San Diego’s homeless encampment ban is “doomed to fail” without tougher enforcement as homelessness reaches a crisis point in the California city, its former mayor told The Post.
The “unsafe-camping” ordinance was passed on Tuesday by a 5-4 vote and bans rough sleepers from many areas in the city, but former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said its not enough to solve the issue.
“This is not a partisan issue — both Democrats and Republicans equally don’t want to be stepping over needles and feces on their way to work or to their local park,” Faulconer told The Post on Thursday.
“We should take zero tolerance for tents in front of somebody’s house and in front of somebody’s business.
“The unfortunate reality in San Diego is that it’s taken over our Downtown and it is skyrocketing throughout the entire city. The real danger is if you fail to enforce it equally throughout the city, you are just pushing the problem further. You’ve got to tackle it all at once.”
The homeless crackdown drew ire from activists and residents who complained the rules were too heavy-handed against an already vulnerable population.
Under the ordinance, tents would not be allowed in many areas in the city for public safety concerns, even if there are no homeless shelter beds are available. That means tents are no longer allowed around schools, city parks, riverbeds, waterways and transportation hubs.
Asked what will happen if some of the unhoused population refuse services or shelter, city officials said individuals will first be given a warning.
If an individual is told to leave a second time, they would receive a citation, but could be taken into custody on a third offense.
Councilwoman Vivian Moreno, who voted against the proposal, said she was concerned the new policy gave residents “false hope.” She said there could be a chance the unhoused would start setting up tents at more suburban neighborhoods instead.
She said her constituents believed the homeless “would never be tolerated in other parts of this city— and they’re right.”
When asked what the city plans to do if the homeless population migrated into surrounding suburban neighborhoods, Rachel Laing, communications director for the City of San Diego Mayor’s Office, told The Post: “We are planning for that, but the bottom line is that all neighborhoods have sensitive uses [schools, parks and transit hubs] that would preclude camping, not just Downtown.
‘We believe many people, once they’re no longer permitted to live on the streets without consequence or rules, will choose instead to come to safe sleeping sites or other available shelter.”
An annual count released last week showed 3,285 homeless people living in the City of San Diego, a city of 1.3 million people — a 32% increase over last year, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
San Diego County continues to grapple with a surge in fentanyl overdose deaths like many cities across the country. Fatal overdoses in the county increased from 33 in 2016 to more than 800 in 2021, according to the latest county figures.
Janis Wilds, a long-time San Diego resident who also volunteers for a nonprofit called Housing for the Homeless, told The Post forcing the unhoused — especially seniors — is essentially a “death sentence” because many would not be able to easily make it back to hospitals and other facilities that provide the help they desperately need.
“The rich people who live in the East Village part of Downtown who live in these condos and luxury housing, along with the Padres and the hotel industry, are the ones using their own children as an excuse and are saying they don’t their children have to see such poverty,” Wilds said.
“But how many people in San Diego are already sitting on precarious housing situations and close to being evicted? Our elected officials are only pandering to these people who don’t want to see the reality of poverty in the city. It’s magical thinking if they think there is a place for these people to go to because we have no shelter space.”
Laing said enforcement of the ban is “always contingent on an offer of available shelter” for the unhoused person who is cited.
She added enforcement of the new ordinance could be begin on July 30, or 30 days after the first “safe sleeping” lot is opened on 20th and B streets, which is about a mile from the busy Downtown area.
Faulconer said the city amended plan doesn’t come close to addressing the immediate amount of beds and services needed.
Faulconer said when he was the city’s mayor from 2014 to 2020, he took a much more aggressive approach by setting up the “Temporary Bridge Shelters” that provided beds faster. The former mayor said he backed a decision to created a division within the San Diego Police Department that policed areas where homelessness was growing.
That unit, which had 100 officers at its peak, now has less than 40, Faulconer said.
“We were a national model on how to handle this problem, but what has happened under this current administration is we are now at a crisis point,” Faulconer said.
“They are already talking about how this is ‘going to take time,’ and ‘we are going to have to do this slowly,’ Their reaction should be the exact opposite of that.
“This is an emergency and we need to act now! You have to match the scale of the enforcement with the size of the problem and that requires action, not just rhetoric.”
