giving us more purchasing power.

After months of searching, we found a triplex listed for $1.2 million

We offered $1 million and settled at $1.1 million. By March 2020, we had moved into a three-bedroom unit while renting out the other two for about $4,000 a month, reducing our housing costs to less than what one-bedroom rentals were going for at the time. This was the start of Semi Homes.

After living in the triplex for two years, we moved in with my mom and brother in September 2021 in the San Gabriel Valley. The triplex is now fully a rental property generating $1,500 to $2,000 monthly profit.

My day-to-day work involves meeting with homeowners who are looking for support in selling their properties

We now buy properties and resell them for a profit. We also help sellers in deep foreclosure and save them from it. My role is to get my team in front of our target audience and guide clients through the entire process, all the way to the closing table.

There are also late-night administrative hours and business-building, which I work on three to four nights a week. The biggest change from my Navy days is that I’m no longer away from my family for long periods — a small freedom I cherish.

I feel both fulfilled and successful

While Semi Homes started as a way to build wealth and achieve financial freedom for my family, it’s grown into something more.

We stay in this tough business because we truly believe in the value we provide to the individuals we work with. I’m focused on building our online presence and spreading the word that foreclosing is not the only option.

I see myself in real estate for the rest of my life.

Want to share your story about getting on the property ladder? Email Lauryn Haas at lhaas@businessinsider.com.