Addressing homelessness is my top priority as your Mayor. Every single day, we are working to get people off the street, connected to services, and on a path to securing permanent housing. This weekly e-newsletter provides updates on each of these efforts and how we are ending homelessness in our City one person at a time. 

Addressing Homelessness, Protecting the Public 

Last week, I stood next to City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn as he announced his plan to bring forward an ordinance next month that will ban encampments in certain sensitive locations whether a shelter bed is available or not. If approved by the City Council, I will enforce it. 

We also announced our intention to establish a “safe sleeping” site where we will erect up to several hundred tents as yet another option for people get off the streets and camp lawfully while being connected to services that might end their homelessness for good. 

At the same time, I announced that I will be bringing forward a ballot measure that will build upon Councilmember Whitburn’s efforts as well as untie the City’s hands when it comes to quickly standing up shelters. 

Why are we taking these actions? Because the street is not a home.  

For the past two years, I have built a comprehensive strategy to get people off the streets, whether through offers of shelter and services. 

We have made more than 700 additional shelter beds available – a nearly 70-percent increase. We’ve added beds for women, seniors and folks who struggle with addiction and other behavioral health issues. Soon, we’ll open a new shelter for families.  

We’ve expanded our Safe Parking program for those who sleep in their vehicles. We’ve expanded our proven street outreach program. And I have launched numerous initiatives and reforms that will make it easier to build affordable housing. 

This strategy has successfully connected thousands of people to permanent housing during the past two years alone.  

I’m also working with City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera on a Tenant Protection Ordinance, which we’ll introduce soon, to help keep people in their homes. Right now, more people are falling into homelessness for the first time than we’re successfully helping off the street. We have to change that dynamic by helping people stay in their homes. 

While we dramatically expand shelter and services, we must also enforce our laws, to protect public health and safety – for unhoused and housed residents like.  

This is about making sure everyone, including schoolchildren and people with mobility challenges, can safely navigate our sidewalks without having to walk in the street. It’s about ensuring that we don’t have a repeat of the 2017 hepatitis A outbreak that infected roughly 600 and killed 20. It’s about protecting unsheltered folks from violence. 

Ultimately, we will never accept as OK the practice of living on our sidewalks, and I’m committed to continuing to make every effort to get people out of encampments and into safe, stable and permanent homes. 

Inclement Weather Shelters Keep Homeless San Diegans Warm and Dry   

Living without a home is hard enough in the best of conditions, but it is especially difficult when it’s cold and wet outside. San Diego is known for its beautiful weather, but lately, we’ve seen our fair share of rain and temperatures in the low 40s. 

For these times, it’s critical that we provide plenty of shelter beds for people who have not taken advantage of a bed in one of our year-round shelters. 

During this rainy season, we have activated our inclement weather shelters on 72 different nights – the equivalent of more than two full months – bringing a person in out of the cold more than 5,500 times (this number includes people who entered shelter multiple times). 

Importantly, at no time has anyone been turned away for lack of space.   

Understanding the City's Shelter System



The City of San Diego has contracts with various service providers throughout the city to provide shelter options for individuals to stabilize in a safe, sanitary environment while they are connected to permanent or other long-term housing.  

The shelters listed below are City-funded or included as part of the City’s Coordinated Intake System for shelter placements. (Note: These do not represent all shelters operating within the City of San Diego.) 

• Alpha Project Bridge Shelter I  
• Alpha Project Bridge Shelter II  
• Community Harm Reduction Shelter  
• Community Harm Reduction Safe Haven 
• Father Joe’s Villages Bishop Maher Center  
• Father Joe’s Villages Paul Mirabile Center  
• Golden Hall, First Floor  
• Golden Hall, Second Floor  
• Old Central Library Women’s Shelter 
• PATH Connections Housing  
• Rachel’s Promise Women’s Shelter  
• Rosecrans Shelter  
• Seniors Landing  
• San Diego Youth Services  
• Urban Street Angels Youth Shelter  

Congratulations, Lacherl Campell! 

The ultimate goal of all our efforts to address homelessness is to connect unhoused folks to permanent homes. And this week, I’d like to introduce you to Lacherl Campbell, who now has a place of her own to call home.  

Lacherl, a mother of five and a retired nurse, is a San Diego native who grew up in the Skyline community. After living in Ohio for a time, she moved back to San Diego and helped care for her husband’s elderly parents until they passed. Subsequently, she and her husband separated, and she moved into a hotel.  

After a serious car accident, Lacherl last fall moved into Connections interim housing, a facility operated by PATH Partners under contract with the City. I’m thrilled to report that now, she is employed and has recently moved into her own apartment in a senior community in Chula Vista! 

I want to thank PATH for their incredible work to help us end homelessness one person at a time, and I especially want to congratulate Lacherl on her new home and a new start on life! 

Please watch this news story about Lacherl and her new home.