I’VE SLEPT ON SIDEWALKS. I KNOW WHAT MIGHT HELP.
The end of homelessness begins with a home.
I know this from experience.
I have a master’s degree in business and decades of experience as a successful executive consultant and business owner. I also spent just more than a year without a safe place to call home in San Diego. How did I become homeless? On Christmas Eve 2006, I was the victim of a hate crime in West Hollywood and never had access to the deep mental health treatment I needed. This led to a deep multi-year depression peppered with periods of selfmedication. Ultimately in 2015 I lost my boat — my home — in a storm here in San Diego.
The experience of homelessness was traumatic, and the recovery was daunting. What I learned about myself and homelessness was powerful.
Prior to becoming homeless, I accepted the common belief that people had plenty of options but preferred living on our streets. I soon learned that could not be further from the truth. The physical and emotional toll created by living on the sidewalk quickly surpassed the meager resources that San Diego offered in terms of shelter and mental and physical health services. If fact, the one “service” that was present above all others was enforcement. That was true six years ago and remains a constant today, but the balance is shifting rapidly.
How did I recover? I am living proof that ending homelessness begins with a home. While much credit goes to Voices of Our City Choir and others who believed in me when I could not, my real recovery began with housing. My homelessness ended when I entered a San Diego Housing Commission’s rapid rehousing program and found an affordable apartment four years ago. But today we don’t have many affordable apartments like that one in San Diego, nor have we built enough housing that people can afford.
We do not have housing that our first responders, teachers, nurses, small business owners and police officers — the people we rely on most to keep our community going — can afford and maintain. And we’ve built next to nothing for the single mom who cleans houses, the home health aide who takes care of our aging parents, the student buried in college debt or the person — like me — who needed some extra help.
In Downtown San Diego, the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased by 38 percent over the last 12 months to a record high of 1,939. The increase is no surprise given the rising cost of housing in our city. To rent an average two-bedroom unit, you have to earn between $42 an hour and $65 an hour.
The numbers of homeless people on our streets continue to grow, but not for lack of a plan. The city of San Diego achieved 60 to 80 percent of the 10-year housing goals outlined in its 2017 homeless plan last year. Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic and decades of underinvestment in housing construction have led more people to lose their housing. And since 2017, the city has failed to maximize housing on land it owns, like the former Qualcomm stadium site and the Padres tailgate park. Even the federal government is complicit — the 70-acre NAVWAR redevelopment request for qualifications has zero requirements for affordable or housing of any type.
The truth is that almost all of us are one paycheck, car accident or trauma away from needing some help. Because I got housing, I am now able to lead a nonprofit organization, serving as a voice for people who have experienced homelessness, and contributing all my energy to making San Diego a place everyone can call home.
When you are frustrated by people living on the streets, remember that no one wants to sleep on concrete or have all their possessions thrown out during a sanitation raid and — most importantly — remember that housing is the only thing that will actually solve the problem.
If you want San Diego, and our country, to exist free of homelessness, we must act meaningfully to ensure everyone has a safe place to call home. In order to do this, we need to maximize middle-income and very affordable housing on public land. The 70-acre NAVWAR redevelopment in Midway is a prime example. We also must support the San Diego City Council’s efforts when unraveling decades of discriminatory and restrictive zoning practices. We can no longer sprawl out; we must build within.
The experience of homelessness was traumatic, and the recovery was daunting. What I learned about myself and homelessness was powerful.
Brady is the executive director of Lived Experience Advisors, a group of homeless and formerly homeless individuals who advocate for housing and improved approaches to solving homelessness. He is member of the Residents United Network, the National Coalition for the Homeless and of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness executive committe. He lives in City Heights.