Deaths of homeless San Diegans reached a tragic new high in 2023.
Our Will Huntsberry reports that the county Medical Examiner’s Office investigated the deaths of 624 unhoused people last year – up from 592 in 2022.
San Diego’s homeless community has been especially plagued by a fentanyl crisis that’s also afflicted many housed San Diegans. Rising fentanyl deaths have helped fuel dramatic increases in homeless deaths in recent years – and have left an impression on homeless residents who have lost many friends and street family members since the deadly opioid hit San Diego streets.
Other grim trends this year: Huntsberry found motor vehicle deaths, homicides and suicides were also up in San Diego’s homeless population.
Worth noting: County medical examiners don’t investigate all deaths. They focus on sudden, unexpected deaths which means the number of unhoused people who die each year is likely higher than the Medical Examiner’s Office totals.
More on Midway Rising Subsidy
Yesterday we posed a series of questions about the news this week that the city of San Diego and developer team trying to redesign the nearly 50 acres of land the city owns in Midway were going to work on an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, or EIFD. “Midway Rising May Get Subsidy” the Union-Tribune’s front page announced in giant text March 13.
If approved, the EIFD would keep property taxes generated by the development in the area and use them to fund infrastructure improvements. In other words, the county and city would not get the money from the property tax revenues created by the improvements on the land. (Schools would still get their cut of future property taxes.) We asked whether an EIFD had always been part of the plan to help pay for the development and other bidders had proposed doing it.
The answer was easy to find: Yes, each of the three final teams with which the city considered entering into negotiations to develop the property proposed doing an EIFD. HomeTown SD proposed using the money “to finance optional river park improvements and reimburse development impact fees.” Midway Village + had a similar approach but also imagined keeping the additional sales taxes created by the development in the area.
New Goal to House Homeless Vets
The Department of Veteran Affairs on Thursday announced its goal to house 900 of San Diego’s homeless veterans this year.
The VA told 10 News it’s already housed 318 homeless veterans so far.
The VA’s new goal follows a Union-Tribune story revealing about 40 percent supportive housing vouchers for unhoused veterans set aside for San Diego County went unused last year. The Union-Tribune story spurred four members of San Diego’s Congressional delegation to urge the San Diego VA to issue more vouchers and ensure all are used.
Reminder: San Diego County last year set its own goal to functionally end veteran homelessness in the region. The county and Regional Task Force on Homelessness reported that the initiative helped house 491 homeless vets in its first several months.
In Other News
- San Diegans are getting out of Dodge. About 31,000 moved out of the county as of last July – double the exodus numbers from a year earlier. Demographers agree the leading motivator is: the rising cost of housing. (Union-Tribune)
- In other rising costs news, a new East County wastewater to drinking water project is deep into its construction phase, reports CBS 8. Recycling has become a valuable water resource due to the rising cost of importing water to San Diego from sources like the Colorado River, Voice of San Diego reported a few years ago.
- The billionaire owner of San Diego’s professional women’s soccer team, San Diego Wave, will sell the club to the private firm Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, according to Sportico. Ron Burkle paid $2 million to launch the National Women’s Soccer League expansion in San Diego. He’ll sell the team for $113 million, the highest price ever for an NWSL team.
- If you need another reason to celebrate the Wave, the team is partnering on a project to revamp youth soccer fields at a YMCA in San Ysidro. (San Diego Magazine)
- An Oceanside developer is flipping their hotel project into apartments, increasing the number of apartments for low-income San Diegans and cutting the number of parking spaces. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt and MacKenzie Elmer. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.