Grant Swings Doors Open for Homeless at Mission

The beleaguered San Diego Rescue Mission has been awarded a $100,000 state grant that will allow it to begin housing the homeless at its new downtown facility before Christmas.

The 31-year-old mission, which was forced by redevelopment out of its old 5th Avenue building in the Gaslamp Quarter, resumed serving meals to the destitute at its new $2.6-million home on J Street at Thanksgiving.

But with no beds and no money to buy them, the mission, now called Life Ministries, had suspended its housing program.

“We will be able to house again . . . before Christmas,” said Executive Director James Flohr.

Director Susan A. DeSantis of the state Housing and Community Development Department said that because of the mission’s “urgent need for funding,” the grant, which the mission applied for, was being made from an emergency “discretionary fund.”

San Diego County’s $222,000 state entitlement for housing of the homeless had already been exhausted in grants to other programs.

The $100,000 grant, Flohr said, is the first state financing the mission has received. It will pay off an equipment loan that was necessary to again begin providing shelter for the homeless, he added.

“We had to start out with nothing . . . when they (the City of San Diego) used the eminent domain on us,” Flohr said. He said the mission still must pay $900,000 in construction loans to banks and individuals.

The grant was announced by Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), who called it a “poignant” coincidence that “state funds became available during the holiday season.”

“We hope this money will go a long way towards helping San Diego’s homeless and destitute during the holiday season, and well beyond in the years ahead,” Stirling said.

The mission’s new 17,500-square-foot building has bed space for 240 people and dining facilities for 1,000.

The mission had to move out of its old facility Oct. 7. But with bills mounting faster than its operators could raise money, the mission could not open the doors to its new two-story building until the day before Thanksgiving.

The Legislature appropriated $5 million last year for emergency housing in a measure authored by Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles). Housing and Community Development spokeswoman Julie Stewart said the money was allocated to various regions of the state under a strict formula spelled out in the legislation. Stewart said the San Diego mission was getting the “lion’s share” of the $228,000 director’s discretionary fund--money left over, plus interest, after the regional allocations.