By Chris Ward

When I took office two years ago, San Diego’s urban core neighborhoods were in the midst of a homelessness crisis with no clear strategy to tackle the issue. My top priority has been improving our response to this devastating crisis, but one Councilmember can’t do it alone.

Building on successful approaches in other cities and national best practices, I outlined ideas and policies for a holistic response, and working with my colleagues, we’ve made important progress to increase funding, expand life-saving supportive services, and house our homeless.   [Read more…]

By Murtaza Baxamusa / SanDiegoUrbDeZine

San Diego does not have a homeless problem, it has a housing bed inventory problem in comparison to other large cities. The region’s homeless as a percentage of the total population is 12th in the nation, and the five-year trend is relatively flat when including both sheltered and unsheltered homeless. Yet, despite the public outcry, there are still about five thousand unsheltered homeless sleeping on our streets, sidewalks, canyons, riverbeds, parks and open spaces.

One can prognosticate on the individual causes of homelessness, but its pervasive existence suggests that as a society we have failed the most vulnerable amongst us. The homeless crisis across American cities originated with the Reagan cuts to federal housing budgets, and rental housing continued to be underfunded in subsequent administrations. An inadequate patchwork of tax credits and housing vouchers replaced the safety-net provided by now-defunct public housing. It was left to cities and counties to deal with the issue. Compounding the problem was the emergence of family homelessness, as families with children were caught between poverty and lack of affordable housing. To illustrate, evictions rose eightfold during the early 1980s, pushing many families onto the street.

In San Diego, about a hundred families with children spend the night unsheltered. Research shows that the children in these families will likely have developmental difficulties, and will need mental health services even after they are no longer homeless.   [Read more…]