Deficits and a coming demolition threaten to shutter the Rosecrans facility that offers mental health services.
By Blake Nelson / San Diego Union-Tribune / May 26, 2025
The city of San Diego has nowhere near enough shelter for everybody asking. Yet an ongoing dispute between city and county officials has reduced the number of available beds even more.
The Rosecrans homeless shelter, a large tent in the Midway district that helps residents with mental health issues, has stopped accepting new people, leaving 14 spots open as of Wednesday, according to Alpha Project CEO Bob McElroy. The San Diego Housing Commission has also halted intakes at 8 other programs in anticipation of Rosecrans’ possible closure at the end of June, and two staffers at the tent recently quit to take other jobs.
“I’ve never had this happen in 40 years,” McElroy said in an interview. While other facilities have certainly shut down, the process had never been this sudden or uncertain, he added. “The tragic thing about this whole thing is: It’s the first true partnership between the city and county.”
The Rosecrans tent opened in 2022 next to the San Diego County Psychiatric Hospital. The city of San Diego hired Alpha Project to oversee the site’s 150 beds while the county, which owns the property, paid for substance-use counselors, mental health clinicians and a nurse practitioner.
The relationship between the two publicly fell apart last month.
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About two weeks ago, I wondered why I saw so many new homeless camps on 805, 94, 5, 15, then I saw where the Mayor thinks there are fewer homeless in SD. HA! Surprise… the city moved them out of the downtown area again, to make it LOOK like they had found homes, or disappeared, but there’s a lot more presence outside of downtown now. If the City owns large parcels of land, why are they not building a community of manufactured homes for the homeless to live in? A year ago, at Ideal Mfg. homes in El Cajon, had a 3 bdrm., 2 bath manufactured home, including central heating, stove, frig, window coverings, flooring, and dishwasher for a little over $125K. So a two bedroom, 1 bath, no dishwasher, would be less and two people could be assigned to one house. Also, why aren’t all the corporations getting grants for homeless folks, sending them back to their families, or wherever they want to go? There’s a way to fix homelessness, and George Mullen’s Sunrise Ranch can do it. The only person in SD I’ve seen do a good job with homelessness, is Father Joe’s Village, and McElroy’s Veterans Village. The Mayor needs to stop wasting money on his foolish pipe dreams, donate some excess land the City owns, and give those that know how to get it done a chance to accomplish what he has failed at several times.