By George Mullen and Bill Walton / Times of San Diego / January 10, 2024
San Diego is currently living a homeless humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. The time is now to consider deploying what we call the Sunbreak Ranch Emergency Parachute.
The tragic numbers are staggering. According to our own local government’s Regional Task Force On Homelessness, in the San Diego region there were over 4,751 new unsheltered homeless people in 2023.
This equates to a 50% year-over-year increase in the total number of unsheltered homeless people. There were 14,258 first-time homeless people in 2023. The number of homeless veterans increased 17% in 2023. Nationwide it rose only 7%.
Our overall number of homeless people increased 22% in the past year to over 10,264. But we all know the real figure (unreported) is multiple times higher than this number.
There have been almost 600 homeless deaths on the streets of San Diego in each of the past two years. This is a more than 250% increase in deaths from just a few years ago.
A civilized society cannot carry on this way.
The vast majority of San Diegans are people of goodwill who genuinely want to help end the homelessness ravaging our streets, canyons, and public parks. We want to help our homeless brothers and sisters, and assist them on their path to better lives.
Though our approaches to help the homeless may vary, there is one harsh and startling truth facing us.
Our local government spent $2.37 billion of our taxpayer money on solving homelessness from 2015 – 2022 and these efforts have failed miserably. Our homeless problems are worse than ever — dramatically so.
This is why Sunbreak Ranch has generated so much interest and excitement. It is a new and refreshing approach that offers real hope, not more of the inefficient, ineffective, futile same.
Sunbreak is an aggregate facility to house people, identify their needs, and move them with care and proper treatment to more permanent housing or treatment centers. It is an emergency regional “triage center” where everyone in need will have a clean, healthy, safe, and secure place and bed. Even one for your son or daughter, should they ever be in such dire need. It is a voluntary facility where all residents can come and go as they please.
Aggregate facilities do work. The United Nations has run refugee centers around the world that are humane and offer extensive care and assistance. FEMA has repeatedly done the same in emergency situations across America.
Bob McElroy, respected CEO of Alpha Project, coincidentally had a similar idea to Sunbreak 25 years ago. Even then he was also eyeing the vast unused open lands of Miramar. The politics of the day sadly wouldn’t allow his idea to happen. If it had, perhaps we wouldn’t be facing our current humanitarian emergency.
We have a chance in 2024 to make this right.
Sunbreak Ranch is a true citizen’s movement stepping in to address a massive community crisis that our elected officials are either unable or unwilling to solve.
Sunbreak is a non-partisan, non-political, all-volunteer effort. And we are diligently searching for a suitable site for Sunbreak.
Our main focus continues to be on the vast open lands in Miramar and Otay Mesa, and we are working every possible angle trying to help San Diego get on the right course to a sustainable, safe, secure, clean and healthy future.
This is easier said than done.
With respect to Miramar, there are at least four potential sites within this enormous area. We are working our way through the U.S. Marine Corps Command at Camp Pendleton, and ultimately the Pentagon.
In Otay Mesa, there is an ideal large open site at the north end of La Media Road — but we are told it is off-limits due to owl mitigation. Likewise, there is another prime site adjacent to Brown Field — but we are told FAA regulations prevent its use.
Our bigger catch-22 problem is that we can’t lock down a sizable site for Sunbreak without full community buy-in. And without a site, we can’t raise money to go operational.
Our community and citizenry are enthusiastically supporting Sunbreak, as are most civic leaders.
Please see our Sunbreak Ranch Endorsement Team.
Our difficulty remains with our elected officials. Most continue to duck us and / or want to continue pursuing expensive temporary band-aid solutions that have repeatedly failed.
To be taken seriously though, we need our political leadership on board, as part of our Sunbreak team working to solve the problem.
We, again, invite Mayor Todd Gloria, the San Diego City Council, the County Board of Supervisors, and all regional city mayors and councils to join us.
Only as a unified community force will we have the necessary muscle to be taken seriously when negotiating for a Sunbreak site on federal or state land with the powers that are at Camp Pendleton, the Pentagon, Sacramento, Capitol Hill, and the White House.
Together we can move mountains. Divided, our disastrous descent into quicksand will accelerate.
As we strive to achieve community consensus and find a permanent site, we remain neck-deep in a catastrophic humanitarian emergency.
Which is why we must consider deploying the Sunbreak Ranch Emergency Parachute in the interim.
The best location for this is on Brown Field in Otay Mesa. Having scouted Otay at least 50 times over the years for Sunbreak site locations, we have personally witnessed the minimal air traffic relative to other airfields. And most of this air traffic is centered around prop-plane flight schools doing touch and go’s, skydiving, and an occasional private plane.
If there is a location that is temporarily expendable (with temporarily relocatable stakeholders) during a city emergency, this is it.
We do not want to inconvenience anyone, but in a humanitarian emergency like this one, we need to act — now.
Brown Field is a near perfect Sunbreak location — city-owned land; 15 minutes from downtown; plenty of flat open space; water, sewer, and electricity already onsite; an adjacent operating fire station; the new Salvation Army Adult Detox-Rehabilitation Center down the street; an MTS bus stop nearby; easy access to highways 905, 125, 805; and so on.
Here is our Sunbreak Ranch Emergency Parachute Roadmap. Please note that it can only be set-in-motion by our elected local government officials:
1. Declare a San Diego City and County Homeless State of Emergency based on the overwhelming scope of our homeless crises.
2. “Temporarily” shut down Brown Field flight operations based on the City Emergency Decree. This action will freeze FAA regulations and jurisdiction over this city-owned land. All plane owners will be given 72 hours to relocate to Gillespie, Montgomery, Palomar, or elsewhere.
3. Establish Sunbreak Ranch on Brown Field as the temporary “homeless triage center” for the City and County of San Diego using the Sunbreak Ranch Architectural Rendering as a model.
4. Pitch management of the U.S. Marines / Seabees / FEMA to immediately come in and build-out a modular forward military base (like in Iraq or Afghanistan) on Brown Field to house up to 5,000 persons with mess halls, latrines, showers, and any other necessary infrastructure. We have been told this would be a useful training exercise for the Marines / SeaBees since they haven’t executed such a mission in some time. The equipment is in local warehouses and they can accomplish this task within weeks.
5. Launch an emergency fundraising campaign seeking both public funds and major local and national philanthropists to provide emergency funding for the Sunbreak Ranch pilot program. The philanthropic upside here may be bigger than any other. Sunbreak will be a true “pilot program” to solve our nation’s greatest humanitarian challenge. Once proven in San Diego, Sunbreak will be a model that can be replicated everywhere. And cities across America are desperately seeking a viable answer to this problem.
6. Call a meeting of all city and county Homeless Service Providers and make it clear that we expect each of them to immediately establish a 24/7 operational outlet at Sunbreak in a soft-sided facility provided to them at no cost. Otherwise, they will be dropped from the list receiving city / county help going forward. This is a homeless humanitarian emergency, meaning all hands on deck.
7. Call a meeting of the Hospital Association of San Diego & Imperial Counties, as well as all city hospital CEOs, and ask them to staff and equip an emergency soft-sided medical facility on Sunbreak Ranch. With approximately 1,000 of 7,000 regional hospital beds occupied by homeless persons on any given day, they are likely to welcome this opportunity to dramatically lower the homeless headcount in their hospitals.
8. Set up a 24/7 San Diego Police and / or San Diego Sheriff outpost on Sunbreak. Peace, safety, and the rule of law for all residents is a constant tenet of Sunbreak Ranch. We will keep drug dealers, gangs, and sex traffickers out.
9. Set up 24/7 private security to further maintain peace and safety.
10. Redirect all available city and county employees to Sunbreak to help staff roles in the welcome facility, administration, maintenance, janitorial services, et al. Likewise, call for community volunteers.
11. Build a genuine “supportive community” at Sunbreak for all residents, with a Real Time Shelter Dashboard and a Real Time Employment Dashboard as centerpieces.
12. Establish (as needed) additional shuttle bus service to downtown San Diego and Mission Valley.
13. Instruct the police and sheriff to begin phasing-out homelessness on the streets, canyons, and public parks, and relocate those who are unsheltered to Sunbreak Ranch. For those persons not willing to go to Sunbreak, bus tickets to their home city will be provided. Whether their home is LA, Denver, NYC, or otherwise, we will help them get to where they have a family / friend support network.
14. Instruct the police and sheriff to arrest drug dealers, gang members, sex traffickers, and anyone else preying upon the homeless in the Sunbreak Ranch area, with stiff and real penalties in effect. Our most vulnerable citizens must be protected from predators.
The time is now to deploy the Sunbreak Emergency Parachute and start saving lives. If we don’t act, our ever-present proponents of the status quo will naysay us into eternity with why we can’t use any land we suggest. Endless excuses to not take action are unacceptable.
Politically speaking, Sunbreak Ranch on Brown Field is likely to receive significantly less opposition than H-Barracks is currently facing for the (much smaller) proposed 700-person homeless tent-shelter in Point Loma. H-Barracks is located adjacent to San Diego International Airport, one of the busiest single-runway commercial airports in the world, multiple operating hotels, as well as being close to Liberty Station, numerous schools, and vast residential neighborhoods.
The H-Barracks proposal is blatantly seeking a path of extreme resistance and opposition. Brown Field, on the other hand, doesn’t have any of these same disqualifying attributes nearby.
Once we have a temporary Sunbreak site operational on Brown Field, it will serve as the inspiration to lock down a permanent site. The people who justifiably want Brown Field flight operations to resume will keep the pressure on.
If there is a better location to deploy the Sunbreak Emergency Parachute, please join the conversation. We are not interested in inconveniencing anyone at Brown Field or anywhere else. But we are facing an existential regional emergency.
When another suitable site is locked down, we will promptly relocate Sunbreak to that location.
Extreme conditions call for extreme measures. The lives and deaths of our brothers and sisters are more than enough justification.
Great leaders rise to tackle emergencies.
We have a dream that our streets can be clean again, our homeless will not be allowed to needlessly die anymore, and there can be one place where our homeless brothers and sisters can be safe, properly fed, and assisted with a plan and path to better lives.
This new year presents us with the opportunity for a fresh start. Let’s make 2024 the year we tackle our homeless emergency and begin saving thousands of lives.
We are ready.
How about you?
George Mullen is an artist and principal of StudioRevolution. Bill Walton is a former NBA basketball player and Hall of Famer.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
We can use Miramar! The commanding officer says no.
We can use Brown Field! The FAA says no.
The Marines, who we pissed off by saying we can go above their commanding officer, will build it all for us in weeks! Sure thing buddy.
Say no H Barracks even though it actually can be built! Sounds like George Mullens is the naysayer.
Greg,
What’s better? Put it in an urban area full of tourists and homeowners, schools and parks or try and work to move it somewhere safe for everyone? Who is the naysayer? Sounds likes you are a “take the easy way out” in life guy. You apparently like to take no for an answer. So with that NO on H barracks.
What’s better? Something real that is happening or some fake pipe dream they have done no due diligence on? George Mullens is a joke and a scam artist. Go to his studio revolution website and read his ridiculous claims and see his horrible “art”.
Wow. I am trying so hard to muddle through all this. I liked the idea of the H barrack refit, precisely b/c it is within the City and would (potentially) provide the re-sheltered w/access to reintegration to community (assuming programs to do so are created). As a biologist, I have been to many of the Otay Mesa areas, and frankly they are pretty remote, regardless of “15 minutes” to the city…
I guess what I’m not seeing/reading here are viable programs that actually transition these populations back into jobs, shelters, and livelihoods, and the embrace of community. I see care, I see shelter, I see provision, but I don’t see getting these folks back into the real fabric of successful inclusion. This is the huge void. As I’ve commented before, I’ve observed “transitional housing” in outer/east areas of SD, that have just been wastelands of poor social services, where nobody cares what actually happens to these people, as long as they get a bus pass and a weighed-out food allotment. This problem, which I care deeply about, is terribly complex. I don’t know if this is a good interim solution, but I do know that isolating our fellow men and women who struggle with finding a footing in a society and culture that sees them as failures, threats, or losers, doesn’t seem to be the right “placement”. This is NOT a veto on this plan, per se, its simply a view on a pretty empty (except for the biological habs) space, removed from the very communities they need to reconnect with.
Why can’t we have both? Each can serve the needy in their own way. Annoyed with people like J Boy with his concerns about homeowners and tourists but also annoyed by people who completely frown on this Sunbreak Ranch idea because again they again each work in their respective approaches.
yep, valid point, Chris. As said I’m, first, about ANY increment of help for this subset of our needy. I’m just so disappointed (and even globally) by tent cities, refugee encampments, and other measures that provide, but give no vision, or purpose, for people who are so displaced- politically, economically, psychologically- by the social structures of what is ‘success”. Somehow, we need to change the POV.
I agree about changing the POV. Even here in Hillcrest we’ve had a few incidents of houseless being physically attacked by fed up residents. One houseless man was beaten unconscious and left bleeding in our alley by a fed up neighbor who is very active in the LGBTQ community. There will be no charges. A previous time before that, a houseless individual had the wind knocked out of him by a drunk bar patron on 5th btwn Robinson and University.
As crazy as this is to say, I actually understand the frustration and growing lack of compassion by residents. It’s still wrong though and people need help and the city needs to do better.
Regardless of whether or not I frown on the idea of concentrating the homeless in a camp somewhere my main issue with Sunbreak Ranch is the fact that they are not working on it. They have no plans. They just throw out random ideas without doing any due diligence regarding their prospective partners like the Military or the FAA and then actively try to kill support for real projects like Barracks H. They are charlatans.
Bill Walton for Mayor. Sunbreak Ranch….let the voters decide!
You all do realize WHY the homeless population is growing, yes? Here’s a clue; it was -23’F last Saturday morning up here. It never cracked 0’F the next three days. It’s currently 8’F outside at midnight after half a foot of snow by noon today when it stopped (it always warms up when it snows).
If I went homeless again, like I was in the 1970s, I’d definitely be heading south to warmer climes as fast as my thumb would take me. You can’t live in a tent on concrete in these kind of temperatures even with the ‘warming centers’ that are set up by city governments.
Bluntly, it will only get worse as more and more ‘formerly’ middle class workers get dumped out the doors of corporate businesses while the billionaires and their hedge funds and investment houses keep buying up every building they can to ‘maximize’ profits. To the detriment of everybody else but that doesn’t matter to them does it?
Sunrise Ranch has a very similar sounds to where my stepmom was forced to live by cops with guns in 1942. You know, the ‘Relocation Center Camps’ set up for another set of ‘undesirables?’ Seems to be a common way of getting rid of…well, it’s all about language isn’t it?
Here, read this and see what is about to be created at Sunrise Ranch:
https://popularresistance.org/the-language-we-use-to-describe-wwii-japanese-american-incarceration-matters/
Bill Walton for…warden would be more appropriate. Gonna be a pretty big prison compound eventually I would guess.
sealintheSelkirks
Wait, what?! A few articles ago everybody was ready to make Bill mayor. Kind of the Iowa effect.
Not everybody, dude. I’m more inclined to listen to people who have actually studied a subject, immersed themselves in the reality of it, and come out the other side with a more thorough understanding of it than some idiot ‘influencer’ on the internet who is pretty much a bonehead on just about everything.
To bad that doesn’t work in politics, eh? Like when politicians are on ‘science oversight committees’ and such that not only have zero knowledge of any form or discipline of science but hated the subject in high school. And they refuse to read anything that will help alleviate that lack of understanding if it’s against their ‘beliefs’ or will cut into their corporate owners’ profit margins thereby cutting their own campaign funding. There’s a real problem here, ya know?
sealintheSelkirks