Category: Homelessness

Vic, a 61-year-old unsheltered man, helped others staying at Mayor Gloria’s homeless encampment to move out of the Golden Hill safe campsite before Hilary hit. Vic took the photos.

A Point Loma bakery has announced that they are in “lock down until further notice” due to disruptions by unhoused people at their business.

Phatties Bake Shop in the 4100 block of Voltaire Street will still be open during business hours, but customers need to ring a bell for admittance. The bake shop continues to be open to the public daily from 7 p.m. to 2 p.m.

The owners say that they’ve been dealing with unhoused people stealing products, destroying property, coming in and screaming, and even one entering the bakery armed with a crowbar.

By Dorian Hargrove and Brian White / CBS8 / August 10, 2023

Michael Garvey rakes the dirt path at the Point Loma Native Garden in Ocean Beach. He cleans the area, removes leaves and weeds, wipes the wooden benches, and supplies treats to the dogs who go for walks in the garden. But soon, Garvey will not work at the small garden any longer.

Garvey is not a city employee who has been transferred to another job, he is a homeless senior who has been unhoused for nearly 40 years and has lived in the park for most of the past two years.

By Geoff Page

On Monday, August 7, The Rag requested a tour of the city’s “hot lot” camping site at the City Operations facility as a follow up on The Rag’s two previous stories about the site. Some of the media had previously requested a site visit but had been rebuffed on privacy grounds. The Rag decided to try anyway.

Three hours after the email requesting the tour, the city responded informing The Rag about a media event scheduled for the next day, Tuesday, August 8. A link was provided that brought up an invitation for the media to tour the site. It was dated the same day as The Rag’s email, Monday, August 7.

The OB Rag is refuting Mayor Gloria’s count of the number of tents at San Diego’s official homeless encampment, otherwise known as the city’s “first safe sleeping site” or “hot lot.”

Last Wednesday, August 2, the Rag posted reporter Geoff Page’s account of his “revisit” on Tuesday, Aug. 1 to the city operations yard at B and 20th. He wasn’t allowed inside — as no media have — so had to rely on views of the encampment from the hill just to its east. Page reported that there were 55+ tents altogether.

Then Mayor Gloria announced on Thursday that as of Wednesday night, August 2, 111 people slept at the site and were staying “in 93 tents,”

By Geoff Page

It has been three weeks since The Rag’s story on the city’s homeless encampment at the city’s Central Operations Station. The hot lot. A return visit was in order to see if the facility was doing any better after all of the criticism in the media. Sadly, not much better at all.

There have been changes. During the last visit, the facility consisted a large fenced area with one interior fence. There was a large area for tents and a small area for a trailer, restrooms and wash stands. The trailer appears to be an office.

By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune /July 30, 2023

A political heat dome is hovering over Mayor Todd Gloria on a couple of fronts. The mayor is supporting smart streetlights, with cameras and license plate reading technology, but has faced the ire of some privacy advocates, who point to his earlier comments about reining in use of surveillance tools.

Similarly, Gloria has been hounded about his approach to homelessness since almost the beginning of his administration two and a half years ago.

KPBS ran a story yesterday about dwindling supplies at OB’s food pantry run by Loaves & Fishes, which is supported by six different churches in the OB-Point Loma area.

People gather and wait for hours at Sunset Cliffs and Saratoga Avenue for food distribution to begin.

But Patrick Swanner, the pantry coordinator for Loaves & Fishes, told KPBS:

“This is the first time since I’ve started that I’ve actually been worried about feeding people.”

By Geoff Page

By now, most folks have probably heard about the tent camping site the city set up for the homeless. The reviews have not been favorable. The Rag decided to have a look.

The site is located at the city’s Central Operations Station, 20th and B streets. This is a long facility as can be seen in the photos. The camping site is at the far northeastern end, 1,145 feet from the front entrance. That is how far a resident would have to walk just to reach B St.

On Tuesday, June 27, the San Diego City Council approved the City’s controversial “Unsafe Camping Ordinance,” which bans tent encampments in certain public areas of the city in its second and final vote on the measure.

The exact same line-up of council members voted for and against it as they had back on June 13.

Reportedly, once the city launches a Safe Sleeping Program that would allow for more than 500 tents at two sites near Balboa Park –the first one is expected to open by July 1st on 20th and B St. — enforcement of the new rules would begin 30 days afterwards.

By Marisa Kendall/ KPBS – CalMatters / June 20, 2023

Losing income is the No. 1 reason Californians end up homeless — and the vast majority of them say a subsidy of as little as $300 a month could have kept them off the streets.

That’s according to a new study out of UC San Francisco that provides the most comprehensive look yet at California’s homeless crisis.

By Ruben Vives, Doug Smith / Los Angeles Times / June 14, 2023

More than 14,000 people experiencing homelessness have been moved off the streets during the first six months of her administration, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reported Tuesday.

About 30%, or 4,332, acquired permanent housing. An additional 10,049 people were placed in interim housing through city and county programs from December through May, Bass said — a 27% increase over the same period the year before.