SAN DIEGO — The vote is coming soon and Mayor Todd Gloria is not letting up on his proposed ban on homeless camps.
On Friday, he took his fight to Balboa Park, one of the most beautiful spots in San Diego, with the argument that homeless camps are ruining it.
“They expect to be able to walk on sidewalks unobstructed, they expect to be able to get their children to school safely, they expect to be able to use our parks in a hygienic and clean and safe way,” said Mayor Gloria at a press conference held at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park.
“This park, like all of our parks, are not a homeless shelter. It’s not a place to live, it’s not a giant toilet, it is not a trash dump,” Gloria said.
Nearby, homeless advocates protested Gloria's approach to the problem.
“If we create an ordinance that bans camping in the majority of areas where people are residing, because they have no other alternatives, where will they go and how can the police department actually enforce that?” asked John Brady.
At the Mayor’s press conference, Parks and Recreation Director, Andy Field, described what his staff deals with every day.
“Our teams are cleaning public restrooms around the city on a daily basis only to return the next day or later that same day to observe the restrooms are again vandalized, covered in filth and human waste,” said Field. “Toilets and sinks and soap dispensers are destroyed, smashed, covered in feces or otherwise damaged.”
The 2023 point-in-time count released Thursday by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness shows a minimum of 6,500 people experiencing homelessness in the City of San Diego.
“It’s completely heartless and it’s tone deaf,” said Amie Zamudio, founder of Housing 4 the Homeless. She focuses on serving medically compromised seniors with disabilities, oftentimes when they’re discharged from the hospital.
“If the doctor does not refer them into a skilled nursing facility, which happens quite frequently, they are exited, but they can’t get into a shelter, and they truly, truly have nowhere to go,” said Zamudio.
According to data in the 2023 point-in-time count, the number of emergency shelter beds in the City is 3,000 and 87% of those are being utilized.
As part of a shelter strategy, the city is looking to launch a Safe Sleeping Program that would allow for more than 500 tents at two sites near Balboa Park. The site, located at Balboa Park’s 20th and B Street lot and Parking Lot O near the Naval Medical Center, will have individual tents provided by the city.
“This is a long-term commitment by this city to provide resources for vulnerable and sick individuals to give them a better place to go than the sidewalk,” said Mayor Gloria. “Our expectation is when those resources are available, they must take them.”
But critics say the efforts to add emergency beds aren’t nearly enough.
“We have over 3,500 people living on the streets of San Diego. They’re not going to fit into 500 additional beds at the encampment that’s being opened up,” said Brady.
The 2023 point-in-time count shows that of the 6,500 people counted as experiencing homelessness in the City of San Diego, nearly 2,600 reside in emergency shelters while 3285 are living on the streets.
The City Council will be taking up the ordinance for a vote at Tuesday’s meeting.
WATCH RELATED: Mayor Gloria urge support for homeless encampment ban amid chants from protestors (May 2023).