S.D. TO CLOSE SHELTER AT GOLDEN HALL
City has no date yet, but residents will be relocated before facility shuts down
A homeless shelter operated in Golden Hall in downtown San Diego will close sometime in the future and new locations to accommodate hundreds of homeless people will have to be found, a city official said Tuesday.
The city-owned shelter has been operating under a temporary permit in the venue since 2019, but it cannot continue in the aging building on a permanent basis, said David Rolland, deputy director of communications for San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.
As of Tuesday, 507 people were staying in the shelter, which is operated by Father Joe’s Villages. Clients included 324 single men, 137 family members and 46 transitional-age youths, ages 18-25. The shelter is full with the exception of 27 empty beds in the family section, he said.
Rolland did not know when the temporary permit expires and said there is no pressing deadline to end the shelter program, but the transition already has begun. Rolland said intakes for families halted Monday as work continues on a new family shelter that will be at a former Barrio Logan Travelodge the city began leasing last week.
The 42-room motel could accommodate up to 168 people if each room has a four-member family, and people may begin moving in by the end of April or early May, he said.
Rolland said there is no set plan for where to find shelter for the single men and transitional-age youths now at Golden Hall, but no one will have to leave until other sites are found.
“There is no date for when this has to happen, but it has to happen,” he said.
There are few shelter options for transitional-age youths, but Urban Street Angels recently expanded its downtown shelter to accommodate up to 70 transitional-age youths
and also operates a 60-bed shelter for youths in La Mesa.
Deacon Jim Vargas, president and CEO of Father Joe’s Villages, said finding new accommodations for more than 300 men now at Golden Hall could be a significant challenge.
“We’ll work collaboratively with the city and the city Housing Commission,” he said. “We’re committed to no person being back on the street.”
Vargas said he knew going into Golden Hall that the arrangement would be temporary. It is in fact the second temporary shelter Father Joe’s Villages has operated for the city, with a previous shelter operating on what now is the site of the nonprofit’s St. Teresa of Calcutta Villa housing development.
Relying on temporary locations for the shelters perhaps illustrates the challenge of finding a permanent location for large congregate shelters. Vargas said the solution could be moving people into a number of small shelters, such as leased or purchased hotels.
Besides the Travelodge, San Diego is using a cityowned former hotel in South Bay as a shelter for seniors and is leasing another hotel in Little Italy for a senior shelter.
Rolland said continuing to operate Golden Hall as a permanent shelter would require extensive and costly upgrades to the building.
Meanwhile, the longterm fate of the venue is unknown. Golden Hall is in the San Diego Concourse, also home to City Hall and the Civic Theater, which all are part of the large downtown redevelopment plan called the Civic Core Revitalization project.
The venue opened in 1964 and once was the site of concerts, the San Diego ComicCon and the San Diego Conquistadors basketball team coached by Wilt Chamberlain in 1973-74.
In November, a leaking roof required the city to temporarily relocate 360 people at Golden Hall while repairs were made.