Council OKs $294,000 for Shelter Expansion

The San Diego City Council on Monday agreed to spend $294,000 to operate an expansion of the St. Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center, which will include a day center for the homeless.

The shelter expansion, in a two-story, 20,000-square-foot warehouse attached to the Kroc Center at 1501 Imperial Ave., will increase the shelter’s capacity from 400 to 475 beds, said the Rev. Joe Carroll, director of the shelter.

Carroll must raise $1 million to renovate the warehouse, on Commercial Street between 15th and 16th streets, before its scheduled opening Jan. 1. Its completion will bring the number of shelter beds available in San Diego to about 1,000, still 1,000 fewer than needed on any night, Carroll said.

“This is for the guy on the street, with very little program,” Carroll said. “It’s a way to get you off the street for the night.”

There will be no limit on the number of nights a resident can stay at the shelter, he said.

The day center will be on the first floor of the new building, and beds will be on the second floor, Carroll said.

The money appropriated by the council will pay the new wing’s operating costs for 1989 and 1990. The funds include $115,000 from the San Diego Housing Commission and $179,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.