The growing homeless population in downtown San Diego, and a recent spate of violent incidents among those experiencing homelessness, have pushed a prominent local group of philanthropists to set their sights on a few big goals for 2023.
Sitting on a small stage set up in a vast and mostly empty parking lot beside a poster-sized sign that read “our hands are tied,” Drew Moser, executive director of the Lucky Duck Foundation, called for the city to work together on initiatives that would bring Balboa Park its first homeless shelter and also called for the city to find better ways to enforce laws when they are obviously broken.
“We call on local governments to adopt ordinances that appropriately focus law enforcement in a manner that helps address the situation and ensures a higher level of public safety,” Moser said. “Within the City of San Diego, the city attorney must aggressively enforce the ordinances and prosecute when these laws and ordinances are violated.”
The comment, and the phrase “our hands are tied,” references a recent incident, caught on video outside the Youth Assistance Coalition in Logan Heights, where one man attacked another with a metal implement but police did not make an arrest, reportedly telling a witness that their hands were tied due to state law.
Other fights and attacks, using everything from a skateboard to a knife, have recently been documented among downtown San Diego’s burgeoning homeless population, which is approaching 2,000 in the latest monthly count.
Lucky Duck, the organization with the charming name and shamrock logo, has raised and spent millions fighting homelessness in and around San Diego and clearly wanted to reach out to the public on the same day that Mayor Todd Gloria was set to give his State of the City address, pushing for more direct action.
Dan Shea, a member of the foundation’s executive committee and a local restaurateur, said that the current debate around homelessness has been too focused on long-term solutions with too little emphasis on finding short-term help in the meantime.
“Let’s stop talking about a global solution that we might get to in 10, 15 or 25 years, because there is no easy solution to it,” Shea said. “What we’d like to propose is something more simple: Let’s just take a step to make it better.”
Shea said Lucky Duck would like to work with the city and other partners to put up two tent shelters in part of the eight-acre Balboa Park lot at I-5 and Park Boulevard that serves an area called Inspiration Point. The idea is to temporarily house about 500 people experiencing homelessness, focusing on seniors and young adults under the logic that they are some of the most at risk.
A range of services, Shea and Moser said, could be offered at the location including the various programs that Lucky Duck already supports, including one that pays cash for picking up trash.
“We’re saying homelessness is trending way in the wrong direction, so let’s come up with a plan, a short-term tangible plan, that can shift the momentum and bring 500 people off the streets,” Moser said.
Were the city to go along with the idea, it would be the first shelter set up inside the borders of Balboa Park, though on the beloved location’s southwestern edge. Lucky Duck has had success in advocating for shelter housing in the past. In 2017, the organization successfully pushed the city to open its first large tented shelter.
City Hall did not respond to requests for comment on the idea Wednesday afternoon.
On Thursday, San Diego city councilman Stephen Whitburn, whose district includes Balboa Park, issued a statement that his office has “been actively engaged with community members, service providers and other stakeholders to identify potential locations for safe camping and shelter,” and that “Inspiration Point is among the potential locations being explored.”
But the statement also took Lucky Duck to task for making its announcement Wednesday “without joining our office in engaging with the community,” calling the move “disappointing.”
But the idea of a shelter serving seniors is not a new one.
Serving Seniors, a nonprofit that operates the Gary & Mary West Senior Wellness Center on Fourth Avenue downtown, is working to set up a tent shelter for seniors with a capacity of about 40 people on a city-owned lot across the street from the facility.
Paul Downey, Serving Seniors’ president and chief executive officer, said that the plan has taken longer than anticipated to get up and running due to difficulties finding an organization with experience and expertise in running homeless shelters serving seniors.
Downey said he supports any request that attempts to find more shelter for those who so obviously need it.
“If you came by our center, we open at 7 a.m., and if you came by at 6:45 a.m., there are usually 15 to 20 seniors literally sleeping outside on the sidewalk and another eight to 10 across the street at St. Joseph’s Cathedral waiting to come in,” Downey said.
