The City of San Diego is getting ready to open its fifth safe parking lot just west of the San Diego International Airport.
It’s a space to help homeless San Diegans sleep in a secure location overnight in their vehicles.
“Safe parking is one of our most successful interventions,” said Kohta Zaiser, the City of San Diego's community engagement lead on the project.
The 190-space H Barracks lot is the city’s largest safe parking site to date. It includes areas reserved for recreational vehicles and oversized vehicles.
“Typically these are first time homeless and it's a program for individuals living out of their vehicles. So we see a lot of seniors, a lot of families, young professionals,” Zaiser said.
Participants will receive help with housing, medical care and signing up for government assistance programs.
Jewish Family Service will operate this site in addition to the four others across the city.
“We’ll nearly double our entire system's capacity,” Zaiser said of the new H Barracks site. “We’re repurposing city-owned land that was formerly part of (Naval Training Center) NTC naval base, was used by SDPD and SD Fire for several years, but then has sat pretty much abandoned and unused for several years.”
The city expects the site to open by the end of May, he said, but it's not permanent.
“It is slated for the Pure Water Project in 2029, but we didn't really have an interim use in the meantime. And so we took advantage of city-owned land,” Zaiser said.
Some neighbors have raised health and safety concerns about the safe parking lot.
Real estate developer McMillin-NTC sued the California Coastal Commission — which approved the city's permit application — to stop the project.
Their lawsuit argues that "homeless parking, sheltering, and services ... are not legally permissible on the site, and even if they were, the City has failed to obtain a legally required Conditional Use Permit.”
The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 9, 2026.
"We are disappointed that the City is moving forward with temporary operations at the H Barracks site,” McMillin Chairman Scott McMillin said in an email to KPBS. “We are carefully considering all of our options and, in the meantime, remain committed to protecting and upholding the agreements that have guided Liberty Station’s successful redevelopment from the beginning.”
In the meantime, H Barracks will operate from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. with on-site security and on-site Jewish Family Service staff, Zaiser said.
He said the number of program participants will increase over the coming months until the site is operating at full capacity.
