Former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer and former San Diego police chief Shelley Zimmerman held a news conference Monday outside the Alpha Project's Bridge Shelter at 16th Street and Newton Avenue, criticizing Mayor Todd Gloria and Councilmember Stephen Whitburn's proposed ordinance that would ban camping on sidewalks within a two block radius of homeless encampments and schools.
The ordinance would also ban camping on sidewalks in public places like parks, canyons and riverbeds, and disallow camping on sidewalks across the city — but only if there's enough shelter capacity to move someone from an encampment to a site.
The San Diego homelessness crisis
The city plans to open two safe sleeping parking lots — one of which is in Balboa Park — in July and September that would have the capacity for 500 people to sleep inside their tents. Whitburn has said he hopes these parking lots can help boost capacity so that the ordinance would be enforceable.
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Faulconer told reporters on Monday that the city should focus more of its efforts on securing funding and quickly setting up more bridge shelters that provide support for services. He said that bridge shelters have proven to be the most effective at getting people off the streets and eventually into permanent supportive housing.
"I'm saying the city council should amend this ordinance before we move forward, to insist on shelters now, not shelters with no plan and no budget — that’s what's critically important," Faulconer said.
Faulconer and Zimmerman said they believe the ordinance would just move people from one part of the city to another. Faulconer said he was speaking out because he believes it's the right thing to do, but he also admitted that he is considering his political future, including a potential run for San Diego County Supervisor's District 3 seat.
In response to Faulconer's concerns about the ordinance, a spokesperson for Gloria, Dave Rolland, said in a statement to NBC 7 that “Mayor Gloria has done far more to address homelessness than anyone in our region’s history, including increasing shelter capacity by 70%, significantly expanding the Safe Parking program and the creation of two safe sleeping sites for hundreds of people to camp legally and safely, to go along with a prohibition on tent encampments. Our new comprehensive shelter strategy, which Mayor Gloria is bringing forward tomorrow before the city council, lays out our plans for the short, medium and long term, and demonstrates the diligence and intensity of the city’s efforts to address the crisis."
The latest point-in-time count numbers found that the number of homeless people in San Diego increased by 14% compared with last year.
Giorgio Kirlyo, who lives and works in the East Village, told NBC 7 on Monday that, while he agrees with Faulconer that this proposed ordinance doesn't go far enough, Kirlyo thinks it should pass and is a good first step at addressing the growing encampments in his neighborhood.
"Every single day, our kids walk down this street, past this encampment, and they go to this school, and the police cannot do anything about it," Kirlyo said.
