Four San Diego Councilmembers Want to Buy Time for Midway Shelter

Four San Diego City Councilmembers are calling for funding to provide more ramp-down time for a Midway homeless shelter to keep residents from ending up on the street. 

Council President Joe LaCava and Councilmembers Henry Foster, Kent Lee and Sean Elo-Rivera are jointly proposing to buy more time for the 150-bed shelter that could otherwise close in coming weeks.  

The shelter’s future has been uncertain following Mayor Todd Gloria’s decision not to include nearly $5 million to support it in his budget proposal as he sought to close a $258 million deficit. 

Gloria has argued the county, which owns the land the shelter is on and supplies behavioral health care there, should step up to fully fund the shelter and that a planned demolition of a next-door building would make the project untenable once construction begins next March. County officials have argued the shelter can remain open during the demolition and committed $800,000 to help address costs tied to the project, but they so far have refused to take on additional shelter costs, keeping the shelter’s future in limbo.  

In the past two weeks, the Housing Commission – which oversees shelter provider Alpha Project – has stopped welcoming newcomers to many city shelters and the city’s two safe sleeping sites to prepare for the potential closure, which now seems all but certain. The commitment has been to ensure all Midway shelter residents, many of whom have physical and behavioral health conditions, can move into other shelters or housing. 

But in a May 20 memo to the City Council, Housing Commission CEO Lisa Jones wrote that she feared shelter residents could be forced onto the street. 

“Although every effort will be made to prevent clients impacted by the shelter closure from exiting the program to unsheltered homelessness, if funding is not identified to support ramp-down operations in Fiscal Year 2026, there is a significant likelihood that this unfortunate outcome could occur,” Jones wrote. 

She urged the City Council to budget $500,000 “to responsibly ramp down the site over a 60-day period through August 2025, and support efforts to exit clients to alternative shelter or safe sleeping accommodations.” 

Absent that funding, the shelter could be forced to close as soon as next month.

Elo-Rivera, Foster, LaCava and Lee supported the Housing Commission’s funding proposal in a memo to the Independent Budget Analyst’s Office. 

In separate statements to Voice of San Diego, the councilmembers wrote that they support the Housing Commission’s ask. 

“This population must be protected and not forced back onto the street,” wrote LaCava, the City Council president. “Without a permanent shelter, we must stand ready whenever a temporary shelter is about to close and avert any worsening of our homelessness crisis.” 

Foster, the City Council’s budget committee chair, agreed.

“I feel identifying the needed funding to properly wind down operations at the (Midway) shelter is the right thing to do,” Foster wrote in a statement. “We must ensure a responsible and considerate transition for the people staying there and for the workers who assist them every day.”

Lee wrote that his office has asked the city’s independent budget analysts to find cash “to responsibly and humanely wind down operations if the shelter closure proposal moves forward — to minimize impacts to affected residents and workers.”  

Elo-Rivera echoed Lee’s statement, saying it was “crucial” to provide funding to support residents and staff at the shelter. 

At least two City Council colleagues appear likely to support their pitch. 

Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, who represents the Midway area, has repeatedly asked if the shelter could remain open until the demolition in March and Councilmember Stephen Whitburn has often emphasized the need to deliver more shelter for homeless residents. 

Six of the City Council’s nine members must support directing additional cash to the Midway shelter to approve the change to the budget. 

The Independent Budget Analyst’s Office is set to release councilmembers’ memos laying out proposed changes to the budget on June 3. The City Council is set to vote on the budget on June 10.