When driving past the airport, near boats swaying on the water, it’s easy to miss a cluster of aging buildings on the other side of the road.
There’s shattered glass. Cracked paint. Tall grass in crumbling concrete. It all looks like a set for the HBO apocalypse drama “The Last of Us.”
Soon the structures won’t be visible at all. But their absence will make space for one of the most significant debates about San Diego’s homelessness crisis in the new year.
Local leaders want to create what could be the city’s largest shelter, potentially providing hundreds of desperately needed beds. Some residents fear the possible effects, especially near Liberty Station’s schools and shops, and have organized a substantial opposition campaign.
The coming months should see both sides organizing public meetings about the future of the site known as H Barracks.
“Barring something drastic,” said Kohta Zaiser, the mayor’s deputy director of community engagement, “we plan to fully pursue this.”
Kohta Zaiser, the mayor’s deputy director of community engagement, stands in a lot near the airport where San Diego officials plan to build a temporary homeless shelter.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
A few decisions have already been made.
Crews are currently clearing asbestos and lead from the eight two-story buildings, which are shaped like giant “H’s.” (Thus the name.) The coming demolition will leave only a concrete slab.
It’s prime real estate, across North Harbor Drive from Spanish Landing, but the lot’s been promised to San Diego’s multibillion-dollar Pure Water recycling system.
Pure Water, however, doesn’t need it for five years, leaving the city with around seven empty acres and time to kill.
It’s an open question as to what kind of shelter might fill that gap.
Creating another parking lot where people can spend the night in cars is one option. A safe sleeping site that allows camping remains on the table.
The front-runner is an enormous fabric structure that could hold rows of bunk beds in one open space. A similar shelter in the nearby Midway district looks a bit like a circus tent.
The H Barracks lot could probably fit two, meaning there would be space for around 700 people.
At full capacity, the shelter could be biggest in the city. O Lot, San Diego’s second safe sleeping site near Balboa Park, technically has more room, but its two-person tents are unlikely to all fill simultaneously, especially since at least one operator signed a contract capping the number allowed in.
It’s the size that’s particularly concerning to some living nearby.
The Midway shelter holds just 150, Derek Falconer, a 43-year-old who lives in one of Liberty Station’s non-military homes, said in a phone interview. “I struggle with how you could put in an even larger facility and make it safe.”
Earlier this year, Falconer started an online opposition petition that had more than 6,200 signatures as of mid-December. A website launched under the banner of “Save Liberty Station,” similar signs have gone up around Point Loma and the Peninsula Community Planning Board, an advisory group, wrote the mayor to warn that the proposal “poses significant challenges and risks.”
The concerns are legion, from the potential effects on police workloads to the possibility that people might end up sleeping in airport terminals.
But the main objection centers on the site’s proximity to the classrooms, businesses and homes in one of the city’s most prominent cultural hubs.
To walk from H Barracks to Liberty Station, you travel west on North Harbor, turn into a Marriott parking lot, cross a concrete bridge and follow a dirt path past more hotels until you arrive at the first of several grass fields.
It recently took a reporter 12 minutes to reach the first park. The Rock Church is several minutes past that. (Representatives for the church and Marriott did not return requests for comment.)
It’s difficult to predict how boosting homeless services will affect a neighborhood.
Facilities in La Mesa and Escondido actually saw police calls drop after they began housing homeless people, although they primarily care for young adults or those recovering from hospital stays. There have been a number of high-profile arrests in El Cajon after local hotels accepted high numbers of rental-assistance vouchers, yet public data do not show a clear correlation between those vouchers and crime.
H Barracks would be low-barrier, meaning participants don’t have to be clean and sober.
City officials said the site would be stocked with everything needed to keep everybody safe: bathrooms, showers, provided meals, case managers, vehicles offering regular rides and 24/7 security.
Plus, leaders have emphasized that the open beds will make it easier for police to clear nearby encampments.
No-camping signs are going up this month around Liberty Station’s parks, according to Zaiser, from the city.
The warnings are a prerequisite to enforcing San Diego’s camping ban. While the department has so far punished relatively few people under the ordinance citywide, the new rules appear to have contributed to a sizable drop in downtown’s homeless population.
Enforcement should ramp up long before July 1, which is the earliest officials said a shelter would open.
Scott, 48, and his English Lab Stanley camped Dec. 8, 2023 near the H Barracks lot where San Diego officials plan to launch a homeless shelter.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
On a recent Friday, as workers hauled trash across the site, two men camped on the other side of the chain link fence. Wide fronds and birds of paradise made their tents almost invisible to passing cars.
Scott, 48, who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used, stood near a panting English Lab. He’d been living out of his truck in Liberty Station until that truck was towed, he said.
The San Diego native had heard good things about the city’s safe sleeping sites, which he called “tent cities,” and Scott was definitely feeling pressure from police and security guards.
Yet he was skeptical of accepting shelter. “I’m like anybody else, I don’t want to live with other homeless people.”
There were only a few individuals he trusted enough to sleep near. One was Anthony Ruiz, 26, who sat stirring a pot of ramen. A weathered bandage covered his right thumb.
“It’s easier with a friend,” Ruiz said.
