Homeless Get Help--But It’s Too Little

For years, San Diego’s downtown homeless were invisible in the shadows of old buildings and cheap hotels, out of view of the people who rarely set foot downtown by day--and never after dark.

San Diego didn’t have a homeless problem because San Diego didn’t see its homeless.

But then it occurred to developers and city leaders that downtown was an untapped tax base, and they decided to renovate the city’s seedy center.

They ripped down dilapidated buildings to make way for glistening high-rises and fashionable restaurants. They refurbished the Gaslamp Quarter, put up Columbia Center, broke ground on the Horton Plaza shopping mall and moved forward with a waterfront convention center.

During the bustle of redevelopment, the homeless came out of the woodwork. With their plastic bags and bundles, walking like somnambulists in a fog of resignation, the homeless suddenly became all too visible to businessmen downtown.

The business community didn’t like what it saw and feared that the unsightly street people would threaten the success of their downtown redevelopment.

Today, San Diego has a homeless problem.

“The downtown redevelopment effort has forced recognition of the problem of homelessness as the wrecking ball has laid bare the wounds of the downtown homeless,” stated a city-financed report on the homeless released in October.

Now that the problem has been identified, social service providers say, something must be done about it and done soon, while the problem is still manageable. San Diego’s homeless population is relatively small compared to other major American cities, but it is growing.

While the number of cheap hotel rooms was being diminished by nearly half--from 1,351 in 1979 to 705 today--newly homeless people migrated from their foreclosed houses, recession-failed businesses and smokestack cities to the streets of San Diego. There are 2,000 to 3,000 homeless people in the City of San Diego today and as many as 4,000 countywide, according to estimates.

Psychologist Jerry Schmeits and anthropologist Bruce Harris, who operate the Transient Center outreach and employment program, say that half of the city’s homeless have been on the streets less than six months, and 40% of them are “ready and able” to work if given the chance to get back on their feet.

They need housing, showers, food, transportation, health care and jobs--but social service providers and a mayor’s task force created to deal with the problem agree that there simply are not enough resources to meet these people’s basic needs.

Catholic Community Services, the Travelers Aid Society, the Rescue Mission and other agencies that traditionally help the homeless are overburdened, they say.

The city has begun to respond to the problem with financing of the Transient Center and Travelers Aid’s nighttime crisis information line, called Helpline, as well as with the commissioning of the task force report.

But more needs to be done, say businessmen and social service providers.

The task force of business and civic leaders proposes a $1.6-million plan to provide services to the homeless and says the cost should be shared by public, private and business sources.

Included in the recommendations are:

- Food. While there is enough food for transients with time to get it at the agencies, there is nothing for those who have recently found work but have not received a first paycheck. A revolving trust fund should be set up with donations from the private sector.

- Housing. The demand for increased shelter is “critical.” The city has about 350 temporary shelter spaces and needs 300 to 400 more, some of which will be provided by planned expansions at the Rescue Mission and the St. Vincent de Paul Shelter. The county should take the lead in financing or securing financing for 150 more spaces, using “community donations” for furnishings and equipment.

The city also needs short-term (two to four weeks)housing and low-cost housing. Twenty percent of the new rental housing downtown should be affordable for low- and moderate-income people, and the Housing Commission should rehabilitate a hotel for low-income residents.

- Transportation. San Diego is spread out over 394 square miles, making it difficult for transients to seek employment, housing and food. A trust fund with corporate and community donations should be set up to provide bus tokens to people seeking employment or awaiting a first paycheck.

- Day centers. The city, county and private sector should assume financing of Rachel’s Women’s Center, a place for women to get off the street during the day with lunch, restrooms, laundry facilities and use of a telephone and mailing address. Another day center for men and women should be established to absorb the growing population.

- Mental Health. San Diego is “vastly underfunded” for mental health care. The county receives about half the money per capita of the average California county. The city needs a county-financed day center to deliver outpatient services to the mentally and emotionally disabled.

The report also says that the city needs a free medical clinic downtown or a medical outreach program from a local hospital, and more public restrooms downtown.

David Allsbrook, projects director for the Centre City Development Corp., calls the report a “reasonable wish list.”

Allsbrook said that he believes the city and the business community are committed to addressing problems of the homeless because they understand that the success of redevelopment depends on it. But he does not believe all of the task force recommendations will be realized.

“I don’t know if they’ll get it all. We need it, but all of my reality tells me they won’t,” Allsbrook said. He said service agencies are battling the fact that many people still find the problem “distasteful.”

Richard Shanor, coordinator of Metro-United Presbyterian Ministries, said that one of the biggest needs of the homeless “wouldn’t cost a dime.”

“We need to change our mind-set on who the homeless are,” Shanor said. “The image is that they are all criminals, shiftless alcoholics who don’t do anything for themselves and they deserve everything they get.

“Maybe 10%to 15%are in this condition. But the majority are just human beings who have fallen on hard times and who need help. They could become productive if we treated them as human beings.”

George Stengle bears witness to that opinion. Stengle said he lived on the streets in several Americans cities, riding the freight trains from Florida west to Oklahoma, Texas, and--finally arriving at the end of the line--San Diego.

In March he began working on the Gaslamp Quarter’s street-cleaning crews, a job he got through the Transient Center, and now he is earning minimum wage about 30 hours a week and living in a hotel.

“There is an infusion of self-confidence, especially if you’ve been on the bum for awhile and across the country you found hostility all the way and then you come in here and they’re willing to give you a job and some trust,” Stengle said.

In the early 1970s, the average homeless man in San Diego was in his 50s, said Bruce Harris of the Transient Center. Today, the average homeless man is in his 20s, most likely displaced by the shift in our country’s economy from an industrial base to a service, or information, base.

The homeless are not a homogeneous group, says the report by the mayor’s task force. They include men, women and children; temporary transients new to town or new on the street; the mentally disabled; alcohol and drug abusers; downtown residents, and vagrants.

“They are people who have no place to go during a significant part of any 24-hour period,” states the report.

Mary Colacicco, executive director of the Travelers Aid Society in San Diego, said that another barrier to addressing the problem is an attitude that “we don’t want to make services so attractive that they attract other homeless to San Diego or they’ll be here too long.”

Colacicco says she believes that is an unrealistic fear.

“The majority of the homeless don’t make a decision to be homeless. A small number of people chose it as a life style. Usually it is the result of bad decisions and bad planning skills,” Colacicco said.

Social service providers say that there has been good coordination recently among businessmen, public officials and their agencies around the homeless issue.

“There is considerable progress in that the city is working in a coordinated fashion. Major business, city officials, social service and now the county are working together,” said Schmeits of the Transient Center.

There has been an expansion of some services in the last year and new ones have been added, some of them creative responses to a lack of funding.

For instance, Wesley United Methodist Church at 54th and El Cajon Boulevard allows 14 men to sleep in the church at night, with church supervision.

“I was hoping I could convince other churches to follow suit, but I’m not having much luck so far,” Shanor said. “I feel the church should take the lead in this to demonstrate ways to help the homeless that the rest of the community could follow.”

Shanor said he is launching a fund drive to get businesses to donate money for new shelters.

Last year, Rachel’s Women’s Center and the Transient Center opened their doors, and County Mental Health began an outreach program to the homeless through local service agencies.

The 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Helpline, a crisis referral line, was started in October to give homeless people a place to call after hours. The Helpline, run by Travelers Aid, often gets street people a night’s housing and refers them to other agencies for help.

“Everybody’s emergencies don’t crop up from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and even if they do, they sometimes are not identified as emergencies until 5 p.m.,” Colacicco said.

The Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army, God’s Extended Hand, Catholic Community Services and other religious and service groups provide food and shelter.

But while it may sound like a lot of services for the homeless, Sister Raymonda DuVall of Catholic Community Services warns, “Each one is limited in the provision of services and the clients it serves, and none is all things to all people.”

DuVall, like the other social service workers, says her agency cannot keep up with demand. She said the government and business sectors must “pick up the slack.”

Mayor Roger Hedgecock has said the homeless problem is a priority for him this year and has promised to name a task force to act on the homeless report soon.

But some question whether business and government will spend the necessary money to deal with the problem. “I think the proof will be in the pudding,” Colacicco said.