Cup of Chisme: What We Found When We Checked the Mayor

City Council meetings can be pretty dense.

And they aren’t always as interesting or well-attended as the San Diego City Council meeting on June 13. On that date the council was voting on an encampment ban.

After hours of public comment, debate and some tense moments on the dais, a divided council approved the ban. We covered some of that here. But in the middle of all of that, a claim by the mayor caught investigative reporter Will Huntsberry’s attention.

This wasn’t the first time: Mayor Todd Gloria has been saying for weeks now that he has increased shelter bed capacity by 70 percent. The mayor has been using that number to bolster support for the ban. Basically, he was saying he has done a lot to offer homeless residents options, and with this ban, they must accept those options or deal with the consequences, because as he put it, “deteriorating” on the street is no longer an option.

Hold Up, 70 Percent?

Here’s what the mayor said at that meeting, “The unsafe camping ordinance is not a standalone solution. In fact, it comes after we have collectively worked together to expand shelter capacity by 70 percent …”

The fact check: Compared to his predecessor’s situation, Mayor Gloria has increased shelter capacity by 28 percent — not 70. Now, 28 percent is not nothing. It’s also not 70 percent, as Huntsberry reports.

Here’s how the mayor’s team gets 70 percent: They start their count on April 1, 2021. This is four months after Gloria took office and a time when shelter beds were artificially low because of restrictions related to the pandemic. On that date, the city funded 1,071 shelter beds and it now funds 1,805. The math here does get you 70 percent.

Huntsberry writes, “choosing a day in April 2021, when shelter capacity was temporarily reduced due to a natural disaster, and comparing it to today, paints a distorted picture.”

How We Got to 28 Percent

We started our count before Covid-19 and before Gloria was in office in January 2020. At that time the city funded 1,409 shelter beds, according to available data. That’s a 28 percent increase.

Huntsberry explains why counting on a certain date is important. Read the fact check here.

More Chisme to Start Your Week

This week, our reporters published important accountability stories. Grab some cafectio, here are your weekend stories.

• Tigist Layne dug into Palomar Health’s finances. The North County public healthcare provider is expected to take a big financial hit, all while it’s in a lot of debt and not bringing in as much income as it did last year. Read the story here.
• Voice contributor Kelly Davis reports that the state is transferring incarcerated youth to county facilities. That move isn’t going so well. While state youth jails have had issues with mismanagement and abuse, they have made progress in the programs they offer youth. Now, the county needs to step up it’s programing. It had time to adjust, but advocates and incarcerated youth say it’s not great. Read more about the transition here.
• Response to our reporting: MacKenzie Elmer reported that a wastewater treatment plant is more broken than some thought. It’s going to need significant repairs and it’s going to cost a lot of money. This week, she reported that San Diego’s Congressional delegates were not too happy to find out that the situation is worst than they thought. Read the Environment Report here. Elmer also explained what’s going on with the treatment plant (and bravely managed the stink) for a video she posted here.

Correction: This post has been updated to correct the number of city-funded shelter beds.