San Diego County is still investigating what gave dozens of people diarrhea at one of the city’s designated camping areas for homeless residents, but officials said nobody was hospitalized and there were no new cases.
Around 30 people and four staffers fell ill last week at O Lot, near Balboa Park, prompting an inquiry by the environmental health and quality department.
One of the site’s operators, the nonprofit Dreams for Change, reported no new illnesses as of Tuesday, according to city spokesperson Matt Hoffman.
The majority of those sickened were “feeling better” and the four staffers “have recovered and are back at work,” Hoffman wrote in a message.
He added that a contract with the catering company Rowe Solutions Inc. had been “paused” out of an “abundance of caution,” although there wasn’t yet evidence that the organization was at fault.
Frank Rowe, the company’s founder and CEO, said in a phone interview that investigators had not found problems with their meal prep services. Rowe’s website lists several government agencies as past customers, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the CEO said they’d never been cited for health violations.
At O Lot, the company purchases pre-made meals that are heated up before being served and several groups participated in that process, he said. Rowe added that he was “honored” to help feed homeless residents and hoped everyone sickened made a full recovery.
County spokesperson Tim McClain wrote in an email that “the likely source of transmission appears to be person to person rather than food borne.”
O Lot opened in October and recently hosted about 370 residents spread throughout hundreds of two-person tents. Intakes have been paused amid the investigation.
The site is further up a hill than San Diego’s other camping area, by 20th and B streets. While the latter location was temporarily evacuated during Monday’s historic storm, O Lot was not.
Leaders previously said they isolated those with symptoms, boosted janitorial services, added toilets and hand-washing stations, re-cleaned shared areas and handed out bottled water.
The site is also run by the Downtown San Diego Partnership.
The city has invested heavily in legal camp sites as the region struggles with a shelter shortage and people continue to become homeless.
While Mayor Todd Gloria has pledged to add 1,000 new beds this year, that effort took at hit this week when flooding devastated one downtown facility that had been holding hundreds. Those residents have since been moved to a gym.
