Inside the City’s Mega Shelter Plan – and Concerns About It

If the city moves forward with its largest ever long-term shelter, the city’s point person on homelessness is adamant it won’t look like a typical shelter.

Sarah Jarman, who leads the city’s homelessness department, envisions ample outdoor space, artwork and other amenities that she hopes can make the warehouse at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street an inviting space. Jarman and her team also want to provide onsite medical, dental and behavioral health services.

The goal, Jarman said, is not a “bunk bed village” but significant investment in a campus that the city can design based on its needs and past experience – and adjust as needed – to shelter homeless San Diegans for a few decades. She’s also pledging to work tirelessly to ensure it’s an effective path to housing for the people who move in.

Homeless advocates, experts, service providers and people who have stayed in the city’s existing homeless shelters have lots of questions and skepticism that the city can deliver.

A prime concern: Can the city temporarily house 1,000 people in a single facility and do it well?

…

Mayor Todd Gloria kicked off the year with a pledge to add at least 1,000 new shelter beds by early 2025. A few months later, he announced a plan to convert a vacant 65,000 square foot warehouse in Middletown into a 1,000-bed shelter. Weeks later, city officials are still negotiating with property owner Douglas Hamm to secure a long-term lease in which Hamm pays for building upgrades.

Hamm, a real estate and hospitality investor, pitched the city on the warehouse saying it could make an ideal shelter site. The property isn’t in the immediate vicinity of any homes or businesses, boasts a two-level building with three distinct spaces and also has outdoor space to accommodate both deliveries and activities.

City officials agreed. Gloria’s team in April described an early vision for an array of onsite services plus 715 beds in a large open warehouse area on the warehouse’s lower level, another 108 beds on a second level and 184 beds for families on another second level space. They also planned to invest up to $18 million in new amenities such as showers, a commercial kitchen and dining areas before a shelter can open there.

Hamm has since shared with Voice of San Diego what he describes as “purely conceptual” renderings that show outdoor recreational spaces, a slew of trees and other greenery, seating areas, parking and more.

Through a spokesperson, Hamm said the renderings incorporated input from the city and were “based on what we see as the potential here and what we hope this can ultimately be for the city and the tens of thousands of people it will help in the years and decades to come.” 

Gloria and Jarman say the city is determined to provide a space the city can be proud of and to apply lessons learned from past experiences including at the Convention Center shelter that, at its height, temporarily housed 1,355 people during the pandemic. City staffers also visited a 13-acre homeless service campus in Phoenix with more than 900 people that provides other onsite services.

For now, the city expects to provide employment assistance, mental health and substance use services, basic medical care and transportation to people who eventually stay at the mega shelter.

“The goal is that every service that an individual needs would be at that campus,” Jarman said.

Jarman said county board Chairwoman Nora Vargas also agreed to have the county supply behavioral health services at the city’s 1,000 bed shelter – whether it ends up at Kettner and Vine or elsewhere. A Vargas spokesperson said she couldn’t provide details.

The city for now estimates spending about $30 million annually to operate the 1,000-bed shelter with multiple providers. City spokespeople declined to provide details on staffing and security assumptions behind that total.

For now, Gloria’s team said it’s focused on delivering the 1,000 new beds he wants at Kettner and Vine before refining those numbers.

But Gloria spokesperson Rachel Laing has said the city’s looking at other potential shelter locations. The City Council is set to get a closed-door update on negotiations and proposed terms on Monday.

If the lease gets to the finish line, Jarman said, the city plans to assemble a group of stakeholders to provide swift input on the shelter concept before finalizing its plans.

…

Instantly after Gloria’s April announcement, his team faced a tidal wave of backlash about the lease deal – and questions about the shelter plan.

Several formerly homeless residents, including a few who have stayed in bustling city shelters, told Voice of San Diego they didn’t consider large shelters comfortable landing places – and they are troubled by the city’s latest plan. Most spoke to Voice before Hamm released renderings and they worry the city won’t properly staff and fund the shelter.

Kuni Stearns, who stayed at the Convention Center shelter during the pandemic, said he felt overwhelmed there despite the services it offered compared with the city’s existing shelters. He left after a month.

Matthew Kearney, who once stayed at one of Father Joe’s Villages downtown shelters, said he thinks the city should focus on smaller facilities.

“It’s better to have two 500-bed facilities or 10 100-bed facilities than one 1,000 bed,” Kearney said.

Ann Oliva, the lead author of the city’s 2019 homelessness plan who is now CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the city will likely strain to keep such a large shelter fully staffed. Turnover is often high at similar facilities.

Oliva is also concerned the size of the shelter could make it more challenging to facilitate the intensive services and housing navigation the city has pledged to provide.

“I will never not have a concern about a thousand bed facility. Never,” Oliva said.

While the $30 million annual operations estimate and estimated $84 a night bed rate sound high, Oliva said it’s on the lower end of the range for shelter programs.

“I’m not sure that at that bed night rate that you get all the things that you need to maintain the kind of quality that would be necessary to do it right,” Oliva said.

Alpha Project CEO Bob McElroy, whose nonprofit runs multiple large city shelters and once temporarily housed 700 people at the Convention Center, is also concerned about whether the budget will allow for livable wages for staff, who often get burned out. He noted the pandemic shelter operation relied on city and county workers who helped staff the shelter.

And while Jarman has said the city is committed to providing transportation and outdoor space for new shelter clients, McElroy said he’s concerned the final project won’t come with enough of either though he appreciated most of what he saw in Hamm’s rendering. He’s concerned clients who’d move in would be far from downtown services and won’t be able to safely and comfortably walk in the surrounding neighborhood as they might elsewhere.

“The location is not ideal,” McElroy said.

Like McElroy, two other local homeless service providers said they appreciated the vision to beautify the space and provide services there. All emphasized that many details matter.

PATH Chief Regional Officer Jonathan Castillo, whose agency operates multiple shelters, said large shelters often require security and structure that can make some clients uncomfortable. He endorsed the city’s initial plan to separate different homeless populations in different areas of the shelter. He also stressed the need for proper staffing and support for shelter staff.

Rescue Mission Vice President Paul Armstrong, whose nonprofit operates shelters in the city and Oceanside that don’t rely on government money, said he appreciates the concept the city’s envisioning. Armstrong said he’ll be watching to see whether the city can create the collaboration between services it wants to operate there that’ll be necessary to make the campus model a success.

While the Convention Center shelter relied on a number of different agencies, the city’s other past plans to create service hubs haven’t matched initial promises.

The open question Armstrong has: “Will this facility be a place that people will be willing to come to and do they actually receive the services that they’re promised?”

Formerly homeless San Diegans who spoke with Voice are wary of those promises.

Gloria and Jarman say they are working hard to keep them.

“We can make it a very inviting location,” Gloria said. “It does us no good to have shelters that people don’t want to be a part of.”