San Diego leaders have advanced a plan that would give mayors more power to unilaterally expand homelessness services as the number of people countywide losing a place to live for the first time continues to outpace how many homeless residents find housing.
One draft of the proposal would let a mayor declare a homelessness emergency if the population living outside exceeded the region’s shelter capacity by a certain amount. The directive would then allow administrations to sign off on yearslong contracts worth up to $5 million without approval from the City Council.
Council members on Monday approved a procedural measure that clears the way for a public hearing on the plan down the line.
“I see these powers as, frankly, being fairly limited,” Councilmember Stephen Whitburn said from the dais. “I think there are real reasons why we would want to streamline the ability to respond.”
Giving mayors emergency powers is one of several debates underway about how best to respond to a growing crisis when budgets at the city, state and national level are only expected to tighten. Some efforts to expand the region’s strained shelter system are at risk of stalling and Donald Trump’s re-election — which may bring increased funding for veteran homelessness as well as tariffs that could raise everybody’s cost of living — is a bona fide wild card.
Many local officials want the city to invest more in flexible pots of money that can cover one-off expenses, like car repairs or apartment deposits, in order to head off long-term homelessness.
“It’s an important investment to make sure that we are meeting people where they’re at,” Casey Snell, a senior vice president at the San Diego Housing Commission, said during Monday’s meeting, “versus waiting until it’s too late and then therefore the price tag has skyrocketed.”
It does appear that a monthslong scramble to offset the closure of two large shelters has paid off.
There are still around 200 people in the Paul Mirabile Center downtown, a traditional shelter that’s about to become a sober-living space, but those residents will be able to shift from room to room amid ongoing renovations, according to Josh Bohannan, Father Joe’s Villages’ director of government relations.
An additional 91 remained near the start of the month at Golden Hall, an aging Civic Center facility that’s at the end of its permit. Officials said everyone inside had agreed to move either to Veterans Village of San Diego’s Mission Hills campus or the Rescue Mission’s National City shelter, two locations that recently made beds available to San Diego.
The new sites will cost the city around $3.6 million through the rest of the fiscal year. San Diego’s budget analysts said that should be covered by what’s saved as a result of closing the Paul Mirabile Center and Golden Hall programs.
Other proposals to add shelter space are more uncertain.
One plan to take over a 105-room motel fell through — staffers wrote in a public report that the site “is no longer available” — and a lawsuit to stop a proposed lot near the airport where homeless people could sleep in their vehicles is still working its way through the court system.
The suit was filed by a real estate developer who believes the project is both illegal and imperils the construction of a new hotel. Mark Zebrowski, one of the group’s attorneys, said a hearing before a judge is likely months away.
City officials continue to talk with landlords who may have properties that can house homeless residents.
In the meantime, leaders are trying to reduce how long people stay in shelters. Diversion funds, which can cover those one-time expenses, helped move 23 households out of shelters and into permanent housing last month, staffers said. Another 23 were in the program at the end of November.
Participants tended to need between $3,000 and $5,000 to get back on their feet, according to Snell, from the housing commission. In contrast, officials said each person staying in a shelter can cost the city up to $100 per night.
In other words, diversion’s price tag is often less than a two-month shelter stay. “It seems to be a tool that we can, I think, leverage much more,” said Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera. “The resources are already in short supply and they’re only going to be in shorter supply in the years to come.”
Elo-Rivera added that he hoped homelessness nonprofits would lean more on private fundraising.
It’s not clear when the emergency powers proposal might be formally considered.
Whitburn was one of six council members who voted to advance the plan, although at least one of those colleagues, Marni von Wilpert, said she’d likely oppose the final measure. “I don’t believe that we’re not going to be in a state of emergency under these proposals, ever, given our housing crisis,” she added.
Raul Campillo and Vivian Moreno each voted “no.” Several economists have also raised concerns about the measure.
Proponents say speed is everything when hundreds of homeless people are dying on local streets each year. Sarah Jarman, head of the city’s homelessness strategies and solutions department, said emergency powers might have allowed the city to cut several weeks off the process of adding tents to San Diego’s designated camping areas near Balboa Park.
Mayor Todd Gloria previously said in an interview that he would declare a homelessness emergency if given that option, although one of his staffers, Kohta Zaiser, cautioned on Monday that the administration may now wait to make a decision until they see exactly what the council approves.
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