Knives Are Out for Mayor Gloria’s Homelessness Tactics

Beef Week is a special Voice of San Diego reporting theme week. Our reporters are following the biggest battles in the region. Read all the stories here.

A disparate group of supporters rallied to make Todd Gloria mayor three years ago with the belief he’d put a serious dent in the city’s homelessness crisis.  

Activists cheered Gloria’s campaign pledge to end enforcement of homelessness-related offenses they had decried under his Republican predecessor while NBA legend Bill Walton, a longtime San Diego booster, thought Gloria had what it took to reduce homelessness.  

Now Walton and some advocates who voted for Gloria have buyer’s remorse – and they have been very vocal about it. 

Months after Gloria took office, homeless advocates protested the Democrat’s continued use of police to address homelessness. Their opposition only ratcheted up as Gloria committed to increasing crackdowns on homeless camps and later, aggressively pushed a homeless camping ban. 

Walton’s frustrations erupted at a press conference last September. Unlike the advocates, he wanted Gloria to crack down more on those camps. He also wanted Gloria to resign.  

The conflicting beefs are emblematic of a raging nationwide debate over whether local leaders should take a more punitive approach to homelessness or focus solely on linking homeless people with housing and services. These divides have long bedeviled politicians like Gloria who face criticism no matter which position they choose, including if they try to cater to both sides. 

Yet Gloria’s critics also aren’t entirely divided. They agree that Gloria hasn’t done enough on the city’s foremost humanitarian scourge and push back on the mayor’s pronouncements that his efforts are making a significant, positive difference. They also don’t understand his strategy and believe he hasn’t kept his campaign promises. 

“He has lied about who he is, what he’s done and what he’s going to do,” Walton wrote in an email to Voice of San Diego. 

Gloria and his team have publicly tangled with his detractors and argued that the mayor also has plenty of supporters who appreciate his work on homelessness. Last September, his spokeswoman declared a September press conference where Walton unloaded about the mayor’s homelessness response “a tantrum full of self-aggrandizing hyperbole and outright lies.” 

And in the days before the City Council voted on a controversial homeless camping ban the mayor aggressively pushed, advocates protested at a University City press conference where Gloria promoted the ordinance. After advocates repeatedly chanted “plan not ban” over a bullhorn, an exasperated Gloria argued most San Diegans don’t agree with their views on homeless camps.  

Central to these fights is a challenging math problem: Even as the city adds more homeless services, the region and its homeless service system’s housing efforts aren’t keeping pace with the number of San Diegans falling into homelessness. There also isn’t enough temporary shelter or affordable housing for all who desperately want it. This means that San Diegans are continuing to see homeless camps and homeless San Diegans who appear increasing vulnerable. 

Gloria has said that he’s putting unprecedented resources toward his plan to combat homelessness. Gloria and his team tout additions on his watch of new shelter programs, two new safe campsites, expanded street outreach and safe parking options for people living in vehicles and more. He’s also said crackdowns on homeless camps are needed to address public health and safety threats. 

“Our constituents acknowledge that Mayor Gloria has done more than anyone in this city’s history to get people off the streets and connected to shelter and services that help end their homelessness,” Gloria spokeswoman Rachel Laing wrote in a statement. “We have received a great response to the work we’ve undertaken, both from people who were once resistant to shelter now entering our Safe Sleeping programs and from residents who have seen the improvement on our streets.” 

Statements like that irk some of Gloria’s former supporters.  

“The strategy on his side is to fool the public into thinking he’s doing something when he’s not and homeless people are the ones who have been paying the price,” said Coleen Cusack, a criminal defense attorney who represents homeless clients pro bono. She’s also running for City Council.  

Fellow activist Rachel Hayes, who moved into housing this summer after more than a decade of homelessness, agreed. She believes Gloria has blinders on and can’t help but speculate about why his perspective has shifted since he campaigned about focusing more on housing solutions than policing the problem. 

“Way back when he was a go-getter, he saw the solutions and he knew it was a housing crisis,” Hayes said. 

Hayes and Cusack have been two of the most outspoken opponents of the controversial homeless camping ban that Gloria championed with downtown City Councilman Stephen Whitburn this summer, which they say displaces homelessness rather than address it. They argue Gloria hasn’t done enough to add shelter and housing options, including for people with disabilities who now often can’t access city shelters. 

Cusack, who put Gloria yard signs in front of her North Park home during the 2020 mayoral campaign, is now eager to defend homeless San Diegans cited for camping ban violations in court. She believes the policy – which bars camping on public property at all times when shelter is available and in certain locations even when it’s not – is cruel and only makes homeless residents’ path off the street more challenging. She also hopes to oust Whitburn and try to change this policy. 

Frustration with Gloria’s homelessness response also spurred Walton to dial up his involvement in local politics. 

Walton recently endorsed San Diego police officer Larry Turner, who plans to challenge Gloria in next year’s mayoral race. Walton’s also urging the city to pursue Sunbreak Ranch, a remote camp where the city could move homeless San Diegans and provide services for them.  

(Laing recently told Voice that Gloria is “open to any and all ideas” to combat homelessness but has “told proponents that securing suitable land is the key first step to any conversation.” The commanding officer of the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar has said East Miramar, an area Sunbreak Ranch backers pitched, isn’t workable.) 

Walton’s beefs with Gloria’s homelessness response are numerous. For one, he isn’t impressed with the camping ban despite the fact that his Hillcrest neighborhood near Balboa Park was among the first to get signage paving the way for enforcement. He’s also highlighted how homelessness is impacting the lives of housed residents who he says now may feel unsafe accessing city amenities and destinations such as Balboa Park or the Central Library. 

Despite what detractors like Walton say, Gloria has said his administration has attacked the crisis from numerous angles including with shelter additions, bolstered tenant protections, reforms to try to deliver more affordable housing and the camping ban allowing the city to clear encampments near schools and parks among other locations. 

“Addressing homelessness is my No. 1 priority as mayor and this is not an issue that can be resolved by just turning a blind eye or just simply discussing it,” Gloria said at an Oct. 20 press conference announcing the opening of the city’s second safe campsite. “What we have done here is get to work and get action and results.”  

One thing Gloria and his detractors can agree on: He’s got a lot more work to do.