Five years ago, a state law took effect requiring hospitals across California to prioritize placing their homeless patients in shelters after discharge.
Yet homeless San Diegans leaving local hospitals now are often forced to compete with dozens of other homeless residents vying for a limited number of shelter beds – and end up sleeping on the street where the conditions that led them to the hospital can fester.
Why it’s happening: Our Lisa Halverstadt reveals that the city’s shelter intake system doesn’t allow local hospitals to directly refer their patients to city shelters and those shelters don’t have beds set aside for homeless patients. The 2019 state law also didn’t come with funding to supply new shelter beds.
At least one hospital system – Scripps Health – has lobbied the San Diego Housing Commission to let the hospital group be part of its shelter referral system. The city and its housing agency, however, argue that local hospitals need to step up financially to make that happen.
This story is the latest chapter of our series on homeless hospital patients. Last week, Halverstadt and contributor Peggy Peattie wrote about how local hospitals are often ill-equipped to address the complex needs of homeless patients pouring into their emergency rooms and to help them find safe places to recover.
Border Report: How Immigration Changed a State School Program
In 1997, Baja California launched a program to send Mexican teachers to the United States to teach summer school classes to Mexican-American students. The push behind this initiative was to ensure that students held on to their culture.
That program switched gears 14 years later to help children of U.S. deportees transition into Mexico’s school. Many of those children did not speak Spanish. Then, the program changed again.
The program now focuses on helping students born in the United States, Haiti and Central America transition into Mexican schools. Staff work closely with teachers and administrators to help students adjust.
Important to note: Baja California’s education system has no second-language programs unlike in California. Newcomers are immediately mainstreamed into regular classrooms with Mexican children. According to the state program, 42,000 foreign-born students are enrolled in Baja’s elementary and middle schools. Most of those are in Tijuana.
One Evacuation and More Storm Updates
The city of San Diego announced late Monday that it temporarily moved homeless residents out of its 20th and B streets safe campsite and into Golden Hall “out of an abundance of caution” due to forecasted rain. After previously evacuating the site during the Jan. 22 downpour, the city says it has worked to fortify both of its Balboa Park safe sleeping sites.
Jan. 22, was the fourth wettest day in San Diego since at least 1850.
Cities across the county were hit with flash floods that left millions of dollars’ worth of damage to city infrastructure and to residents’ homes and businesses. Neighborhoods in southeastern San Diego were hit the hardest.
It prompted both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gloria to declare a state of emergency.
Increased outreach: San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and Councilmember Vivian Moreno launched a storm door-to-door outreach initiative last week for residents impacted by a wave of storms that are still hitting San Diego. City staff have gone out to help residents get the services they need. There’s also a hotel placement program run by the San Diego Housing Commission to help people displaced from their homes.
Storms have continued since then, with this round of rain expected to continue through Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning.
In Other News
- Heavy rainfall across San Diego County is expected to continue through Tuesday night, with 2 to 3 inches of rain expected in San Diego and South County and 3 to 4 inches of rain in North County. (Union-Tribune)
- Chula Vista rejected a cannabis business’s license applications twice before the business took the city to court for violating its own licensing rules and won. Now Chula Vista has rejected its application for a third time, and the two entities are scheduled to go back to court on Feb. 16. (Union-Tribune)
- The Encinitas Planning Commission postponed a decision last week on a 485-unit apartment complex that received hours of public comments from mostly opponents. Critics of Quail Meadows Apartments, the largest residential development in the city’s history, say they fear the impact that the project’s two massive buildings will have on surrounding areas. (Coast News)
- As a landslide in San Clemente continues to halt passenger train traffic between San Diego and Orange County, freight trains have continued running. The U-T explains why the route is safe for cargo, but not people. (Union-Tribune)
- The California Primary Election is just one month away, and KPBS has rounded up information about the key races and measures that will be on this year’s ballot. (KPBS)
The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt, Tigist Layne and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
Leave a comment