The Peninsula Beacon’s Sept. 21 story by Dave Schwab did a good job of conveying the frustration felt by Peninsula residents about the homelessness crisis unfolding on San Diego’s streets. I share their frustration, as do residents across our city who are fed up with the squalor and antisocial behavior and demand solutions to the hardship. I would like to provide a more comprehensive summary of what we are doing to help people in need and ensure that our public spaces are safe.

Your story quotes Michael McConnell, an advocate for unsheltered residents, saying our shelter system should be diversified.

That’s precisely what we’re doing – and have been doing since the large-scale COVID emergency shelter at the Convention Center shut down in April 2021. Over the past 18 months, we’ve increased our shelter capacity by 364 beds for a total of 1,666. These include new shelters targeted at certain vulnerable populations, such as medically fragile women, seniors, and people with substance use or behavioral health disorders.

Late last year, we opened the 44-bed Community Harm Reduction Shelter at the old Pier 1 store on Sports Arena Boulevard to serve unhoused people struggling with substance abuse issues.

We recently opened Rachel’s Promise, a 40-bed shelter in Downtown San Diego that serves women with medical needs. And we opened the Palm Avenue Interim Shelter in the South Bay, which provides temporary private rooms for people who have been matched to long-term housing, prioritizing seniors.

Earlier this month, the City of San Diego took possession of a 34-room hotel on Pacific Highway that we will transform into a shelter for up to 60 seniors within the next couple of months.

In addition, we opened the Rosecrans Shelter, which provides 150 beds with immediate access to mental health care. We expanded one of our three Safe Parking lots to 24 hours a day, and soon we’ll open a fourth Safe Parking lot off Morena Boulevard.

This winter, we will open a 26-bed shelter at the Old Central Library Downtown for use during inclement weather, and we are close to announcing another large shelter with private rooms for families experiencing homelessness. We are also working to make available more than 200 existing shelter beds that are currently offline due to COVID restrictions and facilities maintenance.

In all, by early next year, we should have nearly 2,000 shelter beds online in our system, compared with the 1,071 that were operational as of April 1, 2021.

Mr. McConnell commented that shelters don’t solve homelessness, and he’s right about that. Permanent housing is what solves homelessness. But the fact is that every day, people are connected to housing directly from our shelter network and our street outreach program. So far this year, 520 people were placed into permanent or long-term housing from our shelters. For those individuals, shelter solved homelessness.

A Peninsula resident named Charlotte said the City should work to connect unsheltered residents with services and resources.

We’re doing that. In March 2021, I launched the Coordinated Street Outreach Program, in which outreach teams are assigned to communities in every City Council district and build trustful relationships with unhoused residents, with the goal of persuading them to say yes to shelter and services. In addition, every other week, we hold three-day focused outreach events in neighborhoods across the city, providing a single base of operations for dozens of service providers to assist people living on the streets. In addition to connecting folks to shelter and housing, these events give people access to onsite medical care, help them acquire the ID and other documents that might be needed to rent an apartment or access benefits, and set them up to change their circumstances.

William Yarling was quoted saying that mental illness needs to be addressed. I agree 100 percent. That’s why I stood with Gov. Gavin Newsom as he announced his CARE Court proposal and again when he signed it into law. CARE Court requires us to provide housing and treatment to people with severe mental illness. I was also a champion of efforts in the state Legislature to change our conservatorship laws to make it easier to help those who are the sickest.

Further in my City budget this year, I allocated $547,000 to fund a new conservatorship unit within the City Attorney’s office and $331,000 to fund the City’s first Chief Behavioral Health Officer to assist paramedics with clients in need of mental health services.

Business owner Walter Andersen was quoted as saying a police officer told him I had the Police Department not to enforce laws prohibiting people from blocking the sidewalks (encroachment) and sleeping in public (illegal lodging).

This is false. In fact, earlier this year I stepped up enforcement, particularly when it comes to folks blocking the public right-of-way with tents and other belongings. While I’m mayor, San Diego will not be content to allow people to live on our streets. It erodes the quality of life in our communities and puts public health and safety at risk.

For all we are doing, the crisis seems to only be getting worse, and that’s what’s frustrating. Due to the high cost of housing and inflation, more people are falling into homelessness. I have introduced two Housing Action Packages with 18 different policy reforms to make it easier to build affordable housing, and we’re investing City funds directly into affordable housing developments. Creating the amount of affordable housing we need will take time, as well as support from housed residents in our communities; if you’re dismayed by homelessness, I hope you will say yes to more housing in your neighborhood to help end the crisis.

We also need other cities in the region to do their fair share. Sweeping people off the streets without offering shelter and services only risks them moving to the place that does provide assistance – the city of San Diego. Homelessness is a regional crisis and needs to be treated as such.

I understand the anger coming from our communities. I want every San Diegan to know that getting people off the streets and into housing and treatment is my No. 1 priority, and I will not stop working on this crisis while I’m your mayor.