For years, many San Diegans focused on addressing the region’s homelessness crisis have wondered: What would it take for the county to effectively lead on the issue?
That question has taken center stage in the high-stakes battle between County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer and former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer to represent many of the county’s coastal communities.
Faulconer wants to jolt the county into action. He says it’s time for the county to be the regional leader many have long wanted.
Lawson-Remer, whose first run for supervisor was partly inspired by county inaction on homelessness, agrees the county needs to up its game but wants to build on what she describes as significant improvements since she took office in 2021. She deems Faulconer’s campaign promises unrealistic.
A loss for Lawson-Remer would also topple a Democratic board majority she argues will more effectively confront homelessness. Faulconer, a Republican, argues his leadership would have a greater impact.
Their success will rest on their ability to convince voters that they are best for the job – and given the nuances of the role they seek, on the winner’s ability to convince fellow county supervisors, county staff, city leaders and others to get behind the change they want.
Both claim they have what it takes. But neither has a standout reputation as a leader. It’s unclear whether either politician can drastically overhaul an entrenched county bureaucracy, particularly as a legislator rather than an executive.
What Faulconer Is Promising
Faulconer wants dramatic change and says he can deliver it.
“If it’s an emergency, you act like it,” Faulconer said. “The county is not acting like it’s an emergency right now.”
If he’s elected, Faulconer said he’ll convene cities, providers and others to come up with plans to open more shelters and behavioral health facilities, particularly those with beds for people who need post-hospital care.
“Leadership is getting people together and saying, ‘What is it that we should be doing? How can the county help provide resources? How can the county help provide services? What do you need in your city to do this?’” Faulconer said.
He said he’d also urge communities countywide to line up their enforcement strategies tied to homelessness to ensure better outcomes. In recent history, multiple cities in the county have approved camping bans and the county is considering its own changes.
“I think it’s incredibly important that the county should move in one direction together, so you don’t have different policies in different cities,” Faulconer said.
He’s also pledging to rapidly clear a large encampment along the San Diego River and touting his work on homelessness as mayor despite an imperfect record.
It’s unclear whether Faulconer would seek to dial back the county’s commitment to a housing first policy calling for rapidly moving homeless residents into housing without conditions like sobriety requirements. Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond has often criticized the approach. Faulconer mostly adhered to housing first as mayor but often noted that he wasn’t in favor of a “housing only” response. More recently, spokesperson Gustavo Portela pointed back to those past statements and described the former mayor’s orientation as “intervention first.” Portela didn’t respond when asked to elaborate on what that meant.
Faulconer isn’t providing more specifics on his plans. He pushed back when Voice of San Diego pressed him for more details.
“I’m being very specific about the county leading on homelessness, about getting involved in shelters, about increasing support services, mental health, acting and actually reducing the numbers,” Faulconer said. “The status quo is failing. It’s not working.”
What Faulconer’s pledges don’t acknowledge is that a single county supervisor doesn’t have the same power he had in San Diego’s strong mayor form of government. A supervisor can’t direct county staff to do something without majority support from other supervisors. County government processes and bureaucracy also lend themselves to longer policymaking timelines that can snarl visions of rapid responses.
If he’s elected, Faulconer could use his bully pulpit, force of will and alliances on the board to push for change. But he still wouldn’t have the same power he had as mayor.
As a Republican city councilmember, Faulconer did spearhead an ultimately voter-approved alcohol ban on city beaches and team with then-Democratic councilmember Donna Frye on a successful ballot measure to protect funding for city parks. His years-long crusade to implement a voter-approved process to put some city functions out for bid, however, ultimately petered out.
As a mayor with far more power, he drastically (and controversially) increased the city’s focus on homelessness after a sluggish start. He also helped change the local conversation about the housing shortage and passed a series of reforms to try to address it.
Faulconer also had some major stumbles.
Among them: The Chargers NFL franchise declared it was leaving San Diego in January 2017 after Faulconer’s attempts to find solutions via a task force and his endorsement of a failed Chargers’ stadium ballot measure. In 2018, two-thirds of city voters rejected the vision Faulconer endorsed for a Mission Valley development anchored by a professional soccer and San Diego State football stadium. A few years later, incoming Mayor Todd Gloria scrapped Faulconer’s plan to revamp the Sports Arena site over a legal oversight and was left to grapple with a blockbuster debacle surrounding two high rises the city acquired on Faulconer’s watch including the infamous 101 Ash St.
What Lawson-Remer Is Promising
Lawson-Remer argues she’s learned the county system and is most qualified to continue ratcheting up its homelessness response.
Though she agrees the region needs a more coordinated approach, she’s skeptical of Faulconer’s pitch that he can get cities on the same page with the county. She argues a deadly hepatitis A outbreak that hammered the homeless population on his watch is evidence he isn’t the right person to lead.
She emphasizes the shift the county’s made since she joined the board.
At Voice’s Politifest event, Lawson-Remer described a briefing on the county’s homelessness response with its now-former top bureaucrat Helen Robbins-Meyer soon in 2021. Lawson-Remer said Robbins-Meyer expressed skepticism about her interest in more county action.
“She said, ‘Oh no, the county doesn’t do anything on homelessness because if you start working on homelessness, the voters are gonna hold you accountable for doing something on homelessness,’” Lawson-Remer said.
(Robbins-Meyer didn’t return multiple messages from Voice.)
Nearly four years later, Lawson-Remer said the county has made significant strides with a department focused on the cause, helped fund hundreds of shelter beds and dramatically increased homeless outreach. She also recently touted her success rallying together the county, city and six nonprofits to expand a Regional Task Force on Homelessness program that aids newly homeless or housing insecure San Diegans to help them avoid prolonged homelessness.
Yet Lawson-Remer, who has a shorter political resume than Faulconer, isn’t a well-known leader on homelessness issues despite the work she’s touting.
Her record also hasn’t silenced commentary about whether the county could take more dramatic action
Faulconer and his supporters have highlighted her failure to attend meetings of a regional homelessness group that helps coordinate the local response despite serving as vice chair of its board. City and county leaders who previously served on the board typically attended meetings and used those posts to build support and leverage for their homelessness initiatives.
Lawson-Remer’s team has argued her work on homelessness deserves more attention and that her staffers have gone to the meetings.
Lawson-Remer’s campaign also points to policies she championed – including the creation of a performance and analytics function at the county and a data-driven initiative to help more San Diegans bypass jail and access services – as evidence that she can build coalitions to lead the county in a new direction. Her team also notes Lawson-Remer’s recent move backed by some South Bay leaders to pursue federal Superfund status for the Tijuana River valley despite fellow supervisors’ votes to stall that plan.
Lawson-Remer acknowledges she’s sometimes been frustrated by the pace of change at the county.
She said the implosion of former Democratic supervisor Nathan Fletcher translated into the temporary loss of the Democratic majority and halted some major initiatives. An extended and tumultuous search for a new top county bureaucrat also slowed progress.
But Lawson-Remer has had disappointments even since fellow Democratic Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe took office last December, including on the Superfund push.
This summer, Lawson-Remer didn’t dissuade her colleagues from nixing a planned Spring Valley tiny home project, a decision that led the county to miss out on $10 million from the state. She didn’t speak against that move in the moments before her colleagues voted, instead issuing a statement after the vote. The 3-1 vote was the latest setback in the county’s years-long quest to deliver a brick-and-mortar shelter in unincorporated areas.
Most of Lawson-Remer’s board colleagues were also unwilling to immediately implement a state conservatorship expansion law. The county vote followed Lawson-Remer’s tense exchange with the county’s behavioral health director over county preparations to implement the law and why it couldn’t move more swiftly. Lawson-Remer has said the law, which Faulconer also supports, can help with “the crises of mental illness, addiction, and homelessness on our streets” and that she wanted to see the county enact it immediately.
If she’s re-elected, Lawson-Remer said she hopes to become chair of the board, a position that will boost her influence.
“The initiatives that have gone really well are the ones where I’m engaging with county staff like all the time. My team is talking to them. We have our hands in the weeds,” Lawson-Remer said. “I think you’ve gotta do that. And if you’re not doing that, stuff does not move. I think being chair will significantly help my ability to have my hands in more lanes than I can right now.”
There are a few homelessness-related priorities she’d like to focus on if she’s re-elected.
Her top one is to continue to press for increased reimbursement rates for addiction treatment programs to combat a longstanding bed shortage expected to be further exposed when the county implements the conservatorship law.
Lawson-Remer also wants to make a list of homeless residents who generate the most 911 calls, hospital and jail stays to target county resources to help them.
Lawson-Remer said she’d also like to create more programs for specific populations, noting that she helped champion a rent subsidy program to help keep seniors from falling into homelessness.
Unsurprisingly, Faulconer and Lawson-Remer are critical of one other’s pledges and records.
Faulconer declares that Lawson-Remer is among the county officials not acting swiftly on the homelessness emergency.
“If you like the status quo, you have your candidate,” he said during a Sept. 16 debate organized by Coast News Group and three North County chambers. “If you want some changes or somebody who’s actually gonna rattle it and make a difference on the street and protect our neighborhoods, I ask for your help.”
Lawson-Remer, meanwhile, argues Faulconer’s assertions gloss over challenges that would stymie those efforts.
“I think what Faulconer has brought to homelessness is magical thinking,” Lawson-Remer said.
