Category: Homelessness

Hundreds of people were forced to flee a homeless shelter near downtown San Diego as floodwaters rushed through the front door just recently, leaving many with few belongings.

Officials evacuated Alpha Project’s Bridge Shelter, a massive gray tent near 16th Street and Newton Avenue on the edge of Barrio Logan, early New Year’s Day. About 325 men and women are now sleeping in the Municipal Gym in Balboa Park.

More than 2 inches of rain fell on San Diego County on New Year’s, breaking local records and causing multiple water rescues. The shelter was one of the first casualties.

Now Alpha Project is calling on San Diegans to donate items — and they’re asking people to deliver them to the Recital Hall in Balboa Park.

by Calista Stocker / Times of San Diego / Dec. 16, 2025

In 2017, the Metropolitan Transit System spent $1.4 million upgrading bus stop benches throughout the county. In addition to improved water drainage and material updates, the new benches came with dividers, which their contractor refers to as “vagrant bars.”

That was a year after the city of San Diego raced to install jagged rocks downtown under Interstate 5 in time for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Petco Park, and five years before the Downtown Partnership built a controversial bike rack/bench designed to deter lying down.

These are all examples of what urban designers call “hostile architecture.” Commonly referred to as “anti-homeless architecture” or “defensive design,” the concept is used to describe public infrastructure design intended to subtly (or not so subtly) change behavior.

San Diego-based urban designer Howard Blackson argues that hostile architecture reflects the hostility of human nature.

A group of up to 60 people gathered yesterday at The Wall, at the foot of Newport Avenue, to remember Tracy Condon. Candles were lit, words were spoken as her loved ones, friends, and strangers came together to commemorate the life of a homeless woman killed in a hit and run on Santa Monica Avenue last week.

One of her daughters was there as well as an ex and the pastor of a local church. TV station 7SanDiego was there and gave a touching news video.

A memorial is being planned by friends for Tracy Condon, killed in a hit-and-run incident this week in Ocean Beach.

She was reportedly sitting on the curb near the front of the OB Library or Post Office when she was struck by a truck and fatally injured. The driver initially ran away but upon his return 3 hours later, was arrested by police. Tracy was known for year as someone who handed out food to homeless folks in OB — only to then become one herself.

A memorial has been scheduled for Tracy, next week, on Wednesday, Nov. 12, down at the Wall at the end of Newport Avenue, at 4:55 p.m.

Here’s the definitive story — from the SD Union-Tribune:

A 24-year-old driver was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of fatally striking a woman sitting on a sidewalk in Ocean Beach and then running away, San Diego police said.

The collision occurred shortly before 4:45 p.m. on Santa Monica Avenue near Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. Police said the driver, who was parked facing the north curb of Santa Monica, for unknown reasons accelerated forward while attempting to leave and struck a 59-year-old woman sitting on the north sidewalk.

The man got out of the truck and ran off, abandoning his vehicle, police said. He was arrested on suspicion of felony hit and run by officers about three hours later when he returned to the scene where he had left his 2002 Toyota Tundra, police spokesperson Officer Colin Steinbroner said.

The woman was transported to a hospital, where she died. Her name has not been released.

That’s the U-T report as of about 5pm Wed. Nov. 5.

In the meantime, the community has identified the woman as Tracy Condon. There’s a Moment of Remembrance for her on Wed, Nov 12 at 4:55 pm at Veterans Plaza (sunset), Ocean Beach Veteran’s Plaza.

By Blake Nelson / The San Diego Union-Tribune / October 21, 2025 

Hundreds of affordable housing units opened this month throughout the city of San Diego, a crucial addition in a region where the number of people losing a place to stay continues to outpace how many homeless residents are able to leave the streets.

The 560 apartments are spread across multiple buildings in downtown San Diego, the Clairemont Mesa neighborhood and the Midway District. Some are set aside for homeless people, veterans or young adults.

“When we support affordable housing in our communities, we are creating a safe and stable living environment for all residents,” Kimberly Giardina, a leader at the county’s Health and Human Services Agency, said in a statement.

Midway District

Pacific Village in the Midway District is for veterans, young adults and those who’ve experienced homelessness. The building is a converted hotel and holds 62 studio apartments. Fifteen are for homeless veterans.

Multiple levels of government similarly chipped in to support the renovations, and millions of dollars from the county will cover behavioral health services, which can treat both mental illnesses and substance use disorders.

[Editordude: this new Pacific Village used to be the Ramada Inn, pictured above. See more on Pacific Village here.]

KPBS – City News Service / August 26, 2025

The city of San Diego recently completed a pilot program in which people transitioning out of homelessness were hired to pick contaminants out of organic waste collected in the city’s green bins, it was announced Monday.

The two-week program, which concluded last week, was intended to improve the quality of compost generated by Miramar Greenery. The “Follow The Compost Pile” project employed homeless people, working through the East County Transitional Living Center, who were tasked with removing any non- organic material brought to Miramar, including plastic bags, scrap metal, glass bottles and more.

“If we are able to implement this process moving forward, we can lower the number of contaminants at the end, improve operational efficiencies, and in turn produce better compost to put out to the community,” said Jennifer Winfrey, assistant deputy director in the Environmental Services Department, which led the pilot program.

By Blake Nelson / The San Diego Union-Tribune / August 26, 2025 

Several residents of San Diego’s designated camping areas for homeless people are suing to overhaul the program, alleging that both lots are dirty, lack quality food and remain unequipped to aid those with disabilities.

The safe sleeping sites hold hundreds of two-person tents near Balboa Park. Each location is “rodent infested” and a “fire hazard,” according to the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court. They are also host to “excessive and dangerous heat” during part of the year as well as “cold and flooding in the winter,” weather that often leaves belongings “saturated with mold.”

All in all, “living conditions in the Camps” are “untenable, seriously threatening and aggravating mental and physical health,” the filing says.

The lawsuit asks a court to force reforms on the effort.

By Steven Mihailovich / Point Loma-OB Monthly SDU-T / August 20, 2025 

The Ocean Beach Community Foundation is trying to take on the homelessness problem with the formation of an Unsheltered Subcommittee, and it’s seeking support from the community.

In announcing the new committee at OBCF’s public meeting Aug. 14, board member Phil Cenedella categorized homelessness as three types of conditions — mental illness, circumstantial and criminal — and said the committee’s goal is to assist with all three, including incarceration for the latter.

“The elephant in the room in OB has been the unsheltered, security and mental illness issues,” Cenedella said. “That’s why we’re taking it seriously as a board and try to address it. … We know what’s going on. Now we need to find solutions. … We don’t want kids and their moms scared walking to school. That’s unacceptable.”

Tamara Kohler, chief executive of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, was on hand to offer the support of her nonprofit organization.

by Dave Schwab / Times of San Diego / July 23, 2025

He’s been called a godsend for distributing food from San Diego Food Bank weekly to the homeless, poor and needy in Ocean Beach and Midway District.

He is Glyn Franks and, for more than a quarter-century, he has operated Second Chances-Bread of Life, Inc.

“We are a tiny little faith-based nonprofit,” said Franks. “We distribute food at The Orchard Senior Living Apartments on Channel Way in Midway District on Fridays at noon, and to the homeless in OB on Saturday mornings.

“I am not ordained and am only an unpaid volunteer coordinator and servant,” noted Franks, a transplant from Yuma, Ariz. A devout Christian, he draws inspiration for serving the poor from biblical passages suggesting people, through faith, are offered forgiveness and new beginnings.

Franks has made it his mission to practice what he preaches. He accomplishes that by regularly distributing free food to those who need it. He stressed that his self-chosen mission is not about him. Rather, he emphasized the impact and importance of the volunteers who help him.

by Marisa Kendall, Aaron Schrank and Lisa Halverstadt / Cal-Matters / June 27, 2025

It’s been 12 months since a groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court decision rewrote the playbook on homelessness, allowing cities in California and beyond to make homeless encampments illegal, even when no shelter is available.

Before the justices ruled in Grants Pass v. Johnson, Los Angeles and other cities generally had to offer someone a shelter bed before punishing them for sleeping on the street. But that went out the window when the justices upheld an ordinance by the Oregon city of Grants Pass that banned camping on all public property.

Since the ruling, camping-related citations and arrests have soared in cities throughout California — everywhere from Sacramento to Los Angeles to San Diego and beyond.

In each of those three cities, police are citing many of the same people again and again. And while some have managed to move indoors, many others are still camping in the same places, racking up citations that ultimately make it more difficult to find housing.

We tracked down a few of those people. Here are their stories:  [For other California homeless stories, go here]

San Diego: Moving into a swamp 

Micah Huff for a time lost touch with a San Diego case manager who was trying to help him move to a city-backed homeless campsite as he sought to avoid police and encampment clean-ups.

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.