A $503,000 refurbishing project funded by the city and county of San Diego has created 20 additional shelter beds for youth and could end homelessness for about 60 young people each year, the head of the nonprofit running the program said Monday.

The project expands the number of shelter beds at Urban Street Angels’ downtown program to 70, and youths ages 18-24 years old will begin moving in Feb. 23, said the nonprofit’s founder and CEO, Eric Lovett.

The $503,000 to expand the shelter came from the $25 million County-City Behavioral Health Impact Fund created in 2020 as a resolution to a lawsuit between the city of San Diego and the county over how to spend former redevelopment funds after former Gov. Jerry Brown shut down the state Redevelopment Agency in 2011.

The shelter expansion is the seventh project to use the fund, which also has paid for transitional housing units, vehicles for crisis care teams, telehealth connections and other projects.

Lovett said the grant from the Behavioral Health Impact Fund paid for two new bathrooms, the removal of walls and other improvements. The room had been used as offices for Father Joe’s Villages, owner of the Fifth Avenue building.

Father Joe’s had used the building to operate the Toussaint Academy, which provided homes for teenagers and young adults before closing in 2016.

The 50 upstairs beds are in individual rooms while the new first-floor shelter is more like a dorm, with each of the 20 single beds separated by a small wooden wardrobe. Signs above heads of some beds have inspirational slogans such as “You Matter” and “If You Believe in Yourself, Anything is Possible.”

During a Monday morning news conference announcing the upcoming opening of the shelter, Lovett said there are about 1,000 homeless youths outdoors in San Diego on any night.

“They need hope,” he said. “They need a place to go. What this entire space does is it gives them that.”

Clients also receive meals, clothing, mental health help, job training and other services, with an average stay of 60 to 90 days, he said. The program has ended homelessness for 300 youths each year, and now will help 60 more, Lovett added.

Urban Street Angels also operates a 60-unit home for youths in a former La Mesa hotel the nonprofit bought about a year and a half ago, he said.

Stressing the need to help homeless youths get housing and stable lives, Lovett said about half of homeless adults on the street became homeless when they were young.

The San Diego Housing Commission will pay for supportive services for youths at the shelter, including case management, housing and job placement, occupational therapy and linkage to health care.

The Lucky Duck Foundation and Price Charities provided move-in supplies such as bed frames, mattresses and hygiene products at the new shelter addition.

Drew Moser, executive director of the Lucky Duck Foundation, said the philanthropic group was recognizing the city, county and Urban Street Angels with a Shamrock as part of its Shamrocks and Shipwrecks initiative, which gives Shamrocks as praise for positive achievement in homeless solutions and Shipwrecks for inaction.

Moser said the public/private collaboration that included the city, county and a nonprofit in the shelter project should not be a one-off, but should be replicated on a larger scale.

“Twenty beds is great,” he said. “Let’s do 200 beds. Lets do 500 beds.”

County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who helped broker the deal that created the Behavioral Health Impact Fund, also attended the Monday news conference.

“We know we have a lot more to do,” he said. “We know the challenges of homelessness are immense and great, but you’ve got to get up every single day and say, ‘What is it we can do today that’s going to give somebody a shot at a better future?’”

Click here to read the full article in the San Diego Union Tribune

Part of the money will go toward securing the streets so the encampments do not return

In a new, focused approach to helping homeless people get off the street and into housing, outreach workers will begin engaging with about 50 people who are living in tents along six city blocks near San Diego’s former Central Library.

A unanimous San Diego City Council, with Councilmember Jennifer Campbell absent, approved spending about $2.4 million in state funds on the plan Monday.

In presenting the plan to council members, Hafsa Kaka, the city’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department director, said the effort will begin in about two months and will differ from traditional outreach work by providing a more intense and personal focus on each person’s individual needs.

“What happens with normal outreach, to be honest, is sometimes people will fall through the cracks,” she said. “These individuals (outreach workers) are intensively going to be following the people who have been identified.”

The grant will fund services ranging from outreach to housing for the approximately 50 people in the six-block area over the next two years, and some of the grant will be used to keep the area clear of future encampments once people are housed.

The focus will be on placing people into long-term permanent housing and also can be used to subsidize shorter-term bridge housing such as independent living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, placements with family members and supportive housing through California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM). Clients who have been referred to permanent supportive housing may be placed in hotel rooms as temporary housing.

The approximately 50 people living in encampments within the six-block area represent a fraction of the city’s homeless population. A monthly count conducted in December by the Downtown San Diego Partnership found 850 people living in East Village, which includes the E Street area that will be the focus of the new grant. In all, the count found 1,839 people living downtown on sidewalks, in tents and in vehicles in December, the fifth straight month of a record high.

San Diego was one of eight California communities awarded a portion of the $48 million Encampment Resolution Funding Program in October, with 19 other communities receiving the grant funds earlier last year. The grants are administered by the California Interagency Council on Homelessness with a goal of finding housing for people living in specific encampments.

Kaka said the majority of people in the encampments are black women, and many are seniors. The outreach will address existing disparities in access to services in those populations, she said.

The San Diego Regional Task Force on Homelessness has created ad hoc committees to address the growing population of senior homeless people and the disproportionately high percent of homeless people who are black, she noted.

Outreach teams will focus on F Street, E Street and Broadway between Seventh and Tenth avenues. The area includes the old Central LIbrary, the U.S. Postal Service and the Andaz San Diego hotel.

While not large geographically, some stretches have dense encampments. In recent days, the sidewalk on the north side of E Street has been filled with tents between Seventh and Eighth avenues.

District 8 City Councilmember Vivian Moreno supported the motion to allocate the funding, but said she was concerned about its focus on one neighborhood in District 3, represented by Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, while a part of downtown she represents has a growing homeless population,

“If you were to go there today with me, you would see encampments just lining up the streets,” she said about Commercial Street and other areas near the Father Joe’s Villages campus on Imperial Avenue. “They are not safe or sanitary for people camping there and it’s also not safe for people walking through the area.”

Moreno said the council had allocated $1 million to increase outreach in the area six months ago, and she questioned Kaka on how the money had been used.

Kaka said the city had submitted to the state an earlier funding application that did include Commercial Street, but it was not awarded. She said someone at the state advised her to submit an application that focused on a specific area in the next funding cycle, which led to the grant for the E Street outreach.

She also told Moreno that the $1 million allocated to outreach in her district has been put to use through People Assisting the Homeless.

Kaka said money for more outreach in other areas could come in the future, and the city and the county have discussed submitting a joint application to the state for the next round of funding.

Under the program adopted Monday, $1.2 million will be used for housing and flexible subsidies, and $950,000 will go toward outreach services for people in encampments.

The grant will provide $150,000 for support services to help people stabilize when they receive housing, and $116,500 will pay for administrative costs. Once encampments are cleared from the city, the grant will provide $30,000 to keep the area secure and prevent encampments from returning.

Click here to read the full article in the San Diego Union Tribune

SAN DIEGO —  “I never thought this would happen to me.”

It’s a refrain heard often from people who suddenly fall into homelessness, and it’s being heard more and more these days.

For some, homelessness came about for economic reasons, such as with Robert Prokosh, who began living in his car when his rent went from $700 to $1,400 in one month.

Or it could be because of domestic violence, such as what Roberta Adams escaped from before moving into the San Diego Rescue Mission.

Or a job loss, which happened to Bobbie Bray, a former caregiver who now lives in her car in Oceanside.

For whatever reasons, more people are becoming homeless, and service providers across the county say they are seeing a surge in people seeking help.

Why are so many people falling into homelessness for the first time? There is no one reason. Ask five different people why they became homeless, and you’re likely to hear five different answers.

Aisha Hobson

Aisha Hobson, 41, pulls her 2017 Dodge Journey SUV into the Dreams for Change safe parking lot in Encanto around 8 p.m. most nights after finishing her work day and visiting her mother.

“When I come here, I try to decompress,” she said about her nightly routine. “My first few minute I pray.”

Hobson moved from Chicago to San Diego with her parents and siblings in 1994, and she has worked two jobs for much of her life. In 2020, she and her son and a friend were living in a three-bedroom El Cajon apartment for $2,450 a month, which she could no longer afford after her friend moved away.

Her son moved in with her mother, and Hobson began sleeping in her car because she couldn’t find another place to live.

Since then, she has earned a license as a pharmacy technician and is working at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Hillcrest some days and the county’s Psychiatric Hospital on Rosecrans on others. Her schedule fluctuates from 40 hours one week to 48 hours the next.

“I make pretty decent money, but if I’m not hearing, ‘We don’t have a vacancy,’ I’m hearing ‘You have to have a better credit score.’”

Hobson is impressed by the many services that are available for people in need, but she feels that she is in the back of the line for help as a single person who is stable, sober and working.

“I’ve met some doctors who are homeless right now,” she said. “It’s hard to live in California right now.”

As someone who came from a stable family and is a working professional, Hobson is frustrated about her situation.

“The sad part is, even with the upbringing and doing things the right way, you still can fall, and sometimes you fall hard,” she said. “That’s the part that becomes frustrating. When you try to do everything right, and it doesn’t fall in place for you.”

Robert Prokosh

Sudden rent increases are not unique to San Diego.

Robert Prokosh, 68, was renting an apartment in Las Vegas when his monthly rent jumped from $700 to $1,400 in July. Unable to find another place and knowing it would not be possible to live in a car during a Las Vegas summer, he headed back to his hometown of San Diego.

“I grew up here,” he said. “I was raised here, went to school here. I owned homes in Linda Vista and Allied Gardens and San Carlos.”

Prokosh had moved away for work, and for years had a job as a tour bus driver before settling in Las Vegas. After the rent increase, he and his wife moved into the safe parking lot operated by Jewish Family Service in Mission Valley.

He’s not sure about his future plans. A few weeks ago, he had a heart attack at the parking lot, and a buddy drove him to a hospital.

“Now they’re talking about open-heart surgery,” he said. “They think I have a tear in my heart.”

Prokosh needs surgery, but said he is unsure when it could happen because the hospital will not schedule the operation until he has a place to recuperate other than his car.

Bobbie Bray

“It’s tough out here,” said Bobbie Bray, 60, who lives in her car in Oceanside. “It’s not for me. I don’t belong out here. I don’t fit in.”

Bray had her own cleaning business and was living with a family and working as a caregiver for a member of the household. After the woman she was caring for died last year, Bray said she got an apartment in Carlsbad, but was scammed out of $6,000.

“Everything from there just went downhill,” she said. “Any money I had in the bank went to hotels because I didn’t want to be homeless. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. I didn’t realize that was going to be very expensive, but my money just dried up.”

She began spending evenings in her car, but is only able to sleep a few hours each night out of fear.

“I’m never safe,” she said. “There’s always guys around my car, looking in. A few times they’d drive by and ask for sex. No way in heck. It’s not me.”

Bray has a grown son and said she had worked all her life and is looking for a job.

“I just need a place,” she said. “I work with a dog groomer as a bather, and I want to get another full-time job. I just want to work and have a place where I can lock the door and feel safe and cook something. I don’t care how big or how small.”

Delanie Bollinger and Mike Taveuveu

Oceanside couple Mike Taveuveu, 35, and Delanie Bollinger, 28, have been living in a car since Bollinger left her job about five months ago.

“I had a little apartment nearby, and I decided it wasn’t working out and I needed a little more freedom to figure out what I actually wanted to do before I get another job in six months to a year,” Bollinger said.

Taveuveu said he had been living with hissister and herfamily in Vista, but last year decided to move out to give them more space.

The couple said life on the street is not so bad, though Bollinger said she sometimes has second thoughts when nights are so cold she can’t feel her fingers or toes and her blankets don’t keep her warm.

“There’s days when I’m really blessed, and days when I’m like, man, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this,” she said.

While they acknowledge their homelessness was more of a choice than something that was forced upon them, they’re not sure how to get out of it.

Taveuveu said he will look for a job that is something he’ll want to do for a long time and can get him into an apartment, but he also knows it might be hard to make rent.

Bollinger said she doesn’t want to go back to a job she does not like, but knows that could be a challenge.

“There’s a lot of jobs, but most of the ones that are available are minimum wage, and minimum wage isn’t enough to afford a place here and afford food,” she said. “It’s not really feasible. It almost feels pointless.”

Taveuveu said he keeps a positive outlook.

“No matter what, good or bad, we just know that we’re going to make it,” he said. “It’s got to be better. It’s going to get better. Just stay solid, keep moving forward and upward, you know?”

Johana Dedapper

Johana Dedapper, 47, has one of the more unusual stories about becoming homeless.

After an unhappy career working in a bank in her native Belgium, she opened an Airbnb after her two children moved out, and she decided to live an adventurous life of traveling and attending music festivals.

She met an American man staying in her Airbnb, and they became a couple traveling to concerts across Europe. When his visa expired and he returned to the United States, he invited her to join him, and she arrived in the country Oct. 6.

Their travel adventures continued, and they were joined by a male friend. Her boyfriend suggested they attend a Katy Perry concert in Las Vegas and she agreed, though the singer’s music was hardly the type they had been enjoying together.

“He had a gambling problem and I didn’t know it,” she said. “In two and a half hours, he gambled all of his money and our money. My friend and me, we were trying to do everything to get him away from the table.”

She lost about $3,700, and all three were broke, and they spent the night in their car.

The couple’s travels continue, and they arrived in Ocean Beach last month.

Dedapper then experienced another side of her boyfriend she had never seen, as he began getting cash advances from his credit card and buying cocaine. She said he became verbally abusive, and one day a homeless person she had befriended intervened, and she began living on the beach with her new friends.

”I think they probably saved my life,” she said. “I knew it was getting dangerous.”

A chance conversation with someone from the San Diego Rescue Mission led to an offer to join their program. Dedapper said she realized this was an opportunity she had to take, and she enrolled in the year-long residency program in early December.

“After three days I finally stopped crying and I said, ‘Once I get back on my feet, I’m going to give back what you guys gave me,’” she said. “Not only that, but I’m going to help every one of my friends on the beach.”

Roberta Adams

San Diego native Roberta Adams, 62, has overcome addiction and homelessness in the past year, emerging from a dark place that resulted in a week-long hospital stay and three follow-up visits.

She described a past relationship as toxic, abusive and very drug-related, which lasted on-and-off for a few years.

While living in Hemet, she left the man she was with, entered a program to become sober, and for eight months lived in her own place.

“Then COVID hit, and the next thing you know, I’m getting high again and inviting him back in my life again,” she said. “It was the same drama, worse than any other time, and that continued until I made up my mind to let that sh— go.”

Adams has diabetes, and she said she would neglect to take insulin shots when using drugs. Her health was failing by the time a friend paid her Uber fare to drive her from Hemet to Perris, where she caught a Greyhound bus to San Diego and then took a trolley to Grossmont Hospital.

“I couldn’t even see straight,” she said. “I couldn’t even walk straight.”

Her health stabilized after a week in the hospital, but Adams had no place to go. She did not want to move in with her grown children, and she found herself suddenly homeless.

Some at the hospital suggested she go to the San Diego Rescue Mission, where she entered a year-long program that she graduated from two months ago. She’s now on a waiting list for permanent housing.

“I know that God is working in my life,” she said.

She has blocked the man from her past relationship from seeing her, and she plans to attend a Narcotics Anonymous group every day once she has her own place.

“I don’t want to relapse ever again,” she said.

Christopher Johnson

San Diego native Christopher Johnson was heartbroken earlier this year and made a choice. He had to get back to his children, even if it meant being homeless.

He and his wife and four children had moved to Fort Worth, Texas, four years ago so his mother could be near her grandchildren. But the marriage broke up, and his wife moved back to San Diego with their three youngest children.

Johnson said he fell into a depression, but began to healas he focused on reuniting with children.

Click here to read the full article in the SD Union Tribune