How Interfaith Squashed Its Beef with the City of Escondido

Around this time last year, two key players in the effort to reduce homelessness in Escondido weren’t getting along. 

Leaders of Interfaith Community Services, North County’s largest homeless services provider and operator of the only homeless shelter beds in Escondido, were at odds with city officials in Escondido. And Escondido happens to have the largest homeless population in North County. 

Escondido Mayor Dane White described the situation as “beyond repair” in an interview with the Union-Tribune last March, calling the organization a “drain on the area.” 

Fast forward almost a year, the relationship between the two parties has significantly improved as Interfaith hopes to create more detox beds with the city’s support. The earlier conflict boiled down to misunderstandings and miscommunication, and in the context of a worsening homelessness crisis and shifting ideologies about how to solve it, the two entities are working on finding common ground. 

The Conflict 

In August of 2023, the Escondido City Council decided to stop contributing funds to Haven House, a homeless shelter in Escondido ran by Interfaith. Haven House was Escondido’s only homeless shelter at the time before Interfaith opened its family shelter in November 2023.  

City officials told Interfaith CEO Greg Anglea they were concerned Haven House was serving too many homeless people that weren’t from Escondido.   

Then, in February of 2024, Interfaith leaders received a letter from Escondido police chief Ed Varso informing them that their permit for their downtown headquarters location was going to be reviewed by the city attorney’s office because of multiple violations like loitering, littering and “signs of crime and disorder” that resulted in increased calls for service to the property. 

Interfaith’s headquarters had been operating with that permit for more than 20 years, and this was the first time they had received notices of violations, Anglea said. 

The city had been monitoring the property for months, and according to Anglea, Interfaith had been working with city officials to address their concerns, and he was surprised to see the situation being escalated to the city attorney’s office. 

Two days after that notice, the Escondido City Council adopted a new homelessness policy that indicated a shift in how the city would be addressing homelessness moving forward. It rejects Housing First and calls for a “public safety-first” approach to the city’s homelessness crisis, emphasizes addiction treatment and says the city will eventually open a homeless shelter that requires sobriety and prioritizes Escondido’s unhoused residents.  

Housing First is the statewide and nationally accepted approach to addressing homelessness, and it says providing a stable home is the first step to helping people recover from life on the streets and drug and mental health crises.   

Staff members from Interfaith, including Anglea, spoke publicly about the policy at a Feb. 28 City Council meeting. They warned city officials that, if the policy didn’t help create more shelter in Escondido, then it wouldn’t be creating progress. 

The policy passed with a 4-1 vote. 

Just before the council voted on the policy, Mayor White added an amendment to it: He asked city staffers to “explore a moratorium on homeless services and shelters in the downtown specific plan area, including a buffer zone of the surrounding six blocks.”   

This raised concerns for Anglea, who had received the letter just two days earlier. He worried that city officials were trying to push Interfaith out of downtown.  

“By threatening the conditional use permit which allows for the provision of Interfaith’s programs, and two days later directing staff to explore a moratorium on those services, Escondido City Council appears to be taking actions to reduce services and increase homelessness in Escondido,” said a news release from Interfaith sent out in March 2024. 

White told the U-T a few days later that there had never been an effort to shut Interfaith down, but that the relationship between the two entities was in “shambles” and “beyond repair.” 

The Resolution 

It’s been 10 months since tensions between Interfaith Community Services and Escondido officials came to a head, leaving many wondering if the relationship could be salvaged. 

Anglea and White both told Voice of San Diego that the conflict was rooted in a lack of communication. City officials wanted clearer and more consistent updates on Interfaith’s programs, services and outcomes. There was also a need for more dialogue and a framework for addressing concerns on both sides. 

Other factors likely contributed to that tension. There has been a significant increase of visible homelessness throughout the city in the past few years that is hard to ignore. It’s led to more fatigue and frustration from Escondido residents about the homelessness crisis. That’s why the city adopted the homelessness policy in the first place – it was an effort to respond to that frustration.  

But aligning the city’s evolving strategies with a nonprofit that has spent decades helping homeless people in Escondido using its own approach takes time, especially with growing pressure from the community and differing ideologies about the causes of homelessness and how to address it. 

Anglea, who’s been working at Interfaith for 19 years, told Voice that he has seen ebbs and flows of how strong Interfaith’s relationship is with the city of Escondido, but at the end of the day, it’s important to maintain that partnership, he said. 

“These relationships, they’re foundational to our work,” Anglea said. “So, when we ran into a particularly rough patch with the city of Escondido last year, we immediately took every step we could to strengthen that relationship, to listen, to understand what their concerns were… and then to take action.” 

White shares a similar perspective. He told Voice via email that both Interfaith and the city of Escondido have the same end goal, just different means of acheiving it.

“I believe it’s critical for the city of Escondido to maintain a good relationship with any business or community partner,” White said. “The fact is [Interfaith] is not going anywhere (nor were we trying to push them out), and we need to maintain a good working relationship even when we disagree on certain issues.”

Interfaith’s staff has spent months meeting with Escondido leaders to rebuild their relationship and find common ground, both Anglea and White said. 

“Greg Anglea and I have spent time making opportunities for open and honest dialogue,” White said. “Both sides have been able to express their concerns and frustrations and, much to his credit, I have felt heard and have seen that through action.”

One area where the two parties seem to agree is the potential expansion of detox beds. In the coming weeks, the City Council will consider a proposal for Interfaith to increase the number of available detox beds from 10 to 32. The expansion would be funded by a $12-million grant from the county. 

“The county made available a grant contract to expand detox, and the city of Escondido passed a new homeless policy focusing on the importance of addiction treatment resources, so we saw an opportunity to kind of line those up,” Anglea said. “Also, the mayor is very committed to helping individuals overcome addiction and get into treatment if that’s something they’re interested in, so, we’ve been very fortunate for his support on that detox expansion.” 

White, who has previously experienced homelessness and drug addiction, said he sympathizes with this cause and sees a great need for it. However, the program would be open to people from throughout North County, not just Escondido, which is a model he and the council have been trying to move away from.

“Escondido’s homeless policy takes an “Escondido First” approach meaning we prioritize those who are already living on our local streets… While there is a great need to offer this service to the local homeless population, the fact of the matter is not every offer will be accepted, and to deny that service while having the beds available is a disservice to anyone willing to accept treatment.” White said. “All that we ask is that Escondido is prioritized and that [Interfaith] works with our public safety officials to achieve that.”

Interfaith and city leaders also agree on the need for more shelter beds in Escondido. White told Voice that he anticipates beginning council discussions about a new homeless shelter in February or March.

After reviewing Interfaith’s headquarters permit, the City Council will consider new rules for the location at the upcoming Jan. 15 council meeting. Anglea said the changes will not eliminate any of Interfaith’s current programs or services, but will create stricter reporting requirements, enhance security protocols and more.