North County Report: Oceanside’s Shelter Shake-Up 

Oceanside is replacing the operator of its only homeless shelter. 

The Oceanside Navigation Center has been operated by the San Diego Rescue Mission since its opening in 2023, but that won’t be the case for much longer. City leaders last week chose Interfaith Community Services, another homeless services nonprofit, to take over operations of the shelter, despite a higher price tag. 

The reason? It boils down to a growing trend I’ve been following since 2022: an increasing number of North County leaders, and residents, are ditching the idea of regional collaboration when it comes to homelessness. 

We saw it in Encinitas a few years ago, when a safe parking program sparked backlash for serving people from outside city limits. We saw it again in Escondido when leaders pulled out of a regional alliance that funded shelters across North County, promising instead to open a city-run facility for their residents only. And now, Oceanside has joined them. 

Oceanside officials said they don’t want their shelter to become a resource for homeless people across the region to access – they want Oceanside residents to be the priority.  

The San Diego Rescue Mission, though, disagrees with that philosophy. The result was a not-so-amicable split between the city and the nonprofit.  

“Needless to say, we are very disappointed,” Paul Armstrong, the Rescue Mission’s chief of staff, said at an Aug. 6 City Council meeting.  

How It Started 

Oceanside has the second-largest homeless population in North County, so when the city opened its first and only homeless shelter a few years ago, it had been a long time coming. 

Both the Rescue Mission and Interfaith were among the pool of applicants vying to operate the shelter, but the then-City Council chose the Rescue Mission, which came with a sweet deal – the Rescue Mission agreed to cover the costs of the shelter’s yearly operations. All Oceanside had to do was pay to convert the building, which used to be a high school, into a shelter. 

But in the past few years, a rift formed. And at last week’s Council meeting, we found out at least part of the reason why. 

“The city never shared any concerns about our performance, so this is not a performance issue,” Armstrong said. “It may have come up that we wanted the shelter to be a regional facility… the money used to refurbish the building was regional money – it came from the federal, state and county, as well as the city. With respect to the operating budget, we raised $1.4 million, of which only $100,000 came from Oceanside residents, the remaining $1.3 million came from the region.” 

Armstrong also pointed out that the city utilizes other regional shelters like La Posada de Guadalupe in Carlsbad and Interfaith’s family shelter in Escondido to refer people to. 

Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez later responded to Armstrong from the dais. She said she met with Rescue Mission CEO Donnie Dee in December to learn how to work more collaboratively. 

“Initially, the meeting went very well,” Sanchez said. “But then… Mr. Dee said, ‘this needs to be a regional center,’ which means that Oceanside residents were not a priority. And I said, ‘no, no – homelessness is the number one issue we have in this city, and we have to prioritize our Oceanside residents.’” 

“What Mr. Dee said then was, ‘well, I guess you don’t want us because it must be a regional center,” Sanchez continued. “We put in $11 million into that building… we need to have Oceanside residents be first because the taxpayers wouldn’t like it if the center was filled with people from outside of Oceanside.” 

She added that if clients from other cities came to the navigation center and fell back into homelessness and ended up back on the streets, there’s a chance they would stay in Oceanside. 

Deputy Mayor Eric Joyce added that there were other issues behind the scenes that contributed to the decision to part ways with the nonprofit. 

The Council ultimately voted 3-2 in favor of Interfaith replacing the Rescue Mission, with Councilmembers Peter Weiss and Rick Robinson opposed. Both councilmembers took issue with the financial costs of replacing the Rescue Mission. 

Choosing Interfaith means the city will now have to cover the yearly costs of operations, which is roughly $2 million a year. The city will use funds from its Measure X sales tax measure to cover the costs. 

“We essentially are getting rid of a service provider that costs us nothing and replacing them with one that’s going to cost us eventually $2 million a year,” Weiss said. “To me, that is a fiscally irresponsible recommendation.” 

Robinson also said he supports the Rescue Mission’s structure and regional approach. 

“I’m a big believer in it’s a regional problem. I disagree strongly that it’s an Oceanside only problem,” Robinson said.  

North County Isn’t New to This 

Oceanside’s move reflects similar tensions in other North County cities over the past few years. 

One of the first stories I wrote when I started reporting at Voice of San Diego was about a safe parking program in Encinitas. The program’s contract was up for renewal, and many residents and some city leaders were concerned it was serving too many people who weren’t from Encinitas. 

I didn’t know then that this concern was part of a growing pattern. I’ve since seen similar debates play out over shelters, other safe parking programs and homeless services in general throughout North County. 

In August of 2023, I wrote about the city of Escondido making waves when leaders pulled out of the Alliance for Regional Solutions – a network of North County cities that collectively contributes funding to homeless shelters in that part of the region – after 10 years of contributing to it annually. 

City leaders were concerned the shelter they were contributing to in Escondido was serving too many people who weren’t from Escondido. Instead, they had their sights set on eventually opening a city-run shelter that prioritizes Escondido’s homeless population, not North County’s homeless population. 

In 2024, Escondido leaders fiercely opposed an idea by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors to open a county-run shelter in Escondido for the same reason Oceanside replaced the San Diego Rescue Mission; they didn’t want a shelter in their city to become a regional hub that all homeless people could access.  

A few weeks later, Escondido leaders adopted a homelessness policy that explicitly said the city was going to prioritize Escondido’s homeless population over others. 

Encinitas is grappling with a similar debate. Earlier this year, I wrote about an anonymous social media account, along with a significant portion of Encinitas residents, targeting a homeless services nonprofit called Community Resource Center. 

Critics claim the nonprofit is attracting homeless people from other cities to Encinitas. There hasn’t been evidence to suggest that is the case, and research has shown that unsheltered people tend to stay in their own communities that they’re familiar with. Still, many residents believe it to be true and are very concerned about the idea of homeless people from other cities migrating to Encinitas. 

Now, Oceanside has joined the trend, insisting on serving their own homeless population first, even if it costs them $2 million a year to do it. 

In Other News 

• The Encinitas City Council will discuss three homeless-related issues at tonight’s meeting: restricting illegal camping on private property, expanding a ban on overnight parking of recreational vehicles on city streets and additional restrictions on sleeping in vehicles. (Union-Tribune) 
• Speaking of Encinitas, the city has agreed to pay a settlement of $65,000 to a former employee who claims she was retaliated against after filing a harassment complaint against an unnamed manager. (Coast News) 
• Oceanside leaders have finalized a decision to allow four storefront cannabis dispensaries to operate within the city. (Coast News) 
• In cute animal news, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park announced that its new Elephant Valley habitat will be open in early 2026. (Union-Tribune)