San Diego City Council again declares homeless shelter crisis - long enough and it will be the normal situation SNAFU
Summary
- 1. Scale of the problem:
- - San Diego has at least 6,800 unhoused residents as of 2024.
- - The city saw a 6% increase in unsheltered residents compared to the previous year.
- 2. Recent policies and actions:
- - In 2023, San Diego banned public camping, making it illegal to camp citywide if shelter beds are available, and anytime near schools, parks, transit hubs, and waterways.
- - The city has expanded shelter capacity by 40% in the past year, adding over 930 new places to camp and obtain indoor shelter.
- - However, more than half of these new options are tents at city-sanctioned campsites, which don't qualify as shelter under federal guidelines.
- 3. Current shelter capacity:
- - San Diego has roughly 2,500 shelter beds spread across 20 locations.
- - The city created two campsites with 500 tents, expanded existing shelters, and added new shelters for families and domestic violence survivors.
- 4. Challenges:
- - Over 1,000 indoor shelter beds are set to shut down soon as temporary permits and agreements expire.
- - The city is considering leasing a warehouse to create a 1,000-bed shelter, but this plan has faced criticism and scrutiny.
- 5. Government response:
- - The city has repeatedly declared a "shelter crisis" since 2017, allowing for expedited actions to address homelessness.
- - Mayor Todd Gloria has stated that solving homelessness is the city's top priority.
- - The city is working with county officials on vaccination, sanitation, and education efforts to combat a hepatitis A outbreak among the homeless population.
- 6. Public perception:
- - Many residents feel that despite years of declaring a crisis, the problem hasn't improved.
- - There are calls for a more comprehensive strategy to address homelessness beyond emergency declarations.
A year after San Diego banned public camping, most new shelter options are tents
Why this matters
Estimates show San Diego has at least 6,800 unhoused residents. Mayor Todd Gloria said solving homelessness is the city’s top priority.
UPDATE: After several hours of public comment and debate, the San Diego City Council voted late Monday night to delay a decision to lease and convert a 65,000 square-foot warehouse into a shelter for unhoused residents. Several council members criticized the deal and asked the City Attorney’s Office to conduct a more thorough review. Officials are scheduled to revisit the discussion next week.
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One year after pushing through a controversial public camping ban, San Diego officials are preparing to tout efforts to expand shelter capacity by 40% in the face of a worsening homelessness crisis.
But more than half of the city’s new shelter options don’t actually qualify as shelter under federal guidelines — they’re tents pitched at two city-sanctioned campsites tucked away in Balboa Park.
San Diego City Council members will hear that update on the shelter system at its Monday meeting, when they also are expected to vote on Mayor Todd Gloria’s request to lease and convert a warehouse into a 1,000-bed shelter facility.
Gloria’s office did not respond to questions by deadline.
The shelter report from the Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department shows where the city has made gains.
Officials exceeded a goal they had set last year — to add at least 600 new options for unhoused San Diegans — and added more than 930 places to camp and obtain indoor shelter. The city:
- Created two campsites with 500 tents.
- Expanded two existing indoor shelters, adding a total of 62 beds.
- Added a new indoor family shelter with 168 beds.
- Added a domestic violence shelter with 160 beds for survivors. Women often report domestic violence as the immediate cause of their homelessness, studies show. In San Diego, about one in three unhoused residents are women.
In addition, the city was just given the greenlight to create 200 parking spaces at the H Barracks site for unhoused residents. Those spaces, along with the two campsites that the city opened in the last year, are not considered shelter in the eyes of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Meanwhile, officials are preparing to lose much of the ground they have gained if new shelter solutions don’t become a reality. More than 1,000 indoor shelter beds will shut down soon, including some by the end of the year, as temporary permits and other agreements expire.
That presentation of the gains and losses will set the stage for Gloria’s big request: To lease and convert a warehouse near the San Diego International Airport into a 1,000-bed shelter. The city would pay $72 million in rent alone over the next 30 years.
“The closing of these shelters further illustrates the need to expand the City’s current shelter capacity,” staff wrote in a memo to City Council ahead of its meeting Monday.
Not everyone sees the warehouse plan as the best option, and critics have posed questions about the site’s safety.
San Diego City Council Meeting
When: 2 p.m. Monday, July 22
Where: 202 C St., San Diego
LiveTV: Click here to watch.
Public comment: Click here to join the webinar.
The city’s Independent Budget Analyst also has raised serious questions about the overall cost and the process for identifying shelter. In a report released last week, the IBA said it would be cheaper to just buy the 65,000 square-foot warehouse outright, ultimately saving roughly $16 million on the city’s investment.
The IBA recommended putting out a competitive bid for emergency shelter sites, noting that the property owner approached the city with this idea.
The report says, “… the fact that the City is pursuing permanent shelter for the first time at a site that was not identified through routine real estate searches but rather because the prospective owner approached the City suggests either how challenging it is to find an appropriate site, or that the current approach is not the most productive approach, or both.”
Last year, Gloria sold the City Council on a controversial camping ban using a homeless shelter expansion strategy that mostly hadn’t been funded. The law makes it illegal to camp citywide if shelter beds are available, and anytime, regardless of shelter availability, near schools, parks, transit hubs and waterways.
Since enforcement began, San Diego police have issued 86 citations and made 15 misdemeanor arrests for unauthorized camping citywide, according to a spokesperson.
The city also saw a 6% increase in the number of unsheltered residents compared to last year.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Cody Dulaney is an investigative reporter at inewsource focusing on social impact and government accountability. Few things excite him more than building spreadsheets and knocking on the door of people who refuse to return his calls. When he’s not ruffling the feathers of some public official, Cody...
San Diego homeless: City Council again declares shelter crisis
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The San Diego City Council decided to continue their Shelter Crisis Declaration, giving the governing body the ability to move more quickly to solve the intractable issues around finding housing for those out in the cold.
“I think in the past three years, this council has been one that has really taken action. The unsafe camping ordinances, the safe sleeping sites, the additional shelter, that’s all been good. Now I don’t want to see us slow down,” said Stephan Whitburn, a city councilmember.
There are 6,780 homeless people living in the city, according to the latest count from 2024. Residents say while the idea of urgency is appreciated, the original Shelter Crisis Declaration, started in 2017, and seven years on, the problem hasn’t gone away.
“I feel like they are working on a car while it’s driving down the freeway,” said Lori Saldana, a former assemblymember.
Now the governor has pledged fresh millions to assist in the behavioral health crisis and ordered state agencies to start removing homeless encampments after the supreme court ruling, giving cities far more latitude to handle their homelessness issues. But frustrated residents say they are still waiting for San Diego to come up with a comprehensive plan to curb homelessness.
“The most important thing is not an emergency declaration, it’s a strategy and this city does not have a strategy,” said Paul Krueger a retired journalist and resident.
City councilmembers say they are not backing down from the homelessness crisis and they are seeing progress against San Diego’s most pressing issue.
San Diego has roughly 2,500 shelter beds spread across 20 locations.
“We need to have mental health and behavioral health services for people who need that treatment. Between housing, shelter and services people need, there is no reason we can’t solve homelessness in San Diego,” Whitburn said.
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