{"id":228334,"date":"2015-10-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/homeless-becoming-a-neighborhood-problem\/"},"modified":"2015-10-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T07:00:00","slug":"homeless-becoming-a-neighborhood-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/homeless-becoming-a-neighborhood-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless becoming a neighborhood problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Citizen complaints fuel more police efforts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Por Doug Curlee | Editor en general<\/p>\n

Residents in Del Cerro, San Carlos, Grantville and Allied Gardens are as aware as anyone that San Diego has a well-documented homeless problem exceeding 8,000 people.<\/p>\n

San Diego has always been a haven for the homeless – those who really have no place to go, or who don\u2019t really want to have a place to go.<\/p>\n

For decades, they\u2019ve come here for the same reason many of us did. If you\u2019re outside in January, would you prefer Buffalo or Chicago or Minneapolis over sunny San Diego? That\u2019s an easy question to answer.<\/p>\n

But the homeless are now increasingly showing up in the residential neighborhoods, as opposed to the downtown places they used to frequent exclusively.<\/p>\n

Places like the Allied Gardens Rec Center and park, or behind the shopping center at Waring and Zion, or in the many canyons around our area.<\/p>\n

That has prompted Eastern Division Patrol Lieutenant Mike Swanson to begin building the foundation of a unit he calls the \u201cQuality of Life\u201d detail.<\/p>\n

Right now, it consists of two officers who make early morning checks on complaint areas before tasking on their regular patrol functions. It\u2019s Swanson\u2019s hope to make it a full time detail in the coming years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is, first of all, offer services to the homeless we find in areas where they shouldn\u2019t be. There are several community resources that can and will help the homeless get someplace to stay, or at least to eat and clean up. Many of the homeless don\u2019t know about those groups and programs, so we\u2019ll be offering that to the people out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swanson quickly points this is not just a bunch of cops going out to hassle people. Accusations like that are made all the time, but it\u2019s not that way, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single sweep we make is in response to valid citizen complaints. We\u2019re not looking for people to just toss into jail. In any contact, unless there are arrest warrants for the homeless person, we\u2019re looking to get them into shelter. If they refuse our help on that, then enforcement is the next option, and that can and usually does include a trip to jail. \u201c<\/p>\n

Amy Gonyeau, Chief Operating Officer for the Alpha Project, San Diego County\u2019s largest homeless outreach program, thinks the use of jails to solve the homeless problem is too expensive for tax payers. She said a better way is to train officers on the various services there are to help homeless and to use non-aggressive engagement techniques when dealing with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important part is to gain their trust,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have that, you won\u2019t be effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonyeau also said residents in the area can help in getting homeless into services by not \u201cstreet feeding\u201d them. Enablers who give food are one of the major causes of homeless sprawling into new neighborhoods, she said.<\/p>\n

For resident David Delgadillo, trips to Allied Gardens Park do not involve feeding homeless, but he has noticed the increase in the problem nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do see a lot of homeless around here, much more than I used to. Something needs to be done about it, but I\u2019m not sure arresting them will do much good. I spent most of my life as an emergency room nurse, but I also spent a lot of that time as a psychiatric nurse as well. I know there are people among the homeless that just need help, and will accept it if it\u2019s offered. I also know there are those out there who want nothing to do with programs or help of any sort. They\u2019re where they think they need to be, and there\u2019s not much that can change their mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a problem that Mike Swanson will never be able to completely cure, but he can get some people to the help that just might get their lives back on track, and out of the neighborhoods where people fear them. Right now, he\u2019d settle for that.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013Doug Curlee is Editor at Large. Write to him at doug@sdcnn.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citizen complaints fuel more police efforts By Doug Curlee |\u00a0Editor at Large Residents in Del Cerro, San Carlos, Grantville and Allied Gardens are as aware as anyone that San Diego has a well-documented homeless problem exceeding 8,000 people.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":228331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Homeless becoming a neighborhood problem","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}