SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - Community members had a chance to raise last-minute concerns and ask last minute questions about controversial homeless storage facility set to open in the Sherman Heights neighborhood.
The Thursday night meeting took place less than a week before the storage facility opens on June 13 on the corner of Commerical and 20th Streets.
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The city says the storage facility will help address San Diego's homeless issue. It would help nearly 500 homeless people a place to store their things while they look for jobs and opportunities.
"Concerns? Safety. Concerns? Illegal activity," Patricia Cueva said. Her son is a first grader at Our Lady's School which is just around the corner from the soon to open storage facility.
Her son's school gets out for summer on the June 12, a day before the facility opens.
"They're going to have summer camp in mid-June, and they weren't considering that even though the students from the regular school year are gone, there's still going to be a campus full of kids, and that's a concern," she said.
Many in the community made a laundry list of questions and concerns ahead of the opening. Many wanted to know if the city could make public the identities of the people that would be using the facility.
City officials could not accommodate that request because of privacy laws. They also said the users of the storage facility would not need an ID to use the facility.
Another request from the community was to change the Sunday hours of 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. feeling that it might have an impact on the families that attend the church nearby.
The city decided to keep those hours but said it could be revisited.
Many felt the city and facility officials were giving their questions and concerns the runaround, but Bahija Humphrey, Assistant Chief of Civic Initiatives with the City of San Diego, continued to ask the community to give the facility a chance.
"Some of the concerns, I believe we can assuage when we open the facility, and they see it's open, and they see we are following through with our commitment," Humphrey said.
