San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
1ST SOUTH COUNTY HOMELESS SHELTER COULD OPEN IN MAY
Chula Vista expects to have South County’s first homeless bridge shelter set up by May.
The site is located on a city-owned vacant lot on 27th Street, near the intersection of Faivre Street and Broadway, and will consist of more than 60 prefab shelter units by builder Pallet Shelter. The company, hired by the City Council in November, has worked with other jurisdictions, including Los Angeles, Riverside and San Jose, to build similar homeless shelters.
City officials said they expected a shipment of the shelter units to arrive last week. They will be stored while preparations in and around the property are completed.
“There’s some public infrastructure improvements that need to be done around the perimeter of the property and those have already started. So, bringing in the sewer, water, electricity, things like that,” said Angelica Davis, a city senior management analyst.
These features will allow the site to offer showers, bathrooms and laundry. There will be a total bed capacity of 138, but city officials said they anticipate starting with an occupancy of 75 in the first year based on available funding.
Chula Vista allocated $7.4 million in state and federal dollars for the shelter. Of that amount, the city budgeted $2.77 million for on-site and off-site costs. The remaining $4 million will cover operational costs for the next three years, Davis said.
In addition to preparing the site for the units, the city must select an agency to operate the shelter. Whomever is chosen will be responsible for providing crisis response and referrals to help individuals transition to permanent housing, as well as maintaining the site and providing 24hour security.
Chula Vista issued a request for proposals (RFP) in October and received three responses.
The city refused to say who submitted those proposals. City staff will evaluate each of them and interview the applicants before making a recommendation to the City Council sometime in March, Davis said.
“We’re confident that we’re going to get somebody in there that has, obviously, the expert experience and the knowledge with operating a facility like this,” she said. “For me, being the first homeless shelter, not just in Chula Vista, but in the South Bay, it’s really important that we get the right person to go in there.”
The shelter’s opening would come after the 2022 point-in-time count — San Diego County’s annual homeless census that tallies the number of homeless individuals in the region to help improve needed services. This year’s count is scheduled for Feb. 24 and would mark the first one since January 2020, as last year’s count was canceled due to the pandemic.
The 2020 count showed that South County had about 473 homeless persons, making up about 6.3 percent of the county’s homeless population. Of that figure, 313 were tallied in Chula Vista.
Local municipalities and homeless advocates have long questioned the pointin-time methodology, saying results are inaccurate and reflect a far smaller figure than actually exists. The Chula Vista Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team has conducted its own counts and estimated that, in 2021, there were nearly 800 people experiencing some form of homelessness.