In San Diego, homeless woes result in deadly outbreak

SAN DIEGO — For Christine Wade, the tent she shared with six children, pitched in an asphalt parking lot, was far better than their previous home — a shelter where rats ate through the family’s bags of clothes.

“It’s peaceful here,” Wade, 31 and eight months pregnant, said in an October interview at the campground.

A tent, of course, is not a home. But for these San Diegans, it is a blessing.

Like other major cities all along the West Coast, San Diego is struggling with a homeless crisis. In a place that bills itself as “America’s Finest City,” spiraling real estate values have contributed to spiraling homelessness, leaving more than 3,200 people living on the streets or in their cars.

Most alarmingly, the deplorable sanitary conditions help spread a liver-damaging virus that lives in feces, contributing to the deadliest U.S. hepatitis A epidemic in 20 years.

“Some of the most vulnerable are dying in the streets in one of the most desirable and livable regions in America,” a San Diego County grand jury wrote in its report in June — reiterating recommendations it gave the city over the past decade to address homelessness.

San Diego has struggled to do that. Two years ago, Mayor Kevin Faulconer closed a downtown tent shelter that operated for 29 years during winter months. He promised a “game changer” — a new, permanent facility with services to funnel people to housing. But it wasn’t enough. The result? Legions of Californians without shelter. A spreading contagion. And an extraordinary challenge to the city’s sunny identity that threatens its key tourism industry.

For now, San Diego again is turning to tents. The campground where the Wades lived served 200 residents but was only temporary; this month, officials are opening three industrial-sized tents that will house a total of 700 people.

There are plans afoot to build housing. But to deal with the immediate emergency, the city had to take $6.5 million that had been budgeted for permanent homes to operate the giant tents.

“The people of San Diego need to decide what they want the city to look like,” said Gordon Walker, the head of San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless. “San Francisco has essentially given up its streets to the homeless. It could go either way here. The real issue is we don’t have enough housing.”

Last year, the number of people living outdoors in San Diego jumped 18 percent over the previous year, according to an annual count taken in January. More than 400 makeshift shelters covered downtown sidewalks alongside new apartment high-rises.

In October, Faulconer teamed with the homeless services provider, Alpha Project, to open the Balboa Park campground where the Wades found shelter. The city installed public washing stations, opened 24-hour restrooms and scrubbed streets with a bleach solution.

Police also cited people. Within weeks, the nearly 400 tents and tarps downtown disappeared.

Meanwhile, the number of encampments along the banks of the San Diego River doubled.