In one of the region’s highest stakes political races this fall, there’s been an onslaught of claims about one candidate’s record on homelessness.
Former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer and his supporters are telling voters he oversaw dramatic decreases in homelessness. He’s making the case that he can do the same thing again if voters help him unseat County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer.
She’s arguing the opposite: that Faulconer made the crisis worse.
The fight has unfolded in mailers, campaign emails and one heated debate. Voters are left wondering, which is it? Did he reduce or increase homelessness?
Arguments over how much impact Faulconer had on homelessness rest on when you start the clock – and imperfect homelessness data.
Faulconer became San Diego mayor in 2014 and didn’t make homelessness a top focus during his early years in office. It became his foremost priority in fall 2017 after a deadly hepatitis A outbreak hammered San Diego’s homeless population and spurred Faulconer to rapidly bolster both homeless services and police enforcement to address the crisis.
A few years later, in 2020, he cheered annual homeless census results that showed a 12 percent year-over-year drop in street homelessness in the city along with a smaller 4 percent decrease in the overall population.
He’s now touting that 12 percent decrease in people sleeping outdoors as he campaigns for supervisor.
“With your help and your support, we actually drove homelessness down by double digits in the city of San Diego,” Faulconer said during a Sept. 16 debate in Carlsbad.
What he doesn’t mention is that the annual homeless census also tallied overall increases in homelessness three of the seven years he was mayor. There are also significant shortcomings with the count.
The Regional Task Force on Homelessness, which conducts the annual census in late January, has in recent years emphasized that homeless counts represent a minimum number of homeless residents and noted that changes in counting methods complicate year-over-year comparisons.
Claims about Faulconer’s track record are especially complicated by the Task Force’s move in 2019 to stop using multipliers to assume how many people were staying in tents or vehicles. It had used them for years to tally the homeless population and the Task Force argued in 2019 that its count shouldn’t be compared with those before it due to this change.
Dynamics like weather and police enforcement can also impact homeless counts, as they did during Faulconer’s time as mayor. Then there’s the reality that many factors beyond the power of a mayor – from the economy to the housing market – contribute to the state of the homelessness crisis.
Other details also muddle Lawson-Remer’s claims about Faulconer’s record. She shared this during the Carlsbad debate: “Under Kevin Faulconer, homelessness doubled.”
Lawson-Remer’s team told Voice of San Diego she started the clock when Faulconer was a San Diego city councilmember in 2007. They shared point-in-time numbers from that year showing just over 1,000 unsheltered city residents were counted in January 2007 compared with the nearly 2,300 counted during Faulconer’s last year as mayor.
“That is a 124 percent increase in the number of people sleeping on the streets of San Diego under Kevin Faulconer’s leadership,” campaign spokesperson Spencer Katz wrote in an email.
This claim overlooks the fact that Faulconer took office in January 2006 when 1,849 people were counted living on the street in the city, which – using the campaign’s premise – would translate into a lesser 23 percent spike in street homelessness during his years in office.
Lawson-Remer’s claim also failed to acknowledge that Faulconer was less empowered as a councilmember to address homelessness citywide and that there was an explosion of homelessness elsewhere on the West Coast during the same period that’s impossible to blame on a single public official.
Katz acknowledged that changes in counting methods hamper comparisons reliant on historic homeless census data but argued that homelessness went up dramatically on Faulconer’s watch regardless of when you start the clock.
“His entire campaign is premised on the fiction that homelessness decreased during his tenure – and it did not,” Katz wrote.
An independent expenditure committee rallying behind Faulconer is singing a different song using historical point-in-time data.
Mailers funded by the Homelessness Crisis Response Committee Supporting Kevin Faulconer for Supervisor 2024 proclaim: “Homelessness was at the lowest level in over 15 years when Kevin Faulconer left office.”
When asked to back up this claim, the committee pointed to countywide rather than city point-in-time data showing the overall number of homeless residents – both sheltered and unsheltered – counted from 2010 through 2024.
Homeless census numbers show the countywide count fell to a low of 7,638 in 2020, Faulconer’s final year as mayor.
Once again, these statements fail to acknowledge that the Task Force for years relied on multipliers no longer factored into the census. Some counts before 2020 may have been closer to the totals Faulconer supporters cheered without multipliers.
The committee also used countywide numbers despite the limited control Faulconer had over homelessness in the region as mayor of just one of the county’s 18 cities.
Aimee Faucett, Faulconer’s onetime chief of staff who now leads the committee backing Faulconer, defended its claim in the mailers and acknowledged the former mayor’s team learned “hard lessons” during his first term.
“There is no disputing the fact that the homelessness crisis improved during Mayor Faulconer’s second term and has gotten dramatically worse since then,” Faucett wrote in a statement. “All available data and common-sense observation point to this conclusion.”
Point-in-time counts have indeed climbed since Faulconer left office but changes to the census make it difficult to compare the results he and his supporters tout in 2020 with prior years’ numbers.
Despite the problems and caveats with point-in-time data, spokespeople for Lawson-Remer and Faulconer also defended their candidates’ decisions to rely on it.
Faulconer’s team argues the data he’s citing shows San Diego had a different trajectory on homelessness than other communities in his final year in office that merits highlighting.
But past point-in-time counts also showed increases some years that Faulconer was mayor and in 2017, the same year the Task Force reported an 18 percent spike in street homelessness in the city, Faulconer was forced to respond a health crisis fueled by conditions in growing homeless camps.
Lawson-Remer’s spokesperson argued that Faulconer’s statements paper over the increases in homelessness on his watch – and noted that the former mayor started the debate over problematic homeless census numbers.
“Faulconer began this game when he started using selective data to falsely claim he was personally responsible for reducing homelessness,” Katz wrote.
Where R all the homeless going now that they can no long camp out?
I live in the city of San Diego. If Kevin Falconer was in my county district, I would NOT vote for him. Just google “101 Ash Street” if you want to learn more about the long-term costs his incompetence imposed on San Diego City residents. He is a career politician that’s just looking for another job.
Faulconer please come back and remove the homeless. County needs to buy several wood chippers.
Yeah come back Faulconer, let’s see homelessness rise and another hepatitis A outbreak! He spent our taxpayer cash on his own projects, like lining the pockets of his rich buddies. 101 ash street! I object to this building remaining empty (can’t be used because of asbestos) and we the tax payers paying for a useless space due to Faulconers terrible management and incompetency. Grade D Faulconer. No thsnks!