SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- City of San Diego leaders on Monday announced that nearly 500 shelter options would become available to replace the 614 that will be offline by the end of 2024.
Golden Hall and Father Joe Villages’ Paul Mirabile Center will all close by the end of the year.
“As Golden Hall and the Paul Mirablie Center in East Village come offline, none of those individuals will return to our sidewalks and our riverbeds. But importantly more capacity is being created,” Mayor Todd Gloria said.
By December, city leaders said 160 beds will become available inside the Veterans Village of San Diego for seniors and veterans; 56 beds will become available to house people with substance abuse disorders; another 37 beds will be available at the new San Diego Mission Shelter in National City; and Safe Sleeping sites will add 235 new tents.
“The really important thing is the quality of these beds,” John Brady said.
Brady of Lived Experience Advisers - a homeless advocacy group - was there as the city announced the plan for more shelter beds.
“This is not a congregate environment. Even what they’re calling congregate is a maximum of four people to a room with a shared bathroom, lockers and some privacy,” Brady said. “So you’re not in with hundreds of people Therefore some recovery can actually start to happen.”
"We know that shelter isn’t one-size-fits-all," said Deacon Jim Vargas, president and CEO at Father Joe's Village. "We must provide a diversity of tailored shelter options alongside wrap-around services, such as healthcare and social work, for increasingly vulnerable populations."
The City of San Diego is also working to transform an old motel into a 135-bed shelter space. No date was given on when that will open.
In addition to this, the city created a homelessness diversion program to connect homeless individuals with housing solutions to free up shelter space faster.
"We had no other choice. We have been laser-focused on expanding our shelter capacity since I became mayor. While we have some beds that are coming offline, we worked in a collaborative fashion with multiple partners to make sure no one in our shelter system today is returned to the streets," said Mayor Todd Gloria.
The funding will come from the city’s $4.2 million budget to address homelessness and funds that would've been used on Golden Hall and the Mirabile Center
Once all these sites go online, Gloria said the work isn’t finished, as he is still negotiating with the owner of the controversial 1,000-bed shelter space off of Kettner and Vine.
As the city works to recoup those shelter beds, it’s also working on it’s budget for fiscal year 2026 and it’s budget priorities.
Homelessness, per the Internal Budget Analyst office, is a topic getting a lot of support from City Council as a priority.
“We’ve been big advocates for a number of years now for investing more in prevention. We know that our prevention programs work very well,” Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said.
Elo-Rivera told ABC 10News the conversations on Monday will be giving the council and the community an earlier say on what would be in the next budget.
“We’re always going to advocate for more on the prevention side until we get to a place where folks aren’t unnecessarily falling into homelessness. We’ve got programs that work,” Elo-Rivera said. “It’s just about not inventing anything new at this point. It’s about it’s about investing more in the things that are working.
ABC 10News asked Brady what he would like to see the City fund as it reviews priorities for the FY26 budget.
“We would like to see more investment in housing. We would also like to see some research into what appears to be consistent problems with permanent supportive housing and the service delivery model there,” Brady said.
