Dear Neighbor,  

Veterans Day is this week, so I want to take the time to express my sincere appreciation to San Diegans who’ve served our country and our city. 

We all know veterans and military family members bring an incredible skillset and are the service-oriented people we want to stay in our city when they complete their service. That’s why, in 2021, I established our Veterans, Military, and Families Advisory Council to help us ensure we are creating the most welcoming environment for veterans, military service members and their families.  

The Advisory Council helps us better understand the needs of our military and veteran community living in our city and also helps ensure we provide our City workers who are military vets with all the tools and services needed to be successful. 

We currently have 641 veterans in our City’s workforce, and we are actively working to recruit people who want to continue their public service working for the people of San Diego.  

Later this week, we’ll be announcing a new program that will enhance our efforts to engage our military and veteran population and ensure San Diego is a place they can thrive. Stay tuned! 

As always, it’s an honor to serve as your Mayor. 

Three Years in, Here’s What We’ve Accomplished for San Diego 

It’s been nearly three years since I took office, so I used the milestone as an opportunity to take stock of what my administration has accomplished toward our goal of making San Diego a great place to grow up, go to school or university, work, create, raise a family, build a business -- and thrive in general.

The post-pandemic circumstances have been challenging, but our city workers have consistently risen to the occasion. I am truly so proud of everything we’ve done together so far to put in place policies and programs that will improve the quality life for all San Diegans. 

Check out our comprehensive list of my administration’s policy accomplishments, a few examples of which include: 

• Fast-tracked 100% affordable home projects through a streamlined, 30-day permitting process, which has already resulted in over 600 homes being permitted and over 1,200 in the pipeline 

• Created the Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department, which has opened a diverse array of new shelters adding hundreds of new beds serving seniors, women, families, LGBTQ+ youth and people struggling with addiction and other behavioral health issues 

• Launched the City’s Safe Sleeping program, creating space for more than 500 City-provided tents for individuals and couples experiencing homelessness 

• Secured passage of the Unsafe Camping Ordinance in partnership with City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn and banned unsanitary tent encampments citywide 

• Launched and then expanded the person-centered Coordinated Street Outreach Program, which deploys outreach workers in all areas of the City who build trust with unsheltered residents to persuade them to accept shelter and services 

• Significantly increased our investment in city streets, with a focus on repairing San Diego’s most important, high-volume roadways 

• Developed the Parks for All of Us initiative and adopted a new Parks Master Plan designed to be a more equitable long-term planning strategy for park development across the city 

• Created the “Sexy Streets” initiative, which set aside $40 million of road repairs targeting 54 miles of both the highest trafficked corridors and some of the longest neglected streets in each Council District 

• Helped improve the condition of City streets by overhauling the City’s Street Preservation Ordinance to require timely and complete restoration of all excavation trenching and other activity in the public right of way, as well as full cost recovery for long-term impacts 

• Directed our San Diego Police Department to focus on and help address the illicit fentanyl crisis to curb the addiction and overdoses that are claiming the lives of too many San Diegans 

• Made San Diego safer by securing approval of the use of Smart Streetlights and Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technologies to investigate and solve the most serious crimes quickly 

• Banned ghost guns in the City of San Diego through an ordinance authored by City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert to help address increasing gun violence and the rapid proliferation of non-serialized firearms

If you have something you think should change in your neighborhood, or a project that you think deserves more City support, email my team at mayortoddgloria@sandiego.gov. 

City of San Diego Helps Secure 15% Flood Insurance Discount for Property Owners  

The City of San Diego is helping make flood insurance more affordable for San Diegans. 

We’ve joined a federal program that offers a significant discount to any community that exceeds the minimum floodplain management and protection standards.

As a result, all property owners in San Diego enrolled in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) will receive the discount when they renew their annual insurance premiums. About 3,000 San Diego property owners will benefit.

This cost reduction is a testament to the Stormwater Department’s work to minimize flood risk in our neighborhoods and put the safety of our communities first. We know people are struggling to make ends meet with costs going up everywhere, and this is an opportunity to lower the financial burden for many San Diegans.

Read more about these cost savings on Inside San Diego. 

Turning Strip Malls and Parking Lots into Homes  

San Diegans deserve a roof over their heads at a price they can afford.   

My latest effort to help reach that goal is Housing Action Package 2.0, a set of policy proposals and amendments that will remove barriers to building more homes, incentivize the creation of more new homes near transit, provide protections to existing residents, and increase the supply of land available for new homes.   

One of the proposals in HAP 2.0 will help spur the creation of housing on commercial sites that aren't being put to good use. Picture a mostly empty parking lot or an abandoned strip mall with too much parking being redeveloped into a mixed-use development with restaurants and shops.    

To get this done, I’m proposing an amendment to the City’s Land Development Code to provide a density bonus for these residential or mixed-use developments on commercial sites that are close to planned or existing public transportation. 

This policy amendment and the rest of the HAP 2.0 proposal will go to the full City Council for consideration on Monday, Nov. 13.    

Learn more about all of the proposals in HAP 2.0 here. 

San Diego Senior Goes from Temporary Shelter to Permanent Home  

After decades of working and living in a stable home, a medical emergency turned Allen Douglas’ life upside down.  

The San Diegan survived a brain aneurism, but he lost his job and home in the process. 

“I was in a coma for like three weeks and I woke up and didn't know what was going on,” Allen said. “I ended up losing my job because I wasn't able to drive no more. And that really hurt because I was used to taking care of myself.”

Homeless, he turned to the San Diego Rescue Mission for help. From there, Allen was connected to resources, and a case manager placed him in a room at the City of San Diego’s Seniors Landing Bridge Shelter, a 33-room non-congregate facility operated by Serving Seniors under a contract administered by the City’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department.

Seniors Landing serves residents 55 and older who’ve been matched with housing resources, such as rapid-rehousing assistance, permanent supportive housing or a housing voucher.

"At Seniors Landing, they provided shelter, transportation, food and a place that I could lay my head,” Allen said. "It was very nice. The people who were there were good people, and I found good friends. We would sit there and talk and share the situations that we went through and helped build each other up.”

Allen stayed at Seniors Landing for just a few months while he awaited the much-anticipated opening of Jamboree Housing’s Milejo Village, a new affordable housing project that celebrated its grand opening last week. The complex is now providing supportive housing for 65 formerly homeless families and seniors, including Allen and other seniors who were staying at the City’s Seniors Landing shelter.  

Milejo Village was developed in partnership with our San Diego Housing Commission and the County of San Diego’s Health and Human Services Agency. The project includes comprehensive, dedicated onsite supportive services to help ensure the seniors and families living in Milejo Village have the resources they need to be successful and remain stable and secure in their housing. 

“So now this is home,” Allen said, showing off his new one-bedroom apartment at Milejo Village. 

Allen is in school and working toward becoming a drug and alcohol counselor so he can help people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless get over their addictions. He’s also volunteering at the San Diego Rescue Mission because he says he feels like now that he has housing, it’s his turn to help others get on the same path.  

“I want to let other people know the story that I went through and to let them know that everything is going to be okay.”