SAN DIEGO STORED HOUSING TRAILERS FOR YEARS
Assets from California were deployed by other communities quickly
In the frantic early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, government officials tried practically everything they could think of to protect the public.
Hundreds of billions of dollars were directed to families, businesses and local and state agencies to help contain the spread of the virus and to give temporary relief to those in need.
One critical program was Project Roomkey, a California Department of Social Services effort that sought to provide housing to people experiencing homelessness outside the network of group shelters where infections were rampant.
In addition to securing hotel rooms for needy families and individuals, state officials offered cities and counties more than 1,500 trailers that could serve as short- and medium-term housing for people with nowhere else to go.
The program was “designed to quickly provide dedicated resources to ensure Project Roomkey units remain online through the continued publichealth emergency and that homelessness is non-recurring,” they said.
But San Diego County, which as the region’s public health provider was in charge of administering local Project Roomkey efforts, asked state officials for only a few dozen trailers.
The city of San Diego collected nearly half of those — 20 — but has kept them all in storage for years.
The yearslong delay comes even as elected officials continue to celebrate incremental efforts in tackling homelessness and affordable housing.
Last week alone, the city opened a 36-bed shelter at the former downtown library, and the San Diego City Council declared housing a human right. In 2022, county
officials defined homelessness as a threat to public health.
Only now are San Diego officials close to making some of the trailers available to homeless families.
A spokesperson for Mayor Todd Gloria blamed former Mayor Kevin Faulconer for the delays in putting the trailers into service. He also said it was difficult to find appropriate locations and make sure they had access to water, sewer and electricity.
“When Mayor Gloria was made aware that the previous administration had stowed away 20 trailers received at the heights of the pandemic, he directed his newly formed Homelessness Strategies and Solutions department to explore site(s) to locate and use the trailers to serve families experiencing homelessness,” spokesperson David Rolland said in an email.
“The task was challenging, requiring infrastructure upgrades such as power, sewer, water and lighting, in addition to procuring a service provider for case management,” he added.
Yet other cities managed to receive and deploy the emergency housing units much more quickly.
Chula Vista collected 10 of the trailers offered by state officials at the same time San Diego took possession of 20. Within months, Chula Vista donated all 10 to a local charity, which has been using them to help needy people ever since.
“Our first clients moved in October and November of 2020,” said Mindy Wright of South Bay Community Services, a social-services nonprofit that serves children, parents and others.
The trailers are used for emergency and short-term housing for people experiencing homelessness, the charity said. They are parked on organization property and overseen by a full-time resident manager.
“Often clients have a housing voucher but are having trouble finding a unit to rent, which leads to temporary homelessness or housing insecurity,” Wright said about the people benefiting from the trailers.
“SBCS clients living in the trailers also receive supportive services such as case management and housing navigation as they search for stable, long-term housing,” she said.
Other counties sought more than 100
The trailers, which are generally 8 feet wide by 25 or 30 feet long, were purchased by the state with federal COVID-19 relief money. They are standard recreational vehicles that are towed behind cars and trucks, not the so-called fifth-wheels that attach to the beds of pickup trucks.
The trailers were first made available by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to 12 larger California cities — including San Diego — through county governments, before then being offered to smaller cities and counties.
While some local agencies requested and eventually received 100 units or more, San Diego County applied for and received only 44, according to state data. The county said it received 43.
Thirty of those were delivered to the cities of San Diego and Chula Vista. The county kept six, while La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Santee each got two and Imperial Beach one, a county official said.
“When the state reached out, we were not offered any at that time,” county spokesperson Michael Workman said. “Really, the city was the main player. After that, they did open it (the trailer program) to smaller cities and the county. We weren’t first on the list.”
The county initially used its trailers to support the public-health response to COVID-19, such as for testing and later for vaccinations. By last year, they found alternate ways to deploy them.
Workman said two went to the local Cal Fire agency for disaster-response efforts, two were sent to Mariposa County for fire relief, and one has been sent to the county emergency operations center for staff accommodations. “One is not currently deployed,” he said.
Other counties across the state were more interested in securing the Project Roomkey trailers to aid their local pandemic responses.
Los Angeles County, for example, requested and received more than 650, according to a public dashboard detailing usage of both the trailers and hotel rooms.
Monterey and Santa Clara counties each requested more than 100, although they accepted 15 and 12, respectively. Alameda and San Francisco counties applied for and got 91 trailers each. Even tiny Imperial County sought 80 and was delivered all but one of those.
In all, 20 counties requested a total of 1,557 trailers, and state officials delivered 1,244 to 16 counties, the Department of Social Services reported.
Back in March 2020, days after the public-health emergency was first declared, San Diego was expected to receive more than 100, according to emails exchanged between state officials at the time.
“I just had a conversation with (the) city of San Diego and they are waiting for us to provide information about the specifics of the trailers (e.g. do they come with showers),” a state emergency services administrator wrote to a colleague.
“They are looking at declining at this point without further information from our logistics team,” he added. “But will hold off until we can provide them (the) information.”
‘Complete incompetence’
The question of how many trailers San Diego wanted is a critical one for community advocates who volunteer their time and money to help unhoused people every day.
Despite a history of citing affordable housing and homelessness as their top policy concerns, local officials have a spotty record of securing state housing grants and spending public funds.
Last year, for example, the Voice of San Diego reported that city and county leaders across the region missed a deadline to apply for more than $60 million that had been earmarked for local housing efforts.
In February 2021, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that San Diego had relied on pre-pandemic appraisals to buy two hotels in 2020 — a 192-room property in Mission Valley and a 144room hotel in Kearny Mesa.
The decision resulted in the city paying the highest and near-highest per-room costs for any hotels sold in San Diego County that year.
Michael McConnell, who regularly hands out water, tents and other supplies to homeless people across the community, said he was not surprised that 20 trailers donated to the city have been languishing in storage for nearly three years.
“It’s just another example of the city’s inability to quickly deploy solutions to this crisis,” he said. “This is why we are not going to make progress on solving homelessness in San Diego.
“For whatever reason, they are just bogged down by decision-making and inaction,” he said. “We hear the press conferences over and over where they pat themselves on the back, but little gets done.”
Amie Zamudio, another community volunteer who helps find hotel rooms and other services for unsheltered people, said she was frustrated to learn that Project Roomkey trailers had yet to be employed.
“I have a lot of veterans who would have welcomed the opportunity to live in one of those trailers,” she said. “To me, this is complete incompetence. We need every possible option for these people.”
Rolland, the Mayor’s Office spokesperson, declined to comment on why San Diego had sought only 20 trailers under the emergencyhousing program.
“This occurred during the previous administration,” he said. “We refer you to them.”
The Gloria administration also would not say when specifically the mayor learned that 20 trailers designated for emergency housing were instead in storage.
But as early as March 2021, just three months into his first term, Gloria cited the Project Roomkey program in a news release and said he was committed to leveraging its resources as effectively as possible.
“Identifying able providers of necessary support services and intensive casemanagement across the county has been the No. 1 barrier for making full use of shelter programs like California’s Project Roomkey,” Gloria said then.
“We must turn over every stone, and we must use every tool in the box to find quality service providers who will protect public health and save lives,” he said.
Housing for 13 families, for one year
Earlier this month, at a weeknight meeting of the Clairemont Community Planning Group, a director from the Mayor’s Office introduced the latest plan to reduce homelessness in San Diego: the city’s fourth socalled safe-parking lot.
When it opens, the Rose Canyon site along Morena Boulevard will serve a maximum of 60 households — including 13 of the Project Roomkey trailers.
“These camper trailers will be converted to stationary living spaces at Rose Canyon and will be offered to and prioritized for families,” said the slide presentation from Kohta Zaiser, a deputy director of community engagement for the mayor.
“They include beds, plumbing, bathrooms and showers,” it added. “The camper trailers will not leave the Rose Canyon site until the conclusion of the program.”
The facility will be managed by Jewish Family Service, the San Diego charity that already operates three other safe-parking sites on city property in Kearny Mesa and Mission Valley.
The lot will be open 24 hours a day and served by around-the-clock security. Once approved for residency, clients will receive case-management services, including help finding more permanent housing.
The program is expected to launch later this winter or early spring, depending on a review by the City Attorney’s Office that is now under way, Zaiser told the planning group.
At this point, the Rose Canyon project is estimated to last one year.
The Mayor’s Office said it is working with the city Housing Commission to identify other potential locations for the remaining seven trailers.