REDONE CENTER’S FOCUS ON HOMELESS
New approach aims to overcome obstacles to permanent housing
With a new name and a revised approach, the city of San Diego has reopened a downtown center focused on helping homeless people find housing and other services.
In contrast to the December 2019 grand opening ceremony of the Housing Navigation Center at 1401 Imperial Ave., the new Homeless Response Center at the same site held a quiet opening May 17 and just this week launched its website. The center is in the former Indoor Skydiving building, which the city bought for $7 million in January 2018.
Family Health Centers of San Diego ran the Housing Navigation Center for about a year, but the city terminated its contract in October, and the new program is run by the San Diego Housing Commission in collaboration with People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), the Regional Task Force on the Homeless and homeless service providers.
Lisa Jones, executive vice president of strategic initiatives for the San Diego Housing Commission, said the new name better reflects the mission of the center.
“Not everyone knows what ‘housing navigation’ means, particularly if you’re experiencing homelessness,” she said. “Homeless Response Center is just more broad and welcoming. If you are experiencing homelessness, come in. We will have resources for you.” The new model was developed during Operation Shelter to Home, the temporary shelter in the San Diego Convention Center that was set up out of concerns that the coronavirus could spread at the city’s smaller shelters. With various agencies and service providers under one roof, Jones and other officials from the Housing Commission and the Regional Task Force on the
Homeless saw an opportunity to remove barriers and create a more efficient way of getting help to homeless people.
By the time the shelter closed in March, 1,347 people had been placed in permanent housing and 118 had found other types of longterm housing, according to the Housing Commission. Since then, another 114 people have found permanent housing with help from center staff members and 58 have found other long-term housing. Jones said the center also is working with almost 200 other people who are being connected to housing.
The key components of the new model are a focus on client’s needs and removing barriers while also working closely with outreach workers on the street.
Deanna Vila Nueva, vice president of housing operations for the Housing Commission, oversaw the housing navigation team at the Convention Center and said outreach workers from PATH, the Alpha Project, Father Joe’s Villages and Downtown San Diego Partnership are helping the new center connect people on the street with services. In some cases, a staff member will meet with someone wherever they are rather than requiring the person to come to the center.
People who do come to the center will have an opportunity to meet with representatives from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Veterans Village of San Diego and other agencies. Home Start Inc. is on site each day to help transitional age youth and the county Health and Human Services Agency can help people sign up for benefits from CalWORKS, Cal Fresh, Medi-Cal, General Relief, family service programs and resources for food and clothing.
The center has seen about 17 walk-ins each day since its opening and recorded 293 visits, including people who may have come in more than once.
People can make an appointment or drop by the center, where they will getan assessment of their needs and find out if they already have been connected to services such as rental assistance programs.
Jones said sometimes center staff members connect clients with benefits that already are waiting for them.
“We’ve had someone literally walk in cold to the HRC looking for housing, only to find they’re actually matched to a housing resource right now,” she said. “We just have to get them reconnected to that housing resource.”
That is an experience that happens too often, as homeless people sometimes move out of shelters, lose their phone or change their phone number. Jones said that under the new model, outreach workers will be told to be on the lookout for somebody an agency is trying to reach to connect them with housing or other services.
The center also is working directly with shelter providers so their clients know about services.