S1: It's time for a midday edition on Kpbs. The homelessness crisis persist , but our cities across San Diego County doing enough to find solutions. I'm Jade Hindman. Here's to conversations that keep you informed , inspired and make you think. Today we are talking to mayors across the county to see how their cities are addressing homelessness.
S2: We need more housing. We need a better way of addressing some of the folks who are more difficult to place.
S1: They talk about their challenges and immediate needs to house people who are unsheltered. That's ahead on Midday Edition. We've talked about homelessness a lot on our show. It's an issue that comes up often on our frequent talks with San Diego Mayor Todd. Gloria , when we spoke with Mayor Gloria in July , he accused other cities across the county of inaction on homelessness.
S3: You're welcome to criticize what we're doing , but you have to ask why these other cities are just choosing to ignore this problem. At least we're trying to help people. I don't think the same can be said for most other cities in this county.
S1: So we invited several mayors to the show to talk more about their city's response to San Diego's homelessness crisis. We are joined now by Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez. The North County's largest city opened its first municipal homeless shelter earlier this summer. Mayor Sanchez , welcome.
S2: Thank you.
S1: So let me ask you , you know , last July , we spoke with Mayor Todd Gloria , about how to decrease homelessness in San Diego. He said that other cities are doing , quote , a little while. Most of them are doing absolutely nothing.
S2: But certainly we began , I want to say , maybe seven years ago , to really , really get into how we can address our homelessness , which was we started to see a lot more say in the riverbed. And that's a really dangerous place to be. I'm trying to remember the year that we had something like 32 fires in the riverbed. They were all arsons and kept us pretty , pretty busy. So we have been building affordable housing for want to say , we have had our own housing authority from the very beginning and we've been very aggressive about it. Granted , we are starting to get built out and we'd be somehow become a really popular place. So the land values have gone up , making it more difficult to for affordable housing developers to buy land and then bring it to the city and see how we can partner. Certainly we are a working class kind of community. That's certainly my background and we care. We're kind of a city that cares about people , cares about who's kid is not , is out on the streets.
S1:
S2: We need more housing. We need more , you know , a better way of addressing some of the folks who are more difficult to place. We now have our 50 bed homeless shelter , first time in our history that we finally have a homeless shelter. We we used to contract out for those kind of services with interfaith community services. People were being placed in Escondido , Vista , other places. But of course , things have gotten a lot worse in North County. So we all each of the cities are having to do their part , our part. But yes , we could use more , more money. We can certainly use perhaps , you know , more from the county because , you know , the county is the agency that that has the mental health services , the social workers , the ability to have land and be able to partner with cities to build , you know , housing for , say , for detoxing , you know , for I did conservatorships for both the county well county council as well as as a deputy public defender. And certainly that's that's something that I saw used to try to get people stabilized and back on their feet. So there's a lot more that we can do. And we need to do this as partners with other cities , but mostly with the county and the state.
S1: When I hear from cities is that neighboring cities aren't doing enough to address the homelessness crisis and therefore that pushes people to other cities.
S2: Not in North County. I want to basically say that we're all trying to work with each other. When I , for example , asked had a North coastal cities meeting with the mayors of Del Mar , Encinitas , Solana Beach , I'm not sure if we had Carlsbad , but I said , Well , by the way , how many homeless do you have ? Right ? And think Solana Beach said something like 3 or 4. Del Mar had 1 or 2 , and Encinitas had has about 100. And you know , we have about 800. Right. So it's like it impacts all of us. We definitely have , you know , need to be able to house all these folks. Some are very difficult. Some have mental health issues. These are things that are out of our control. When we were doing our our hot team and we still have our homeless outreach team , we wanted to be able to have social workers and mental health folks and specialists. And it was very , very difficult to get those those kind of folks assigned to us from the county or even , you know , contracting them , you know , paying money to to get them here. I will say that we need to. Think in terms of a region , as a county , how do we get more , you know , college students to go into mental health and social work ? Because that is something that we are desperately going to need to be as we move forward and maybe a little more aggressive way , we need to have these specialists. So how can we get them to decide to go into these fields and maybe the county , the state could get some of their student loans paid for if they work for the county for X number of years ? I mean , we really , really need to look at the whole picture in a more at a higher level. What is it going to take in terms of personnel ? What's it going to take in terms of , you know , building housing , building , having placements and certainly placements is from independent living through probably closed lock facility to try to get , you know , folks to stay and try to get awareness of their situation and hopefully either do family reunification or maybe maybe some of the folks aren't able to to get that insight. But there's a lot that can be done.
S1:
S2: And , you know , we do try to contact those folks with the idea of offering them shelter. And if they don't want to do that , then if they have done something like loiter or something that they get a citation for. But we they do move. But what it looks like is basically , I would say we do have families , you know , and they're usually in the more urban area and we try to get to them , especially if they've just fallen off. How can we working with , say , interfaith and other really wonderful organizations that are out there maybe paying that extra a little bit to get them into back into their apartment ? Of course , the idea is to try to keep people , you know , in their housing and not let them , you know , get get taken out. But the problem , the real problem that we're having now is that I've never seen it so low. The vacancy rate , even though our population has it really increased in the last 20 years. The vacancy rate is 1% or less. It's it's really difficult for people to be , you know , finding apartments , finding a place to stay , even if they double up in terms of families , the face of of of the of the homeless. It's youth , it's families. It's mostly single men , but also single women. I've seen senior senior women who want to live in an RV and with possibly their dog , they may have lost their their husband and so they'd like to just be left alone. We have to find better places for them , though , to be able to live. And the challenge is building those units and doing it in a way that is close to services.
S1: You know , the latest point in time count showed that Oceanside's homeless population grew by 22%. The city has the second highest unsheltered population in North County.
S2: A lot of people lost their jobs. You know , average family would have had money in the bank , had their kids going to school , kind of like built in childcare and Covid hits. And there may have been 2 or 3 people working in that household. 1 or 2 or maybe all three lost their jobs. School was basically closed. And if you got folks who are not being able to pay during Covid , the idea was to not not allow evictions to happen , but Covid has ended. And so now we see a lot of folks who are having a hard time staying in their in their housing. So I see a lot of gentrification that's happening , especially in Oceanside , which is very , very concerning to me. Also the rise in vacation rentals. I actually live in a Latino neighborhood and I've never thought I'd see vacation rentals in a workforce housing kind of neighborhood. So I think that we really need to we have a portable housing workshop coming up on the 30th of August , and I know that a lot of folks are interested in coming to see how can we work together , really have to declare that this is a housing crisis right now , the worst that I've seen in Oceanside. And I grew up here. I've never seen it this bad. And what can we do to bring back some of these units to be housing units instead of vacation rentals ? Vacation rentals , I think is something that is kind of. Made it that much worse. I've had a chance to talk to developers that are specialists in affordable housing , and there are some things that I think we can do , especially really close to major transit centers , to try to get more units built , higher density units built. We have one now that is that is should be available by next year. That is 59 units with the 60th unit being the the manager. But these are going to include no place like home units , which are the mental health units , money that we were able to get from the county to be able to support these wraparound services. Hmm.
S4: Hmm. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Like you mentioned earlier , Oceanside recently opened its first homeless shelter , the Oceanside Navigation Center.
S2: Obviously , there were other things that we had that are high priority as well. We're growing as a city. We don't have space for even , you know , some of the departments. So code enforcement is there. But that was a really , really important thing since we were no longer able to contract out for services , we need to have one here. One that would be able to like 50 is , is is a is a good number to be working at one time.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman and I'm speaking with Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez. And Mayor Sanchez.
S2: But we also have housing that is kind of scattered through the through the city. And again , we also have affordable housing projects. We built several units , almost a thousand units in like a ten year period. We do have places , some places , but we need more. It's not enough. So , yes , I think Oceanside is doing its part. We are moving forward and we do have people who call and complain about , say , encampments. And so we do address those as we can through code enforcement offering shelter , and if not , at least moving them to a different place so that we can clean where they where they've been and make sure that this is a healthy , you know , as healthy as as possible until we can get them placed.
S1: Also , you know , I mean , mental health and addiction are often attributed as causes for homelessness. But again , study after study , however , shows it is economic. Yes. So getting people housed is is is an economic battle.
S2: It was voluntary program. Unfortunately , we were hoping to have at least 30 people per month with this , the McAllister Institute. Unfortunately , it didn't work. We had less than that , maybe five or so that wanted to be able to stay and get and clean up. So we don't have that. Now. I understand that Vista is looking at getting one and perhaps trying to figure out how it can be a little more than just voluntary , because if you just , you know , have voluntary , you have to wait until that person is hit rock bottom. As the deputy public defender , a lot of times that was looking at years of prison. For example , drug court was probably the most successful. It was like 85% success rate where people would come through it. And let me tell you , it was not a housing project. It was a drug treatment program where the courts and the prosecutor and the public defender and the probation officer all work together to try to raise this person up , help with , you know , getting a job and all those things. You're right. It is all economic , you know , which came first ? Losing your job , hitting , hitting rock bottom and then turning to drugs to make you feel better , Or was it the drugs initially that got you to you know , you were thinking , oh , this it's not going to happen to me. I can I can control this. And and then losing control and then losing everything.
S1: And it's a difficult thing. I mean , and it sounds like , you know , affordable housing is a challenge. Finding employers that are paying a living wage is a challenge.
S2: It's helping us with funding funds for for land and ensuring that we're able to be able to hold on to it for at least two years. I think it takes at least a couple of years. And then how ? Having the enough of the funds at the state level so that the affordable housing developers are able to have those credits to be able to get those long term loans and make these these projects actually happen. I think we've had really good experiences working with affordable housing specialists , developers and as I said , right now land is pretty becoming pretty unaffordable. So we need to find ways for the state to come in and help us make that happen.
S1: I've been speaking with Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez. Mayor Sanchez , thank you so much.
S2: Thank you very much.
S1: What solutions do you think would be helpful in addressing the homelessness crisis ? What do you think mayors are missing ? Give us a call at (619) 452-0228. You can leave a message or email us at midday at pbs.org. Coming up , the conversation continues with the mayor of El Cajon. Bill Wells.
S5: The city of El has very little to do with the high cost of housing. High cost of housing has a lot to do with what's happening in Sacramento with all the regulations.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. Welcome back to Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hyndman. We continue our conversation with mayors across San Diego County on the subject of homelessness. When we spoke with San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria back in July , he said other cities just aren't doing their part. Take a listen.
S3: There are few cities in this region who are doing a little. Most of them are doing absolutely nothing. What other city in this region has built the amount of shelter that the city of San Diego has ? What are the city has invested the resources to provide services to the level of the city of San Diego has for people experiencing homelessness.
S1: Here with more about El Cajon approach is Mayor Bill Wells. Welcome. Good afternoon.
S5: Of course , he's spending more on homeless and has more homeless shelters than anybody else because he's got a huge city 13 times the size of my city , but per capita alcohol and is spending more money on homelessness per capita than any of the city in the region. We also have a very large homeless population , which has a large part to do with the fact that the county is utilizing our hotel system in a much higher way than anywhere else for the voucher program. So we have more homeless beds per capita than any of the city in the region. So it's a little disingenuous to say that we're not doing our share.
S1: Well , I mean , go ahead. Paint the picture for us.
S5: We had gotten to the point where we just had a couple of hundred homeless people on the streets. We have more housed homeless people by a factor of 20 than any other city in the region. And the reason that is we have a lot of shelter beds and we attribute that a lot to the East County Transitional Living Center , which does a great , great work. We have a couple of other homeless centers , especially we we just built a tiny homes project which is housing people. So we were doing pretty well. And then the county decided to utilize our hotels for their host voucher program. And it was interesting when we they didn't talk to us about that. They didn't warn us about that. We started noticing more people on the streets. We did some investigation and found out that 50% or more of the county's housing voucher program was in our city. But our city only represents 3% of the region. And so we you know , we've been talking about that. We've gotten no response from the county. So I've had to go to the press to try to put pressure on the county to be more equitable.
S1: You know , the most recent point in time Count found that the unsheltered population in El Cajon grew by almost 10%. You mentioned the East County Transitional Living Center and the tiny homes as shelter options in your city.
S5: Lots of small NGOs are operating in the city. Like I said , most of our hotels are filled up with homeless people. So we don't know that there's really any more that we could do because we're shouldering most of the burden.
S1:
S5: This is a regional problem. It's really a state problem. You asked how do we how does my city benefit or how does my city make this situation better ? And what I think is that the state of California has to do their part and change their political outlook and their political will in dealing with this problem. We have to stop encouraging people from other states. We have to stop encouraging lawlessness , and we have to have the ability to give people treatment options that are workable. What I mean by that is that sometimes people are no longer able to make a rational decision for themselves. And I think that what you're seeing , like in alcohol , we haven't allowed camping on the streets in about five years. San Diego is now coming to that conclusion. And I was at a homeless task force meeting yesterday , and many of the cities are now saying it's become intolerable and we can't allow people on the streets. So , you know , what is the answer to that ? The answer to that is you have to deal with the drug and alcohol problem. You have to admit that that's the main problem with the people that remain on the streets. And after that , I think you have to have some kind of legal solution to getting people off the streets. And if they don't want to , forcing them to.
S1: And , you know , that same study that I mentioned found that the primary cause of homelessness was actually economic and the cost of housing.
S5: That we've done mean a lot of that happened in the 50s and 60s when they decided to let people build as many apartments as they wanted in alcohol. And so we got a tremendous amount of low income housing. We are doing everything we can to approve any reasonable project that brings in more housing. We're building lots right now and a lot of it is low income. But the city of El Cajon has very little to do with the high cost of housing. High cost of housing has a lot to do with what's happening in Sacramento with all the regulations. I mean , it's it's gone from 6 or $7000 to get to get a water meter in your and your new house to over $100,000. And these are costs that actually affect the the ability to build a home reasonably. A lot of state regulations , secret regulations. One of the things that we've done is we've eliminated all building impact fees so that that lowers the cost of new housing. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to what the state could do to make housing more affordable.
S1:
S5: They get massive amounts of money , billions of dollars for the treatment of homeless and the mentally ill. And we have no response from them when we ask where is that money ? How much came in ? Where did you spend it ? They're not going to give us those numbers , which I think is weird because , you know , this is government money and taxpayer money. It should be very transparent. But nevertheless , we are not getting any of that money. And we know that some should be coming to the city of Oklahoma , especially considering how many homeless people we have to deal with and how much we've already done. We're spending over $4 million out of our general fund every year on homelessness , which might not sound like a lot , but if you look at our population , it's a tremendous amount. So one of the problems that we had is we asked the county of San Diego to give us a grant to build a homeless shelter. We're going to do in conjunction with the San Diego Rescue mission. Previously to that asking they had asked us to apply. They had chided us in the media for not applying. So we finally decided , you know what ? They're right. We should apply , we should do this , and it would be good. And we asked for the money and they they turned us down , citing some kind of a technical problem with the application , even though our people had gone over the application in depth with them before to make sure it was proper anyway. You know , I just feel like there's not a lot of cooperation going on between the county and us , and it feels frustrating because they're asking us to do more , do more , do more , but it's not going to share with us any of those funds. And so that's a barrier.
S1: You know , recently El Cajon stopped funding the East County Homeless Task Force over a disagreement on the Housing First model. You've criticized that approach before. Tell me why and also what your response is to those who feel the city is taking a step backwards here.
S5: Well , look , again , I come at it not just from a mayor , but from from being a mental health professional , working in hospitals , doing psychiatric evaluations and knowing absolutely knowing and talking to lots of other people in the field that drug and alcohol abuse is the main problem. And we're frustrated that this $25 Million has come in , has all gone to this housing first model. With Housing First , we've seen a 35% increase in housing for the homeless , which is great , but that corresponds with a 48% increase in people on the streets. So obviously the problem is not rectifying itself with this this approach. And the reason it isn't from my point of view is that the real problem , the root cause of the problem , is not being addressed and it's being swept under the rug and saying , we don't want to look at that. All we want to do is housing.
S1:
S5: You know , I have a number of families that I help because they've got kids on the streets that are schizophrenic or they've become schizophrenic from using meth. And they have a tremendous amount of problem getting them any any kind of the help that they need , mostly because of the the nature of the laws we have in California. They're called the LPs laws , the latter and Petro short laws , which are designed for good intention. That good intention is to protect people from being unfairly committed to a psychiatric facility. And. And so we have all these laws protecting people which which we should , but they've gone a little bit too far to the point where people who are obviously psychotic , if they can get in front of a judge and say , Oh , I feel better now , the judge will say , okay , you know , the law has says I have to let you out. So we have to revamp those laws. But. Really what we have to do is be willing to say that people that are. Living on the streets and they won't get off no matter how much intervention we've done. You know , we've arrested them seven , eight , nine times. We've offered them treatment a thousand times and they refused because they just want to live that lifestyle. I believe that homelessness is not a viable lifestyle , and I believe that it's not compassionate to allow people to rot and die on the side of the street and their filth and their feces. I think we can do better than that. And I think there's a compassionate way to compel people to get the treatment they need. And that's what I think has to happen.
S1: You know , you believe that the primary causes of homelessness are addiction and mental illness.
S5: That was a that was a giant mistake. I can I can go into depth about why that happened , but it really doesn't matter. It was based upon a lot of erroneous suppositions. We have to we have to spend some of this money that we're spending on housing first and build state facilities where we can get people off the street and get them clean and sober for a significant period of time , several months to a year. And then we have to have transition programs where we get them out of that kind of a treatment into a into a place. And we may have to provide that housing because they're going to be stunted and unable to raise the kind of money they need to rent their own housing. And we're going to have to get them in a job training program. It's just it's going to be a massive we've made a big mess of this and it's going to be a massive expenditure to get it right. But I think it can be gotten right. If we could stop fighting about the politics of this and the narrative of this and just get down to really helping people.
S1:
S5: We don't want to break up their encampments , but we will. Because that's the only way to get past this problem , because people won't take the help that we're offering. So we offer a two pronged approach that really is first part of that is offering lots of treatment options. And I don't I can't imagine any other city is offering more treatment options per capita than we are. But the other side of that is that we will enforce , which means because we have so many shelter beds , we're not bound by the Boise decision and we can break up encampments and we do. Just the other day I happen to see four panhandlers who were not just panhandling on the side of the road , but they were walking in into out traffic , kind of like they do in the Tijuana border crossing. And they were sopping up traffic and looked like they'd be hit by cars. I called it in. The police came and arrested them. And that's we're just not going to let things get out of control like we've seen in other in other parts of the county.
S1: I've been speaking with Mayor Bill Wells of El Cajon. Mayor Wells , thank you so much for joining us.
S5: Hey , thank you. It was a good interview.
S1: We reached out to San Diego County for a response , but did notrillioneceive one in time for our story. Coming up , the conversation continues with the mayor of Chula Vista , John McCann.
S6: I think the challenge is overwhelming. I think we are on the right path , though.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. You're listening to Kpbs. Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. We're talking about how cities across San Diego County are addressing the homelessness crisis. Joining us is Mayor John McCann. He is mayor of Chula Vista. Mayor McCann , welcome.
S6: Thank you. Thank you for having me , Jade.
S1: Glad to have you. You know , we spoke with San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria in July about how to decrease homelessness in San Diego. He said that other cities are doing a little while. Most of them are doing absolutely nothing. How do you respond to that.
S6: In the city of Chula Vista ? We are very collaborative with the other cities in the region , especially in the South County , Imperial Beach , National City and Coronado. We have been a leader in providing innovative programs to get homeless off the streets. And we'll be hopefully talking about our tiny new homes community that allow people to get off the streets and move into permanent housing. We've been using our funds and state funds to look at other options where we do permanent supportive housing. And since 2016 , we've taken the lead in creating a homeless outreach team to be able to identify and find out what the needs are and hopefully be able to get the homeless off the streets that are in Chula Vista.
S1:
S6: We've seen a epidemic increase in homelessness. Whereas I've been a council member and on the school board for for two decades and we've never seen anything like this. So we know it's a major issue. I've made sure that this is a priority for our city and we are being a leader and an innovator in trying to make sure that we're getting ahead of the curve , to make sure not only are we getting homeless off the streets , but also protecting our neighborhoods , protecting our local businesses and keeping our citizens safe.
S1: And earlier , you mentioned that you all are assessing what the needs are of those who are unhoused.
S6: When you look at somebody who's unsheltered , it potentially could be a substance abuse issue , alcohol issue , mental issue could be financial issue , family issue , and a combination of all of those. So we want to make sure that our teams are able to adequately address what the needs are and be able to figure out what is the best path to be able to give them assistance.
S1: You know , this year's point in time count showed a 54% increase in Chula Vista unhoused population.
S6: We've again , originally. Created a homeless outreach team in 2016. We just opened a new tiny homes community with 65 units in there. This is a bridge shelter so that when somebody who does want help , we can allow them to go into a tiny home. And the interesting thing is , is that we implemented best practices when we looked at this , because if you have a tent or you have a congregational setting , there are issues where homeless may be assaulted. They have their own personal things and they may get stolen. And we want to make sure that when somebody is trying to get help , that they have a sense of security , they have a sense of the idea that their belongings are secure. And one of the more interesting things is , is that a lot of our unsheltered have pets. And many of the other bird shelters don't allow pets. But in our tiny new homes community , you're allowed to have a pet. So that really gives us an additional ability to have people come in and work on what they need to to get better and get them into permanent housing. And again , by having their own little house , they can lock it. They feel a place where they can live , they can sleep safely. And actually , one of the guys I talked to there said it was the first time he said slept very soundly because he could lock the door and felt like he was in a safe place , whereas when he was out on the streets or even in some of the other facilities , there was always a concern about somebody else being there and somebody else potentially being able to do something to him. And this gives them the ability to focus on what they need to do in being able to get better , to be able to find permanent housing and ultimately find a job as well.
S1: So tell me more about this tiny home village. I mean , are the houses do they have plumbing , electricity ? Are they furnished ? I mean , tell me more about that. Yes.
S6: Yes. We wanted to make sure that we did what was the best practices. And we looked around to find out who were the ones that were able to get homeless off the streets and then had the highest percentage of getting people into permanent housing. So what happens is our homeless outreach team will go through , they'll vet the individual , make sure obviously to be enter into the tiny home facility. They have to be clean , they have to be sober. If they aren't , they have to then go to detox if they still want to get in. But then when they get into the tiny new home facility , they get wraparound services from our nonprofit that we are is a partner with us. They are given a manager who will help look at what the needs are , and then from there they continue on. A process of could be a month , could be a couple months to be able to find out how they can get their life back together and find permanent housing.
S1: That's great. So just to be clear , these homes , they're they're all equipped furniture , plumbing , electricity.
S6: Yeah , they're tiny new homes. They're very Spartan. But as I always tease people , it's there were nicer than the places that I stayed in Iraq and the war in Iraq. But the the you have two beds. You have lights. Obviously. We have baths , rooms that that are not in there. But it's a place where they can live. They can feel safe , they can feel secure , and they have some privacy. Okay.
S1: Okay. So they don't have bathrooms. So then tell me about the village and how it is set up. Is are the showers and bathroom at a central point in the village ? And how accessible is that for people who may have lost a leg in the war or something ? Yeah.
S6: Again , if for some reason there is somebody who is disabled , we will accommodate that. But we have showers again , they are private showers. So when they go in , it would just be them in there by themselves. They have areas to be able to eat and be able to work with their case manager. So it's it's a tiny new home facility and we believe that we've seen it. Be successful in other areas. But this is the first one in San Diego County , and we're looking very forward to having it be able to help people get off the streets and get back on their feet.
S1: And I wanted to get your thoughts on the 54% increase in Chula Vista unhoused.
S6: I don't know specifically why that is , whether it was a better counting or people just know that Chula Vista is a nice place. But we obviously want to make sure that we are dealing with the people there. Again , our homeless outreach team understands or knows almost everybody in the city and we have seen an increase. We were approximately about 200. Now we think we're in almost at 300 now. And again , this is why we need to be very assertive at trying to find solutions to the homeless.
S1: And , you know , Voice of San Diego found that only a third of those tiny homes that you talked about earlier were occupied in July. What's been the challenge with connecting people to this resource and how is the city addressing that need ? Sure.
S6: The we literally just opened it and as just like you're opening a restaurant or you're opening another store , it's a soft opening. And so we are slowly bringing people in. So that's the reason why it isn't full yet , is just because we're bringing people in one by one. We're making sure we have all the facilities , we're making sure we don't do anything that would overwhelm what's going on there. So again , we're doing a soft opening and slowly ramping up and we will be hopefully fully occupied by the end of the year. But the reason why it was a lower number was some supply chain issues and ultimately because of the soft opening where it wasn't like we were going to open the the village one day and suddenly you have , you know , 100 people move in. We have to do it on a very professional and understanding way as we bring people in to make sure that it is the right fit for them. And we were able to maximize the efficiency in helping them.
S1:
S6: I think we were on the right path though , and every day I think we're able to increase our bandwidth to be able to properly help people get off the streets and again , we want to make sure that these solutions are long term solutions. There's a lot of things that we could do immediately , but we want to make sure that when we do things , they are effective and things a lot of times just don't happen overnight. We want to make sure we're doing the best way possible.
S1:
S6: And the idea there is , is that we want to create that into a place where we can have permanent supportive housing for our homeless. There are going to be some homeless that won't be able to necessarily get housing on the market , and we want to be able to make sure that we're able to have a place that where people are homeless in the city of Chula Vista can get that permanent supportive housing and have a permanent opportunity for housing. And by having permanent supportive housing at one location , I think that is more effective than constantly moving somebody around to different locations.
S1: You know , the cause for homelessness is often attributed to mental health and addiction , although in reality it is economic study after study shows this.
S6: The number of affordable housing units. Chula Vista leads most of the other cities. We have consistently been able to build new communities that have all the way from affordable , very affordable housing included in each new home community. And our older communities have always been and provided a lion's share of affordable housing for individuals.
S1: I've been speaking with Chula Vista Mayor John McCann. Mayor McCann , thanks so much for joining us.
S6: Thank you.
S1: What thoughts do you have about how cities are addressing homelessness ? Give us a call at (619) 452-0228. Leave a message or you can email us at midday at pbs.org. We'd love to share your thoughts and ideas here on the show. And if you ever miss a show , you can find the Midday Edition podcast on all platforms. I'm Jade Hindman. Thanks for listening.
