The city of San Diego announced Wednesday it is adding 230 tents at two of its safe sleeping sites for people experiencing homelessness. But by the end of the year, the city is expected to lose more than 600 shelter beds at Golden Hall downtown and at Father Joe's Paul Mirabile Center in the East Village.
Mayor Todd Gloria said despite those upcoming losses, the city is persisting and moving forward with options like safe sleeping sites, which include lots with tents and those with trailers.
"When things like Golden Hall are closing, well, we've expanded our safe sleeping sites. When some of these others are going down, we're finding new opportunities.”
The mayor's comments came during a Wednesday event to highlight what Gloria said was the success of the safe sleeping site at the city-owned Rose Canyon Operations Yard, run by Jewish Family Service of San Diego.
Kayla Herrera has been staying in a trailer there with her husband and three children for the past six months. She said she's grateful for a roof over her head.
"That’s very, very beneficial for me and my family," she said. "Before, we were staying in hotels and paying weekly and it was just too much. We couldn’t afford it. So here, we are able to save money.”
Herrera's family will soon move into an apartment. Jewish Family Service helped her with the deposit and the first and last month's rent. Gloria said success cases like hers are why sites like Rose Canyon are needed.
"Two-thirds of the folks who have accessed services at this site have gone on to get permanent housing," he said. "This site has only been operating for a single year, but it has been wildly successful.”
He is pushing to open another safe sleeping site at H Barracks, the city's former police and fire department training facility. The site is located near the San Diego International Airport and close to transit, making it ideal for people experiencing homelessness to access the services they need. On Wednesday, the city issued a request for proposals for an operator to run a safe sleeping site.
Michael Hopkins, CEO of Jewish Family Service, said the vast majority of people living in their cars are experiencing homelessness for the first time.
"They've just gotten settled with the idea of being in a car," he said. "And it actually takes them a while, through our work, for them to believe that they're going to be successful again because they don't want to go back into a house to then to be evicted again.”
Herrera said her children are happy and thriving at the Rose Canyon safe sleeping site, but the number one question they keep asking her is when they will get a house.
"We're almost there," she said.
According to the latest Point-In-Time homeless census, people living in their cars make up the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population. Gloria said that’s why the success at the Rose Canyon site needs to be replicated and expanded to help get people into housing.
