OCEANSIDE STAGES HOMELESS OUTREACH
1-day event brings variety of aid to tent occupants
Oceanside police officers, county health workers and several service providers staged what likely was the largest homeless outreach event ever held in the city at a growing encampment just off Oceanside Boulevard on Monday morning.
“Good morning, good morning,” Oceanside police Officer Jose Perez said outside a tent alongside South Oceanside Boulevard shortly before 7 a.m. Monday. “Anyone in the tent? Can I just speak to you for a minute?”
Perez, a member of the Police Department’s fourofficer Homeless Outreach Team, slipped into the tent with a flyer that promoted a resource fair that would provide information about shelters, housing assistance, medical and mental health care, veterans services and substance-use treatment.
People slowly emerged from their tents during the early morning and made their way down the street, where they found several tables manned by representatives from various organizations.
Setup began about 5 a.m. so services would be in place as soon as people awoke.
Oceanside police Lt. Dan Sullivan, who oversees the Homeless Outreach Team, said he got the idea about two weeks ago, and everyone he contacted agreed to participate immediately.
“It’s a different approach to how we normally do things,” Sullivan said. “We normally expect these people to come to us. I just had this idea to get everybody together, and we could focus all of these resources, and the people who are sitting at the table would be able to talk to the people here, and we could simplify the process.”
The resource fair targeted a group of homeless people living in about two dozen tents alongside South Oceanside Boulevard in front of the Town and Country shopping center. Rodney McGough, a homeless man living at the site, had helped supply tents and storage units for people on the site with the
understanding that they keep it clean.
While the site generally is free of litter, the situation isn’t ideal, and Sullivan said the city has heard complaints from business owners.
Ray Mendez, co-owner of Natty Bella Bridal Couture in the mall, said he’s seen litter and other problems associated with homeless people escalate in the past year.
“There’s homeless everywhere, but not at this scale,” he said. “It’s like a shelter for them, but it’s not. It’s a mall. People are trying to make a living.”
Mendez said one customer recently didn’t show up for an appointment and later said she had gone to another bridal business because she felt uncomfortable after arriving at the mall.
McGough said people living in his tents are not responsible for litter and other problems at the mall, which he said he and others around him try to keep
clean, and he blamed other homeless people living in the brush behind the mall with causing problems.
One store manager who didn’t want to be identified, however, said McGough’s tents are part of the problem, because the sight of a homeless encampment next to a shopping center will drive away business.
By the end of the day, Sullivan said the outreach had been a success in helping connect several people with services, shelter and even housing. While the oneday
event won’t result in the encampment shutting down, he said he was encouraged by the results and would consider doing it again.
Sullivan said 23 people were helped in some way. Several men were transported to La Posada de Guadalupe emergency shelter in Carlsbad. One man received permanent housing after learning that his application for Section 8 housing, which he had never checked on, had been approved.
Ten people received oneshot
Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, eight people received help getting identification cards, birth certificates and other basic needs, 14 people had Section 8 housing applications processed, one person was referred to substance treatment, two people received benefits available to veterans, and nine people received health screenings from True Care, a medical service provider.
Emily Luster was one of five people connected with General Relief benefits from
the state’s Department of Social Services.
“I applied for GR over a month ago, but I hadn’t gotten my benefits,” she said. “But today, I got to talk to somebody face to face. I’ll have food stamps in the morning.”
Her partner, Anthony Gregory, was hoping to learn about a fund offered through Interfaith Community Services that could help pay the impound fees on the RV he and Luster had been living in.
“I’ve talked to a million people, and nobody seems to be able to point us in the right direction,” he said, adding that he appreciated getting to meet with people in person.
“A lot of those police over there have arrested me over time,” he said about officers at the resource event. “It’s pretty cool to see a different side of them.”
Officer Tyler Peppard agreed with McGough’s view that homeless people living in the canyons are different from the ones in his encampment.
“There’s drug paraphernalia everywhere,” he said. “People who live in the riverbed and under bridges, they want to arm and protect themselves from other people who might come to rob them. They have ice picks, knives, all sorts of blunt objects. Sometimes firearms.”
After doing an outreach in the area, Peppard said he was hopeful that some people from the encampments would show up for the resource event. Sullivan said a few did, but they walked away.