Center for Homeless Still Out in Cold Too

If one thing has characterized the proposed Neil Good Day Center for the Homeless, it’s delay.

Touted as a daytime alternative for homeless men who haunt downtown San Diego streets, the center has been in the works for four years. The Legislature gave it special approval in its California Homeless Emergency Lease Program Act of 1987 and directed the state Department of Transportation to lease a forlorn, triangular piece of property on the fringes of downtown and in the Interstate 5 right of way.

Since then, the center’s proponents--from Mayor Maureen O’Connor to advocates for the homeless--have become increasingly frustrated with Caltrans, accusing the vast state agency of moving in slow motion.

All that seemed in the past, however, when invitations were mailed announcing last week’s groundbreaking. But the long-awaited event was suddenly canceled when the mayor’s office discovered the lease was still not ready and that a lawsuit contesting Caltrans’ right to lease the property had been filed by the owner of land across the street.

As a result, the center remains bogged in a legal and political quagmire, and it is apparent that the facility, already years behind schedule, won’t open by Thanksgiving as most recently scheduled. Instead, officials say, it will have to wait until next year.

“If it’s the desire of this community to have a day center, we’ll have one. It’s come to that point,” said a disappointed Frank Landerville, project director for the Regional Task Force on the Homeless, the group that initiated the day center idea and has pushed for its fruition.

Financed with a combination of funds from the city, the county, the San Diego Unified Port District, individuals and the Centre City Development Corp.--the city’s downtown redevelopment agency--the center is envisioned as a way of getting homeless men off downtown streets during the day, when many of them roam the city or congregate in front of Horton Plaza, to the chagrin of downtown merchants, office workers and those promoting a fresh and revitalized downtown.

The idea is to build a 5,000-square-foot, $732,000 facility with a 5,000-square-foot enclosed outdoor lounge area. It would provide showers, haircuts, mail, message pickup and counseling from early morning until early night. The center would accommodate as many as 200 people at a time and would be operated by Episcopal Community Services.

In choosing a location, city officials and the Regional Task Force on the Homeless sought a site away from the core of downtown and near services already available to the homeless, such as the San Diego Rescue Mission and the St. Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center.

A 25,000-square-foot piece of property was selected, between the busy I-5 freeway and 17th Street, sandwiched between K and L streets. The parcel is in the freeway right of way and is bordered by an on-ramp to I-5 and an off-ramp to Imperial Avenue.

The land is bombarded with the freeway’s roar and is nothing to look at, consisting of ice plant, two palm trees and three eucalyptus trees. It is about as far away from downtown as one can get and still be downtown. Warehouses surround the area. A city bus repair yard and a large laundry are nearby. Some adjacent wooden houses are old and boarded up. Lots are vacant, broken glass twinkling in the sunlight.

Homeless men by the score wander the area; some stand on corners in front of mom-and-pop grocery stores, or prop themselves against walls, or lie on sidewalks.

For city officials, the location is close to ideal, many blocks from the daily conflicts between transients and downtown businesses.

But, from the beginning, the choice of the freeway right of way has deeply troubled some nearby private property owners, who fear the day center will scare away development lenders, decrease land values and transform the neighborhood into an institutionalized dumping ground for the rest of downtown.

At the behest of the Legislature, Caltrans agreed to lease the property to the city for $1 a month. Initially, finalizing a lease was expected to take from nine months to a year, according to city officials. But it never happened.

“Caltrans has been dragging its feet,” said the mayor’s spokesman, Paul Downey. “It’s a fairly simple lease . . . (but) all along the way (they’ve stalled.) We had hoped to have broken ground late last year.”

Last November, the mayor, the Caltrans regional director, Jesus Garcia, and other officials met to discuss the status of the lease. Caltrans was worried about the concerns raised by nearby property owners, according to Landerville, who was at the meeting. The central question was very narrow, whether the land was deemed surplus or not.

Private property owners said it was surplus Caltrans land and therefore had to be put out to bid. But said the land was not surplus since it would probably be needed in the future for freeway expansion; therefore it could be leased.

By last January, city officials again grew frustrated because little progress on the lease had been made. Letters were exchanged.

David Allsbrook, projects director for Centre City Development Corp., which is in charge of administering the day center, wrote to Garcia on Feb. 8, saying the “CCDC is very concerned about the continued delay in getting this lease agreement finalized. Literally years have passed in discussions/negotiations with Caltrans on the lease.”

“The purpose of this letter is twofold. First, if you could inquire as to when we might expect the final document and, second, if you could use your influence to speed this process along so that we can be assured of proceeding with this very important project.”

In response, E. R. Kirwan, Caltrans’ deputy district director, defended his agency.

“In view of the circumstances of what we’re trying to do . . . it’s a very complex situation,” he said.

The process of leasing Caltrans property requires many checks, some of them time-consuming, Kirwan said, adding that approvals are necessary from agencies such as the fire marshal and the federal highway administration. Other similar “air-space” leases of Caltrans property have taken equally long to consummate, he said. “It takes a long period of time.”

About seven weeks ago, the city returned what it thought was the final lease. Soon after, Caltrans received a letter from San Diego attorney Jon P. Chester, representing Weldon W. Griffin, president of Weldon Griffin Realty & Mortgage Co. in La Mesa, and his wife, N. Janice Griffin.

Griffin owns land directly across from the proposed day center that he wants to use for “condo/apartment and mixed-use purposes.”

The letter questions Caltrans’ authority to lease the property and demands that the land be put up for sale.

Caltrans attorney Carlos Castaneda said the letter prompted the state agency to stop work on the lease as it studied the claim. On May 23, the morning of the scheduled groundbreaking, Chester filed a lawsuit in Superior Court seeking to block the lease. The court refused to grant a temporary restraining order but set a hearing for June 26 on the matter.

Both Chester and Griffin declined to comment. But in their lawsuit, Griffin claims he cannot get loans to finance his proposed development because of the day center. In part, the lawsuit relies on an analysis done by the Legislative Counsel’s Office for then-Sen. Larry Stirling (R-La Mesa) last fall.

That October analysis says the state can lease the Caltrans land only “if there is no buyer” for it. In the lawsuit, Griffin says he would bid on the property “if for no other reason than to prevent the adverse impact to (our) property.”

Castaneda says the Griffins’ contention has raised valid points.

“I think the state is trying to be as responsible as possible to answer the question raised in the lawsuit,” he said.

Downey and other day center proponents say Caltrans has already determined that the property is not surplus and shouldn’t be sold because it might someday be used to expand I-5, perhaps in widening the Imperial Avenue off-ramp to two lanes.

The new problem, Downey said, is that Caltrans legal officials are trying to decide whether the law that encompassed the day center lease needs to be amended to specifically state that the property is not surplus.

“It was always assumed it wasn’t excess land,” he said. “That was everybody’s understanding.” The city’s Sacramento lobbyist is working with Caltrans to resolve the problem.

Sen. John Garamendi (D-Stockton), author of the original legislation, has told the city that if an amendment is necessary, he will introduce one.

Meanwhile, the homeless project remains in limbo.

“The plans have been approved, the money raised and the operator selected,” said an exasperated Landerville. “We’re ready to go.”