This post originally appeared in the Dec. 11 Morning Report. Get the Morning Report delivered to your inbox.
The City Council unanimously voted Tuesday to double the capacity of a shelter in the City Hall complex that was once considered a temporary solution.
The Union-Tribune reports that the shelter for women and families at Golden Hall will expand to 279 beds and begin welcoming young adults between 18 and 25 years old early next year.
This spring, Faulconer decided to temporarily move a shelter run by nonprofit Father Joe’s Villages to the second floor of the Golden Hall event center to accommodate families when the Father Joe’s shelter tent at 14th and Commercial streets in East Village shuttered to make way for a housing project. Then, in June, the City Council made a surprise decision to keep using Golden Hall as a shelter.
Now the city is planning to pair $705,000 in state Homeless Emergency Aid Program funds with $3.6 million in city funds to expand the shelter and contract with the LGBT Community Center and San Diego Youth Services to serve homeless young adults.
The City Council also separately voted Tuesday to establish a $2 million fund to aid homeless San Diegans who need flexible subsidies to access housing or avoid ending up on the street.
City Councilman Chris Ward, who chairs the countywide group coordinating the region’s response to homelessness, said the shelter expansion and flexible funding pool will help the city make progress on goals in its new homelessness plan to halve street homelessness and end youth homelessness in the next three years.
“These additional beds will help serve the 353 homeless youth in the city of San Diego and a new flexible funding pool allows us to provide different ways of immediate support requested by homeless San Diegans, thereby moving them into housing faster and getting us closer to achieving the goals identified in our Community Action Plan on Homelessness,” Ward wrote in a statement.