Addressing homelessness is my top priority. Every single day, we are getting people off the street, connected to services and on a path to securing permanent housing. 

People Who Said No to Other Shelter Options are Saying Yes to Safe Sleeping 

There are many reasons why unsheltered San Diegans are resistant to offers of shelter, but thanks to new programs, we’re helping more people get off the streets and on the path to ending their homelessness. 

Some have concerns about congregate settings, many struggle with mental health challenges, trauma, a lack of trust and other deep-seeded issues that prevent them from seeking help. 

Understanding the myriad reasons behind choosing to remain on the street rather than accept help has guided the City as we work to continue to address homelessness in San Diego. 

We’ve opened family and senior shelters, as well as for transitional-aged youth and other populations with specific needs. This past year, we launched Safe Sleeping sites, which offer some a simpler transition from life in street encampments into a safer and cleaner environment where they have access to services, meals and bathrooms. 

Since we opened our Safe Sleeping sites last year, we’ve seen people who thought they’d never accept help from the City finally saying yes and enrolling in these outdoor sites. As of Wednesday, 521 people were enrolled in our Safe Sleeping program. 

Once enrolled, outreach workers at our Safe Sleeping sites offer people a safe place to sleep, food, showers and a variety of services that help them work toward getting back into a home.  

We have more work to do to address homelessness in San Diego, but the early success of our new Safe Sleeping program proves the value of being more creative in our approach to addressing homelessness. 

Read more about the success of our Safe Sleeping program in an op-ed by Councilmember Stephen Whitburn.  

Understanding the City's Shelter System 

The City of San Diego has contracts with various service providers to offer shelter options to people experiencing homelessness. At our shelters, people are connected to support services and ultimately put on a path toward permanent housing.  

The shelters listed below are City-funded or included as part of the City’s Coordinated Intake System for shelter placements. (Note: There are additional shelters outside of this system that are operating within the City of San Diego.) 

• Alpha Project Bridge Shelter I 
• Alpha Project Bridge Shelter II 
• Barrio Logan Family Shelter 
• 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 
• LGBT Center - LGBTQ+ Affirming TAY Shelter (Clairemont) 
• LGBT Center - LGBTQ+ Affirming TAY Shelter (Midway) 
• PATH Connections Housing 
• O Lot Safe Sleeping Site  
• Rachel’s Promise Women’s Shelter 
• Rosecrans Shelter 
• Safe Sleeping at 20th & B  
• Safe Sleeping at O Lot  
• Salvation Army Interim Family Shelter 
• San Diego Youth Services 
• Seniors Landing  
• San Diego Youth Services 
• Urban Street Angels Youth Shelter 

From an Encampment to a Home: Alejandra Chacon is Thriving Thanks to State-Funded Grant Program

For months, Alejandra Chacon was one of the people living in a string of encampments in East Village near the old Central Library.  

“I was too embarrassed to ask for help,” Chacon said. “My pride got in my way."  

But help did eventually reach Alejandra, thanks to a state-funded grant program that works to get people out of encampments and connected to housing, services and shelter.

Now, Alejandra is housed — along with 18 other people who were transitioned from the unsafe and unsanitary encampments to permanent housing. Seventy-one other people living in the encampments were also placed into shelter.

This critical work was made possible through the City’s grant-funded E Street Encampment Project.

The City’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department (HSSD) was awarded $2.45 million from the State of California’s Encampment Resolution Funding grant program. The money was used specifically to get people who were living in encampments along the blocks surrounding the U.S. Post office and old Downtown Central Library off the streets and connected to housing, shelter and services. 

California has so far cleared over 5,600 encampments thanks to this innovative state funding program. 

Our E Street Encampment Project focused on the encampments from Broadway to F Street and Seventh to 10th Avenues in East Village. HSSD contracted with nonprofit organizations NAMI San Diego and Healthcare in Action to conduct intensive outreach efforts, cultivate relationships with unsheltered residents in the area and offer services such as case management, health education, public benefits, mental health and substance abuse treatment, primary care referrals and access to hygiene kits, transportation and basic essentials.  

“I wouldn’t be here in my house right now without the help of my outreach team. They stayed on me to make sure I did what I had to do to get into a place,” Alejandra said. “They helped me get myself together and take my medication like I’m supposed to take it. Having that support around me was important, because I don’t think I could have done it myself.”

The East Village project is the first of three neighborhoods in the city of San Diego that will benefit from these efforts to move people from encampments to shelter and housing under the Encampment Resolution Funding Grant Program.

Read more about how San Diego is putting state funding to work on Inside San Diego.

More Affordable Housing Opening in San Ysidro, Fast-Tracked by New City Program  

Developers have broken ground on the Vista Lane Affordable Apartments in San Ysidro.  

Vista Lane Affordable Apartments is a new community that will serve low-income families with a total of 100 units. Fifteen units will be set aside for people with developmental disabilities, and another 10 units will be ADA compliant, including nine accessible units and four units for people with hearing and/or visual impairments. 

Vista Lane is the product of the City’s action-oriented approach to getting more San Diegans into homes they can afford. Nearly a year ago, moments before delivering the 2023 State of the City address, Mayor Todd Gloria signed an executive order requiring permits for 100% affordable housing projects to be reviewed within 30 days. The City's Development Services Department went to work and created the Affordable Housing Permit Now program, and Vista Lane was one of the first to be permitted under this program, which is saving time and money and getting shovels in the ground faster.

The City’s Development Services team not only accepted the challenge and created this fast-tracked permitting program for affordable housing, but has exceeded expectations and is now getting projects reviewed in less than 15 days in many cases.

The team behind Vista Lane includes Mirka Investments, C&S Construction Services, Martinez + Cutri Urban Studio Corporation and Hyder Property Management Professionals. Once the project opens later this year, the new apartment community will serve as a shining example of how the City of San Diego and our partners are working together to help address the housing-affordability crisis.

Founder of Nonprofit that Helps People and Animals Experiencing Homelessness in San Diego Honored as CNN ‘Hero of the Year’

Dr. Kwane Stewart — a veterinarian whose nonprofit, Project Street Vet, provides medical care to the pets of people experiencing homelessness in San Diego and several other cities — was recently named the 2023 CNN “Hero of the Year.’ 

Project Street Vet’s San Diego team is one of our partners who help people experiencing homelessness through outreach events twice a month. 

The City of San Diego’s Coordinated Street Outreach Program holds these outreach events in areas identified as having large congregations of people experiencing homelessness. 

During the multi-agency events, outreach teams canvass an area to engage unsheltered folks and connect them to supportive services including access to case management, health education, public benefits, mental health and substance abuse treatment, primary care referrals, access to hygiene kits, transportation and veterinary care for their pets when Project Street Vet is there.  

Learn more about San Diego’s Project Street Vet team here.  

Volunteer to Help with the Annual #WeAllCount Effort 

The purpose of #WeAllCount is to collect data on the needs of people experiencing homelessness in our community. 

This count also provides an excellent opportunity to increase awareness of homelessness and to spark action. 

This year’s #WeAllCount is happening from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 25. To volunteer to help this effort, register here.  

When registering for a particular volunteer site, please review the volunteer hours listed in the volunteer portal and in your volunteer confirmation email. If you have any questions regarding your site, email pitc@rtfhsd.org.