Category: Homelessness

By Chris Jennewein / Times of San Diego / Feb. 7, 2025

Mayor Todd Gloria on Friday, Feb. 7, dropped plans for the controversial, giant homeless shelter at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street near the San Diego International Airport.

“After a year of negotiations and multiple hearings, we have come to the conclusion that the proposed homeless shelter campus at Kettner and Vine can no longer advance,” Gloria said. “As a result, we will present alternative solutions to the City Council on Feb. 10.”

He said three new options are:

In an Op-ed on January 1, Scott Lewis — the CEO and main editor of the online Voice of San Diego — warned his fellow San Diegans that in 2025, we have to deal with all the screaming.Scott, who lives in the OB-Point Loma area — was talking about how we need to face up to the plight and screaming of all the homeless people, now that the city is in, what Scott calls –“the eighth year of the homeless crisis.” We must all heed his warning.

By Scott Lewis / Voice of San Diego / January 1, 2025

A few weeks ago, a man in the alley behind our house began screaming. Screaming is not unusual around us, unfortunately. But usually it comes and goes – less frequent than the airplanes, more frequent than the helicopters.

One man walks around screaming all the time. Long beard, bike. Sometimes he begs on the corner. Sometimes he disappears for weeks. But he’s always back and almost always screaming.

This wasn’t him. We know him. This was deeper, closer and more disturbed. And it wasn’t going away. It scared my daughter. I went back there with the flashlight and found the man. He was ensconced in a combination of blankets and garbage. He was ranting incoherently, unaware of me even as I tried to get his attention.

I finally yelled “Hey!” He turned and looked right at me. “You’re freaking people out.”

By Lisa Mortensen

Good morning Council members:

I am really shocked that you are wasting more time and resources on the failed Kettner and Vine Mega Shelter that you will discuss in ‘closed-door’ session on Monday December 16th.  Why the ‘closed-door’ meeting?  Why are you continuing to ignore the public and allow yourselves to be arm-twisted by the mayor?

Have you not been listening to all the cogent public testimony statements at prior meetings this year from those who have lived experience of homelessness as well as mental health professionals, and individuals who have dedicated their lives representing homeless advocate non-profits?

What part of this public record are you missing?

Neighbors, business owners, homeless advocates, and other opponents of the proposed Kettner and Vine “mega-shelter” will voice their concerns about the project during public comment on the San Diego City Council’s “closed session” agenda at Monday’s 10 am City Council meeting.

The Mayor and City Council will hear new information about lease negotiations related to the proposed shelter in a closed session following these public comments.

By Mahdi E Diab / Op-Ed San Diego U-T / December 11, 2024

As a family physician treating San Diego’s homeless population, I witness firsthand how the city’s increased reliance on street sweeps is undermining our efforts to end homelessness while creating a costly public health crisis.

In recent days, I watched a patient break down in tears after losing the only photograph he had of his son during a sweep. Another patient ended up in the emergency room after police discarded his insulin and heart failure medications — medicines that cannot be replaced due to Medi-Cal’s monthly refill restrictions. While a third relapsed into addiction due to an arrest and the stress caused by losing all of their personal possessions. These are not isolated incidents but daily occurrences that illustrate how street sweeps actively harm our most vulnerable neighbors.

By Carolyn Chase

Sure would be nice to follow the money on the “homelessness” spending. With hundreds of millions of dollars going out the door, and let’s just say 10,000 unhoused – how much of that is direct help and how much is building rent-controlled units and how much is – as one activist put – the homeless industrial complex? I’m sure some has gone for good, but really…there doesn’t seem to be any serious analysis of what is a problem in Every City in the USA.

And you see it in Italy and France and the UK. Not so much in Scandinavia since not only do they generally believe that housing is a right, but they find ways to provide it. Austria also has an effective public housing program. Copenhagen in particular finds ways to provide affordable housing that isn’t bland and prone to low qualities of life, i.e. they are designed with green spaces and worthwhile architecture. It’s not rocket science – it’s design consciousness.

What we have around here in too many cases is cheap design and construction (not designed to last though the costs are definitely hard to manage) to support the bottom lines of the project.

By Scott Rodd / KPBS / December 3, 2024

Earlier this year, Mayor Todd Gloria chose one of his biggest platforms to unveil his administration’s latest initiative to solve homelessness.

“Tonight, I’m announcing a philanthropic campaign to help the city carry out our ambitious plans to end our homelessness crisis,” Gloria said at his State of the City address in January, as the name of the new initiative appeared on a giant screen behind him. “Called San Diegans Together Tackling Homelessness, this campaign already has commitments for a quarter of a million dollars.”

By Dana Williams and Eric Page /7SanDiego / November 18, 2024

A completely renovated apartment building called the Shores at North Beach, just steps from the sand at Ocean Beach, opened in mid-November, featuring 13 newly refurbished units for people experiencing homelessness.

The $6,830,005 project is being funded in part through the California’s Homekey organization, a “statewide effort to sustain and rapidly expand housing for persons experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.”

Each unit has gotten a coat of paint and new electrical, and features an efficiency kitchen and new bathroom fixtures. They also each come with a couch, table, lamp, a few kitchen items, laundry items, bath towels and toiletries, as well as a bed with bedding and two nightstands.

An important 5-year study just completed of the sources of human waste in the San Diego River has found that by far most — 90%– was caused by sewage spills, and not the homeless. As the following outlines,

“… people experiencing homelessness contribute the smallest relative quantities, less than 0.25%, of human fecal bacteria in the San Diego River.

This determination hopefully puts to rest long-standing assertions by local municipalities and water agencies that unhoused encampments in the San Diego River watershed are a potentially significant source of bacterial pollution in the river.”

By Spencer Higgs – San Diego Coastkeeper / November 13, 2024

A five-year study conducted by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (“SCCWRP”) to assess sources and volumes of human fecal bacteria in the San
Diego River reveals a disturbing reality – spills, leaks, and subterranean seepage from public sanitary sewer systems are, by far, the largest contributors to human fecal contamination throughout the entire urbanized portion of the San Diego River watershed.

By Kate Callen

For most San Diegans, yesterday’s Halloween Fairmount Fire will be a one-day news story, quickly forgotten in the run-up to a momentous election.

But the people who lived through hours of terror – residents evacuated from their homes, motorists stuck for hours in stalled traffic – will long remember two things.
The College Area and Talmadge communities were lucky. But luck can run out.

Ask Southcrest residents who are still rebuilding nine months after the catastrophic January floods. Like the Fairmount fire, the Southcrest flooding was not a natural disaster. It was the direct result of City Hall’s inaction in the face of repeated warnings by surrounding communities.

People in Southcrest had urged the City to clear out Chollas Creek and the stormwater system. But storm drain maintenance funds had run low; some had been diverted to buy out the 101 Ash Street lease. So drains kept backing up. Then torrential rains fell. Neighborhoods flooded. And now the City is facing lawsuits for hundreds of millions in damages filed by more than 1,000 plaintiffs.

“It’s Going to Happen Again”

Terry Hoskins, a candidate for the City Council District 9 seat, was delivering campaign signs in Kensington yesterday afternoon when he saw a large plume of fresh smoke.

By Robert Vardon /Point Loma – OB Monthly San Diego Union-Tribune / October 24, 2024

The city of San Diego is soliciting operators to continue its “safe parking” program for homeless people who live in their vehicles and to expand it to a new lot planned for the former H Barracks site across the boat channel from Point Loma’s Liberty Station.

The request for proposals, or RFP, announced Oct. 23 asks prospective operators to respond with bids by Monday, Nov. 25. The bid website lists 22 prospective bidders.

The San Diego safe parking program currently has four locations on city-owned lots with a total capacity of about 220 vehicles. They are designated for people living out of their vehicles to park overnight, with services available to help them move toward permanent housing.

By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune / October 25, 2024

A new television spot suggests Mayor Todd Gloria has homelessness on the run.

Running in place might be a more apt description, and a charitable one at that.

There’s plenty of evidence that San Diego is actually backsliding in its efforts to reduce homelessness, which continues to grow.

But you wouldn’t know that from the advertisement produced by an independent committee supporting Gloria’s re-election on Nov. 5 against challenger Larry Turner, a San Diego police officer.

The piece relies on selective and dubious statistics to make the case for progress under Gloria, along with pointing to some legitimate, if general, policy advancements.