In February, Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning Group bristled at plans to turn a Ramada Inn into permanent supportive housing, claiming their neighborhood is being deluged by homeless projects.
Planners reacted adversely to a presentation by Lisa Jones and Buddy Bohrer from the San Diego Housing Commission, who reported the City is in escrow on the purchase of the Ramada Inn at 3737-3747 Midway Drive. They said plans are to re-purpose the circa 1959 hotel as 64 units of permanent supportive homeless housing.
The Ramada housing redevelopment is being done as a Homekey project providing state grant funding to quickly acquire or rehabilitate or master lease a variety of housing types. The goal is to provide interim or permanent housing options for the homeless.
“This is a weighty topic that hits close to home,” said Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning Group chair Dike Anyiwo. “We’re braced for all kinds of change here, as Midway is significantly more impacted by homelessness than anywhere else. The City has a lot of work to do to continue to educate this group and engage with it.”
“I’m appalled at the City’s claim of transparency when you come here and tell us you’re in escrow and it doesn’t make any difference what we think,” said Cathy Kenton, the planning group’s immediate past chair. “You come to us after the fact and tell us what is going to be and how it’s going to be – and we’re just stuck with it. Is the City in escrow with any other projects of this size anywhere else? It seems everyone is just continuing to dump (homeless projects) into Midway rather than remodeling or redeveloping.”
“There are permanent supportive housing projects, predominantly federally funded but also funded by state grants like Homekey under an initiative by Gov. Newsom the last several years, located all over the City,” replied Jones.
“It is alarming to me that we seem to be funneling so much of this into the Midway area, it’s very upsetting on a couple of different levels,” said Midway planner Tod Howarth.
For months, homelessness has dominated Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning Group’s agenda, as planners and residents alike grapple with increasing homelessness and vehicle habitation along Hancock Street and elsewhere in the sprawling district. Last February, a large homeless encampment was dispersed at the end of Sports Arena Boulevard.
There are also two existing temporary homeless shelters in the area: A 24/7 bridge shelter housing up to 150 homeless donated by the Lucky Duck Foundation at 3851 Rosecrans St. on County Psychiatric Hospital land; and a 50-bed overnight facility at the former Pier 1 Import building at 3220 Sports Arena Blvd. run by Alpha Project.
“Statewide Homekey funding is used to acquire and rehabilitate properties, like the Ramada Inn, converting them to permanent rental units serving individuals experiencing homelessness,” said Buddy Bohrer, who oversees the San Diego Housing Commission’s purchase of new properties for affordable housing development. “The Homekey program is more of a rapid process for providing re-purposed housing at a minimal cost bringing housing online sooner rather than later.”
Bohrer said Homekey is administered by the California Department of Housing and Urban Development to acquire and rehabilitate hotels, apartments and homes, and can be used to convert non-residential properties into residential units, or for new construction or master leasing of properties.
Bohrer added the Ramada Inn is ideally situated, located adjacent to a Vons Shopping Center, near restaurants like Arby’s and Wendy’s, and just 300 feet away from a bus stop. “The next step is to acquire funding available through Homekey, which we expect to happen in March or April, with the close of escrow expected this September,” he said adding, “Once construction starts, it would take approximately a year with completion anticipated in August or September of 2024.”
“It (Ramada) will be a mixed, diverse community including transition-age youth 18 to 24 years, with wrap-around services in order to support stable tenancies,” noted Jones.
