Balakrishnan Rajagopal isn’t sold on San Diego’s safe sleeping sites where homeless people may camp in tents.
The United Nations expert is also concerned that the large amount of land in the city reserved for single-family homes prevents the spread of more affordable housing.
However, after spending several days studying homelessness in the area, he was encouraged by the number of residents who have stepped up to help.
“The level of engagement and civic commitment — it’s really a tribute to the capacity of the ordinary people of San Diego,” Rajagopal said in a phone interview Tuesday. “That’s one of the reasons why I think what’s really a crisis has not escalated to the state of a catastrophe.”
Rajagopal is the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, meaning he’s an unpaid independent expert appointed by the organization’s human rights council.
He spent several days last week visiting encampments, meeting with local officials and speaking at San Diego Community College and Point Loma Nazarene University. Rajagopal plans to pass along his conclusions to representatives of the federal government, although trips like these do not result in formal reports to the U.N.
The rapporteur was critical of the city’s designated camping areas after touring the site at 20th and B streets, by Balboa Park.
“I would shut it down today,” he said.
Among several concerns, Rajagopal argued that tents should never be offered as shelter and those being used were simultaneously not warm enough and placed too close together in case of fire.
The city needed to at least offer structures with roofs, he said.
Local leaders have defended the lots as needed stopgaps amid a growing crisis and some residents have said the accompanying security, bathrooms, transportation and food, among other services, were at least improvements over life on the street.
“I share Mr. Rajagopal’s view that housing is a human right,” Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, who has supported both the program and San Diego’s camping ban, wrote in an email. “Anything short of an adequate home is insufficient.”
Whitburn highlighted recent efforts to build more affordable units, including new incentives for constructing single-room-occupancy hotels.
“In the meantime, though, we can’t have people living in squalor in encampments,” Whitburn said. The council member estimated that more than 500 people had so far agreed to move in and around 300 were waiting for open spots.
City spokesperson Matt Hoffman said sleeping bags and blankets were provided.
“Spacing of the tents aligns with the fire code” and extinguishers were “easily accessible” to everyone, he wrote in an email.
Hoffman noted that Rajagopal’s tour had followed a historic storm that forced a temporary evacuation.
“After record rain, city staff and site operators were prioritizing cleanup and resident needs at the time of the unannounced visit,” he added.
Rajagopal also recommended San Diego again ban evictions, explore ways to freeze rents and negotiate with the military to use more federal land for housing.
Ultimately, he said the state Constitution needed an amendment declaring housing a human right.
