The City of San Diego has doubled down on using “H-Barracks” as a site for a homeless shelter of some kind. A recent article in the U-T by Blake Nelson recounts why that appears to be so.
Apart from Mayor Gloria’s director of community engagement, Kohta Zaiser, making public pronouncements about the positive attributes of the idea, work crews are clearing asbestos and lead from H-Barracks’ eight two-story buildings, shaped like giant “H’s.” When finished with the planned demolition, only a concrete slab will remain.
The prime real estate property has been promised to San Diego’s multibillion-dollar Pure Water recycling system, but which doesn’t need it for another five years, leaving the city with around seven empty acres. Nelson writes:
Creating another parking lot where people can spend the night in cars is one option. A safe sleeping site that allows camping remains on the table. The front-runner is an enormous fabric structure that could hold rows of bunk beds in one open space. A similar shelter in the nearby Midway district looks a bit like a circus tent.
The H Barracks lot could probably fit two, meaning there would be space for around 700 people. …
At full capacity, the shelter could be biggest in the city. O Lot, San Diego’s second safe sleeping site near Balboa Park, technically has more room, but its two-person tents are unlikely to all fill simultaneously, especially since at least one operator signed a contract capping the number allowed in.
And advocates and proponents of finding shelters for San Diego’s unhoused population view the site as potentially the city’s largest shelter, potentially providing hundreds of desperately needed beds.
The number “700” — as in 700 unhoused individuals at the site — has been bantered about by advocates — and opponents alike. A small “revolt” has been generated among Point Loma residents in opposition to the whole idea; they fear that so many homeless near them, near Liberty Station’s schools and shops, will have tremendous detrimental effects. They’ve organized a substantial opposition campaign with online petitions, slick signs and posters and have gained an ally with the Peninsula Community Planning Board – who has come out publicly in support of them and against the site.
It’s the size of the site that has really freaked residents out.
Nelson, the reporter admits that it is “difficult to predict how boosting homeless services will affect a neighborhood.” He wrote:
Facilities in La Mesa and Escondido actually saw police calls drop after they began housing homeless people, although they primarily care for young adults or those recovering from hospital stays.
Nelson also made these points:
- H Barracks would be low-barrier, meaning participants don’t have to be clean and sober.
- City officials said the site would be stocked with everything needed to keep everybody safe:
- bathrooms,
- showers,
- provided meals,
- case managers,
- vehicles offering regular rides and
- 24/7 security.
- open beds will make it easier for police to clear nearby encampments, proponents claim;
- No-camping signs are going up this month around Liberty Station’s parks, according to Zaiser, the mayor’s guy.
- Signs are a prerequisite to enforcing San Diego’s camping ban.
- Enforcement should ramp up long before July 1, which is the earliest officials said a shelter would open.
***
Here’s what the City currently says on its website about H Barracks.
The site is riddled with asbestos and the City has never come clean on the cost to remediate. The ever familiar Todd Gloria & Mara Elliot MO for yet another project to dump City General Fund cash into another Gloria-hole.
And they want to erect a circus tent?
Just a hunch but it smells like they want to move the Midway district tent due to Midway rising.
I don’t love the scale of the project, but we desperately do need more shelter capacity. The location isn’t ideal, being away from health/mental health/employment programs. If it’s low barrier, that will bring some issues to the neighborhood that could be avoided. But I don’t love the NIMBY reaction of the community. Having more shelter capacity will make a dent in encampments due to the current law.
New Year’s wish – a new mayor less beholden to donors.
Opposing housing, opposing shelters, under any and every guise, super fascinating consistency!
Bravo Todd Gloria! You’re creating your own NIMBY area (Not In Mayor’s Backyard). Creating a concentration camp by clearing the homeless out of downtown (aka Your Neighborhood) and dumping them in a residential community without adequate resources and an overall plan (not that that’s anything new) to meet their needs. Just drop 700 people near a residential community and let the residents figure out how to provide the services for the homeless. The fact that no one from the Mayor’s office attended the community meeting in Point Loma to answer questions is a clear indication the Mayor will dump the homeless in the new concentration camp and walk away. If the community needs any assistance from the city for the homeless to access services and assimilate into the community they can count on the Mayor’s office not being available.
This concentration camp will look good for Gloria’s campaign. He can state he cleared the homeless off the streets. When in fact all it accomplishes is moving and concentrating the homeless into one space.
Once again; what’s the overall plan? Concentrating homeless gets them off the street but what is the measurement of success? How many will be directed to medical/mental health care/employment and permanent housing? How will an over extended police department provde enforcement?
Since no one from the Mayor’s office showed up for the community meeting in Point Loma and dismissed it as a NIMBY event I guess we’ll never know.
Have you ever visited Miramar?
That’s where the federal government “dumped” Japanese American citizens during World War II, afraid there might be spies among them.
Way out in the desert …middle of nowhere.
I’m not sure what to think of this proposal except that the promised supports part may never show up.
Tessa, I assume you meant Manzanar.
I think every American should visit the American concentration camp as a reminder of our past sins.
Thank you.
Yes, I meant Manzanar.
When I came upon it, and toured it, I was moved to tears.
There was a hush in the place as people toured its well done exhibits.