S1: Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. On today's show , we're talking about San Diego's chronic homelessness problem and oversight for one of the few resources available. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. Homelessness in California is a chronic problem , and with few long term solutions , shelters are one of the few resources among our neighbors. Right here in San Diego County , there's an estimated 10,605 people experiencing homelessness , with more than 4400 living in shelters , according to the latest point in time count. But oversight for the shelters in California isn't always easy to track. An investigation by Calmatters looks into a state law meant to fix unsafe shelters. KPBS reporter Andrew Bowen spoke with Lauren Hepler , investigative reporter at Calmatters. To learn more , here's that conversation.
S2: Introduce us to the state law that we're talking about here. What exactly does it require cities and counties to do around homeless shelters ? Yeah.
S3: So this is a state law that goes back to 2021 , after there was some pretty shocking reports to come out of Southern California , specifically Orange County. And that was documenting things like flooding in shelters that were never meant for human habitation , like an old transit center where there weren't even , you know , solid walls , maggot infestations , sexual harassment by security guards at these facilities. So pretty serious concerns. And state lawmakers at the time had said , okay , this is an opportunity to implement some kind of basic health and safety standards for homeless shelters. You know , the way we have building standards for apartments and all other types of buildings. Um , but there were some interesting last minute changes , and initially it was going to be okay. We'll have unannounced inspections. We'll have these clear codes. For what ? The standards that we expect shelters to live up to. Um , but then it was like , well , maybe we won't require those inspections. And the system we ended up with basically says that cities and counties who have shelters are supposed to do inspections whenever there's a complaint , and then they're supposed to report on the results of those inspections to the state each year. Um , so from my perspective as a reporter , it was like , okay , let me request all these reports. We'll get a window inside these shelters. But what we found out is that only a handful of places , like five of California's 58 counties and four cities of more than 400 cities in the state have even gone so far as to file these reports. So it really just raises the question of what's happening with all the funding. And then , you know , these serious questions of people's living standards inside these shelters.
S2: So under this law , cities and counties are supposed to report on safety issues within shelters each year , as you mentioned.
S3: The deadline is in the spring. And we saw the places that have filed San Diego is not one of them. And I was told that the city is looking into why those reports have not been filed , because there have been some complaints received about shelter conditions. But we have seen a few reports filed by neighbors like Los Angeles County.
S2: And so San Diego's a bit behind the curve on this one. LA is a bit ahead of us.
S3: So some smaller counties like Yuba County , Monterey County has filed , and then cities like Woodland and Santa Rosa have filed. Not everyone has filed every single year. Um , but those are represent some of those that have filed , you know , since 2021 when this law was enacted.
S2: So I want to talk more about the conditions inside many of the state's homeless shelters.
S3: So some of this we gleaned through interviews , but some of it is actually through public records requests. We requested thousands of pages of incident reports and complaints from shelters around the state. And those showed a whole array of things , like in , um , San Mateo County , Silicon Valley , of all places. A child fell out of a window and had to be hospitalized because the window was not properly reinforced. Um , lots of reports , unfortunately , of sexual assaults and sexual harassment and then a lot of unpredictability , fights , drug use , deaths. Unfortunately , a wide range of circumstances. Sometimes overdoses , sometimes chronic health conditions. People dying from complications of diabetes and heart disease. Um , in San Diego , we spoke with some folks living at these newer types of shelters , the safe sleeping sites you may have heard about over by Balboa Park. And what we heard about there was , was more of this kind of unpredictability. One woman I spoke with , Sharon Deskins , told me about fights she had seen between neighbors where someone pulled a sword on someone else. Someone hit someone with a two by four. So I think it really gets it. Just how even the shelters are supposed to be , places that are kind of restorative and where you get your life back together. It can be a very chaotic environment , and in some cases the safety and sanitation are also major issues.
S2: Definitely drives home that point , that when people expect people who are living on the streets to just go to a shelter , it's not always that easy. Your recent Calmatters piece also takes us through the history of shelters in California , and how they've grown in size over the years.
S3: What a lot of researchers peg as kind of the beginning of the modern era of homelessness , where we're in now , where you've got 181,000 homeless people in California now , and with shelters that emerged kind of as a response to a perfect storm of things happening at once. So in the years leading up to the 80s , there was major disinvestment in mental health beds , some for good reason. Those had had some appalling conditions documented as well. But the net effect is that California went from tens of thousands of beds for folks with serious mental health issues to just a small fraction of that. But at the same time , you know , we saw wages stagnate , cost of living shot up. We've been through different waves of drug crises. And when you put that all together , it's a chaotic recipe. And shelters emerged as one kind of Band-Aid response to say , well , let's at least put some bunks in a room and have like a place for people to go. Um , so a lot of times , folks compare these facilities to jails or to military barracks where you've got like thin mattresses , lots of people in a room , not a lot of privacy. But again , it was like , okay , this is going to just be a short emergency stint. And then you get back on your feet and go somewhere else. The problem is that it's become kind of like a bridge to nowhere. California is adding shelters faster than permanent housing , so people just get kind of stuck in these places. And even still , we've got a more basic math problem. There's just not enough shelter beds. So like in San Diego , you mentioned there's more than 10,000 homeless residents , but just over 4000 emergency shelter beds. So it's a multifaceted issue that requires kind of more deliberate strategies to to move forward.
S2: Earlier this summer , the United States Supreme Court ruled that cities can punish people for sleeping in public places , even if there is no shelter for them to go to.
S3: In some cities you're looking at maybe like fines or tickets if you're still sleeping outside. But I mean , the overall upshot is kind of the equation people are working through right now is do I try to get into a shelter , or do I stay on the street and risk going to jail ? And obviously a lot of public officials , folks who live near encampments , say like , you know , something had to change the situation as it is , is untenable. There's concerns about health , safety for everyone involved. But again , the question is like , okay , well , if you can't be on the street , where are you going to go ? So you have this math problem where there's not enough shelter often , and then you've got a lot of people who are very resistant to going to shelters because either they've been there themselves and experienced experience some of this or they've heard stories. Um , so it becomes a system where there's a lot of mistrust , a lot of skepticism , and there's not a lot of accountability. Also , uh , we know that there was a state audit this year that showed California has failed to track more than $20 billion in homelessness , spending only a fraction of that on shelters , of course. But it points to a much broader issue where we know we're at this crossroads and it's unclear kind of who's going to get out in front and kind of take some of this on to carve out a better path forward.
S2: The permanent solution to someone's situation. Experiencing homelessness , of course , is to give them permanent housing.
S3: Shelters have become a bottleneck in California. Shelter residents are now staying a median of about five months. 155 days , federal data from 2023 shows. And that's a 30% increase since just before the pandemic in 2019. So again , it's like you can understand that there might be a bare bones big group shelter for a true emergency situation , like after a fire or as a last resort if you're on the street.
S2: Policies are changing each year.
S3: And one thing we know is that the state has been adding shelter beds at roughly five times the rate of permanent housing with supportive services , which a lot of folks say is what you need. If you want to solve those cases where there's also maybe mental health or addiction issues. So from 2018 to 2023 alone , the state gained 27,000 shelter beds. Of course , homelessness grew faster in that time. So it gets to your point where it's like we're trying to triage this crisis as it's happening and throwing shelter beds at the problem.
S1: We're back after the break. Welcome back. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman , KPBS Metro reporter Andrew Bowen continues the conversation with Lauren Hepler , investigative reporter at Calmatters.
S2: One debate we're having here in San Diego is over the proper size for a homeless shelter. our mayors. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has proposed a 1000 bed homeless shelter , which is much larger than any shelter we currently have today. How do the folks you've heard from feel about that proposal ? Or , you know , a large shelter relative to a smaller shelter ? Yeah.
S3: So I was hearing some immediate concerns about a facility of that size. Again , folks are saying that as it stands , if you're at a safe sleeping site or I also spoke to folks who had lived at bigger indoor congregate shelters in San Diego , they said , you already feel like you're kind of warmed up , and you're dealing with not just your own issues and trying to work through those , but the chaos of everybody around you also being in crisis. So if you multiply that by a thousand folks in one facility , obviously that would be a lot to manage. Um , also speaking with people who work at shelters , um , obviously it's a challenge for them as well. These , these jobs often don't pay a lot. And you're managing people with all different , um , mental health , physical health , financial considerations. Um , to I think it's one of those things where folks are saying , if we're talking about adding more shelter like that makes sense , because , again , we've got many more homeless people than we have shelters.
S2:
S3: So you can , of course , try to get in touch with local authorities. Some folks try to file , um , handwritten grievances to the nonprofit that runs a shelter. And then I've also spoken with folks who really kind of like take on this role of becoming private investigators at their shelter , like , even though they're trying to find a job and housing , they're also like very upset about what they're seeing at these facilities. So they'll try state departments like the Civil Rights division at the state level or the , um , Bureau of Security and Investigative Services that regulates issues with security guards. Um , I've talked to folks who then go to civil rights lawyers like the ACLU because , as I mentioned , they've done reporting on this in Orange County and other places. So it really does seem like something where people are being very aggressive to try to , to raise these concerns.
S2:
S3: There were a lot of tents. It was dangerous for folks who were living there as well. So there's agreement that , you know , like , this is not a good situation. But the question is , what do you do about it ? And so I spoke to a few folks who had had very negative experiences at the safe sleeping site. I mentioned some of those concerns about female neighbors reporting , like sexual assault , flooding during the winter , because folks are living in like ice fishing huts are technically what the tents are there , um , to so there's kind of immediate day to day concerns there. And then there's also this question of like , what's going to happen with this big facility if in some people's view , you know , it's already a challenge to manage the facilities that are operating and that are smaller already. But I do think it's important to to lift up the stories of people who are still despite some of these challenges , like figuring out a way to navigate this system and get into housing. So one man I spoke with , his name is Sean , and he comes from a cattle ranching family in Southern California , and he had been on the street in San Diego for more than a decade. After he spent a brief time he he was out of work , construction work after the last big recession , and he ended up in a big shelter in San Diego and said it was just a horrible experience being doomed up with people going through all kinds of mental health crises. Um , it didn't necessarily feel like a safe place to get stable. So he ended up camping , like in fringe areas , wooded areas around San Diego for about a decade. And when he did get to the safe sleeping site just in the past year , um , he said it was kind of a shock to the system to have at least his own personal space that he knew wasn't going to get taken away that day or the next day. Um , and he said it was okay. Overall , you know , it's not like glamorous. Sometimes there are issues with staff or things like that. But he hung in there and he does have his own apartment now. Um , so the question is , just can you work at an individual with people to make that the reality more often ? And how do you protect people that might be more vulnerable ? Again , those experiencing issues with like sexual harassment , sexual assault , other things ? Um , to just make sure that we have more of these positive outcomes.
S1: That was Calmatters investigative reporter Lauren Hepler speaking with KPBS reporter Andrew Bowen. That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose. Everyone.
