Category: Homelessness

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.

The Voice of San Diego opened today with a salvo against Mayor Todd Gloria’s percentages of increasing homeless shelter capacities. It is alarming. Here it is:

Mayor Todd Gloria wants you to know an important fact: He has increased shelter capacity by 70 percent.

Only, he hasn’t.

Across the airwaves and in his ballot statement, voters are blasted with the 70 percent figure. It’s a key reason, Gloria wants San Diegans to vote for him.

The Voice’s reporter, Will Huntsberry, found that Gloria has increased shelter capacity by only roughly 32 percent. The online newspaper says, “That’s not too shabby. Nor is it anywhere near 70 percent.”

by Marti Emerald / Times of San Diego / October 22, 2024

I know adults like to wear costumes in October. And there’s nothing wrong with indulging one’s fantasies. But I still cringe whenever I see Kevin Faulconer pretending he’s an expert on solving homelessness.

Talk about chutzpah!

I watched Faulconer’s ineptitude in dealing with homelessness for eight years while I was on the City Council. At the time, no one regarded him as successful — at anything. He sure didn’t fix the homeless problem. On his watch, it kept getting worse.

Fact: While Faulconer was mayor, the number of unsheltered homeless people in San Diego increased 124%. (From 1,016 in 2007, after his first year as mayor, to 2,283 in 2020, his last.)

By Christian Martinez / San Diego Union-Tribune / October 17, 2024

A settlement agreement finalized this month, borne out of a class-action lawsuit against the city of San Diego for ordinances that targeted unhoused people living in their vehicles, will see thousands of dollars in citations be forgiven, changes to enforcement of the ordinances and improvements to the city’s safe parking program.

The 2017 lawsuit alleged that two policies, the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance, which prevented RV or large vehicle parking on city streets between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., and the Vehicle Habitation Ordinance, which prohibited people from living in their vehicles, violated the constitutional rights of otherwise law-abiding people with no other means of shelter.

As more and more cities within San Diego County pass “No Camping” bans, the numbers of our fellow citizens who live along the San Diego River have increased until now it’s over 400.

According to figures just released by the San Diego River Park Foundation, there’s an estimated 423 people living along the San Diego Riverbed, marking an increase over the last count in the spring. That figure comes from the Foundation’s homelessness census, conducted by volunteers over four days in late September.

An Op-Ed

by Charles Michaud

As the homelessness crisis intensifies in the United States, coastal cities bear the brunt, especially those offering services like methadone clinics, transitional housing, and detox facilities. Despite increased spending by state and local governments, both the number of unhoused people and overdose deaths continue to rise. Overdoses are now the leading cause of death for people aged 18-40 in the U.S., a fact that, as a young adult, I’ve observed anecdotally, but hearing it confirmed by the DEA is deeply distressing.

What I find even more difficult to comprehend is how, despite these rising statistics, funding for homeless services has skyrocketed without clear accountability. This raises concerns about how the money is allocated, whether there are metrics for success, and who profits. Since much of this funding comes from taxpayers, it’s alarming that city leaders continue to support organizations failing to deliver real solutions.

By Joe Mathews / JMathews@SCNG.com SD U-T / September 26, 2024

Lock up your tents, California! Toss out your old camping gear! Hide your pillows and blankets where the cops will never find them!

Because the people who run California have finally seen clearly that the greatest scourge in today’s Golden State is not climate change and not crime, not COVID and not corruption, not the rising cost of living nor grinding poverty.

No, what most threatens our way of life is people who camp.

The newly-renovated apartments on Abbott Street in Ocean Beach are about to open. And 13 formerly homeless people will be moving in very soon.

Dubbed “The Shores at North Beach” the low-income housing project is a $6 million dollar remodel paid for with local, state and federal tax money, including California’s Project Homekey. (See Fox5 San Diego report by Dan Plante.)

By Blake Nelson / The San Diego Union-Tribune / September 9, 2024

A real estate developer is suing to block San Diego from creating a shelter by the airport, arguing that a decades-old agreement between the city and federal government prohibits homeless services at the H Barracks site.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in San Diego Superior Court by McMillin-NTC, a limited liability company and an offshoot of Corky McMillin Cos. which remade the local Naval Training Center into the business and cultural hub known as Liberty Station. McMillin believes plans to use the empty lot as a place for hundreds of homeless people to sleep imperils a new hotel.