The San Diego City Council on Tuesday passed a plan aimed at addressing the impending loss of more than 600 shelter beds by expanding the city’s safe sleeping sites near Balboa Park.
The three amendments to the city’s contracts with providers at those safe sleeping sites passed unanimously, as did the city’s short-term action plan on homelessness, which requests an update from the mayor's office and the San Diego Housing Commission, among others, by Dec. 10.
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By the end of the year, 614 city-run shelter beds will go offline: 264 at Golden Hall, which is closing after winter storm damage, and 350 at Father Joe’s Paul Mirabile Center, which is transitioning to a private detox and sober living facility.
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As part of the city’s response, the city council approved three amendments to its contracts with service providers at the two safe sleeping sites: one at O Lot and the other at 20th and B. Both sites have tents that can house up to two people apiece, restrooms, showers, security and other resources available.
The safe sleeping site at 20th and B opened in June 2023 and currently has 133 spaces, while the O Lot site opened in October 2023 and has roughly 408 spaces. Dreams for Change operates both, and the Downtown San Diego Partnership also operates at O Lot.
The new contracts are worth more than $31 million, should the city choose to exercise its option to extend them over the next three to four years. For the current year, it increases the funding from $5.8 million to $7 million to add 235 spaces total to both sites.
During discussion on the contracts, Councilmember Stephen Whitburn noted that was a 21% increase in cost for a 43% increase in the number of spots available.
Advocates said the loss of the shelter beds – and the rising tide of homelessness across the region – is a crisis that requires both swift and long-term action.
“We've had a shelter bed crisis here in San Diego for years now,” Levi Giafaglione said. Giafaglione experienced homelessness for more than six years despite working full-time. Now, he advocates for the unhoused.
“I have done shelter referral after shelter referral, and it never ceases to change that every single day at 9 a.m., all of our shelters are full," he said.
“You lose hope. You lose hope because day after day you're told, ‘Oh, just go to this place. Just go stand in line. There's plenty of help. Just go get it.’ And then when you try to go get that help and, you know, the case manager says there's not a shelter bed available for you today, you feel like that case manager didn't care,” Giafaglione continued. “You feel like nobody cares. And ultimately, you know, you stop believing in yourself as well.”
Giafaglione said the city will face a problem when the 614 shelter beds go offline and needs to invest in more permanent, structural fixes.
“We're roughly 180,000 homes short in San Diego for the amount of people who live here. And so we've got to be able to build more housing and do a lot less procrastinating in that area,” he said. “So I'd like to see more long-term solutions, than short-term solutions.”
