City weighs centralized homelessness services

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer is proposing a new department to consolidate all homelessness services that are now under different areas of the city government.

City Council members heard details of the proposed Homelessness Strategies Department at Tuesday’s Budget Review Committee meeting, where it was presented as an information idea with no vote required.

Keely Halsey, chief of homelessness strategies and housing liaison in Faulconer’s office, said the new department would not have an impact on the city’s general fund and would include state grant funding for programs now paid for through the city’s Housing Commission.

Halsey said the new department would allow the city to better coordinate the work of all departments that work on homelessness and will help the city monitor expenditures. The $10.4 million of general fund money that now goes for homelessness strategies had been under the Neighborhood Services branch.

Grants in the proposed budget for the department include $26.6 million in state Homeless Emergency Aid Program and Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention money, which would fund several programs. Among the significant budget adjustments noted in the proposal was the $2.1 million cost of ancillary services at two of the city’s bridge shelters, which will be supported by state money rather than the Housing Commission.

General fund expenditures in next year’s proposed budget include $5.7 million to support the bridge shelter run by Veterans Village of San Diego. That includes a one-time expense of $2.5 million to relocate the tented shelter from its Midwayarea site, which the Navy owns and has plans to use for other purposes.

Jillian Kissee of the city’s Independent Budget Analyst office said reducing the number of departments that are responsible for portions of homeless services and consolidating them could provide more system-wide consistency. She also noted that the COVID-19 outbreak could lead to some changes in state funding, and there could be unknown costs when the city ends its shelter program at the San Diego Convention Center and homeless people there must be relocated.