Each year, the City Council is faced with the same, old debate — where to provide shelter and services to nearly 350 homeless individuals during the winter months. This year is no different. The East Village neighborhood has been host to one of two winter shelters, housing 200 adults in a temporary canvas tent for three years in a row. Once again, the San Diego Housing Commission has recommended the East Village neighborhood — on the 1300 block between F and G streets — to be the site of this year’s Emergency Winter Shelter Program. Some residents in the East Village neighborhood oppose the site, claiming that it is a terrible marquee to have set in their neighborhood and that they have done their fair share for the homeless population downtown. “We have a not-in-my-front-yard attitude,” said David Hazan, president of the East Village Homeowners Association, explaining that the proposed winter shelter would be located where 20,000 cars pass each day to exit and enter state Route 94. Year after year, the same debate over the location of temporary winter shelters for the homeless fuels a demand for the City Council to implement a long term solution — the creation of a permanent homeless shelter. “Homelessness is not a seasonal thing,” said Robin Munro, project director for Downtown San Diego Partnership’s Registry Week, the most extensive survey of the homeless ever conducted in San Diego. “I don’t think temporary shelter is the solution. I think permanent, supportive housing is the solution with some sort of package put together to help people get jobs and other benefits,” she said. Although she called the winter shelters a “necessary evil” for now, Munro urges the city and county to push forward with a permanent solution. On Oct. 5, the City Council voted to approve a proposed Exclusive Negotiations Agreement with Connections Housing L.P. to rehabilitate the San Diego World Trade Center (SDWTC) building into a permanent homeless service center and housing facility. The council further approved exclusive negotiations with the city of San Diego for site control of the SDWTC and acquisition of its adjacent parking structure for future development of the facility. Connections Housing L.P., a limited partnership developer with People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), will work with the city in an estimated $31 million project to convert the SDWTC, located at 1250 Sixth Ave., into a one-stop service homeless center, complete with a medical clinic, job training, 150 interim housing beds and 75 permanent supportive housing units. The council held a special Redevelopment Agency meeting Tuesday afternoon, took public testimony, heard from the agency and voted 8-0 in favor of the proposal. Few people disagree that there is a need for a permanent shelter in San Diego. The dividing point is, again, over its location. Business owners, residents and council members do not want the shelter in their district out of fear that it will denigrate the image of their neighborhood and business environment. Adding to concerns from local business owners in the area about how the homeless shelter may affect their businesses, is the fact the World Trade Center building also sits across from KinderCare Learning Center, a child day care program, which may make parents wary as well. Supporters of the plan hope to have the homeless service center running by 2012.