The Morning Report
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I was out on an interview all day yesterday when some news broke on the city of San Diego’s approach to homelessness:
The city’s Housing Commission officially released its recommendations on a long-awaited plan for a permanent homeless services facility, often called the “one-stop center” where homeless and extremely low-income residents will be linked to housing and services.
The gist of the plan is this: Renovate the city-owned World Trade Center on 6th Avenue into a permanent homeless shelter, with transitional and permanent housing for up to 225 people.
The center would provide medical services, drug and alcohol treatment and mental health screening on-site, services often touted as key components for moving people out of homelessness for good.
Here are a couple of rundowns of the news, from the U-T and from CityBeat.
I’m still going through the information that came out yesterday myself. Help me out if you see anything I should follow up on in the Housing Commission report, the Land Use and Housing Committee agenda for Wednesday’s meeting, or the report from City Planning and Community Investment Department
The process for this proposal has been long. Last July, the Housing Commission told me the committee was “a month away from picking a plan for a new one-stop center.”
In August, they said to “cross your fingers for October.”
In October, they told me that month wasn’t the month.
Now it’s April, and the recommendations will go to the City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
Some background on the process from the Housing Commission’s release:
The City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee started the process in December 2008 by approving a draft request for homeless center proposals.
The selection committee reviewed proposals that were submitted by various nonprofit groups. Those were narrowed to two finalists: Father Joe’s Villages and the partnership of PATH Ventures and Affirmed Housing.
A report published in 2009 by the Regional Task Force on the Homeless estimated there were 4,338 homeless persons living in the city of San Diego. Of those, 1,868 persons were living on the streets, 656 were living in emergency shelters and 1,814 were living in transitional housing.
The lack of shelter beds for the homeless was a major factor in a 2007 legal settlement that forced San Diego police to cease ticketing homeless people for “illegal lodging,” or sleeping on sidewalks, doorways and vacant lots between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
— KELLY BENNETT