Oceanside has the second largest homeless population in North County, but it’s just now preparing to build its first shelter. Without a shelter to turn to, other homelessness prevention organizations often had to coordinate with shelters outside of the city for help with housing homeless individuals.
Leilani Hines, director of Oceanside’s Housing & Neighborhood Services department, said the city only now is in a financial position to move forward with the shelter after the city received $2.25 million to convert an old high school building into a proper homeless shelter.
Voice of San Diego’s Tigist Layne reports that Oceanside annually receives two sources of federal funding to address homelessness determined through formulas that weigh cities by population, poverty level and the age of their housing stock.
The city gets checks from both of those pots of funding, Hines said, but the checks aren’t very big. Between both sources, Oceanside has received around $1.6 million annually for the past several years.
Now, though, the city can move forward with the shelter because of a deal they struck with the San Diego Rescue Mission. After Oceanside pays to convert the shelter, the Rescue Mission will cover the costs of operating the shelter year after year.
Greg Anglea, CEO of Interfaith Community Services, a homelessness prevention organization, said this shelter will fill a huge gap that currently exists in Oceanside and will be critical to collaborative efforts.
Sayonara San Diego
San Diego’s growth rate has long followed one path.
The region was growing, largely thanks to more births than deaths among San Diego residents every year and migration. The assumption that this would continue has driven policy discussions for decades.
Now, the region is not growing, write Andrew Keatts and Scott Lewis in the latest Politics Report. For three consecutive years, the population has shrunk.
The region’s natural population growth — the difference between how many people are born here each year and how many people die here — is still positive. More babies are coming into the world here than people dying. The region has been losing population the last three years because more people have been moving away from San Diego than have been moving here.
Also, San Diegans who don’t want to live here anymore aren’t the only ones walking away. The city and county seem to be walking away from vaccine mandates. Read more about that in the Politics Report. Our weekly newsletter is exclusively available to Voice members. Support our work here.
Over on the podcast: our hosts talked about two former political allies in San Diego who are running next month for an open state Assembly seat and the various allegations against them. Our hosts also talked about the local government vaccine mandates that came in with a bang and are going out with a whimper.
In Other News
- San Diego-based craft brewer Stone Brewing won big late last week, though not as big as it hoped, for its trademark infringement lawsuit against brewing conglomerate Molson Coors Brewing Company and MillerCoors LLC. A jury awarded Stone Brewing $56 million in damages on Friday following a yearslong battle regarding MillerCoors’ use of the “stone” trademark. Stone Brewing had asked for a $216 million award. (Courthouse News)
- The Union-Tribune reports that teachers, custodians and other staff hired to help schools recover from the pandemic are already being cut because funding was temporary.
- The U-T also reports that SeaWorld owes the city of San Diego $10 million in back rent. (FYI link is for subscribers only) The company leases the property from the city and its arrangement is structured in such a way that gives taxpayers a stake in Seaworld’s success.
The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne, Jesse Marx and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
There is too much violence in Oceanside, alot of homeless people there need mental help.
put it on the mayor’s street!!