The Homeless Lose More Ground : Actions by Council, Shelter Agency Leave Indigent in the Cold

Monday brought two discouraging developments for San Diego’s homeless during a week that, ironically, included the apparent suicide of the nation’s leading homeless advocate, Mitch Snyder.

The San Diego City Council voted to temporarily yank the benches and grass from Horton Plaza Park, the small, historic gateway to Horton Plaza, anchor of the city’s downtown redevelopment. About six months after the lawns are replaced with drought-resistant flower beds, the benches will be returned and the council will evaluate the result of its experiment.

The move came after years of complaints from downtown businesses that the park is overrun by drunks, rowdies and drug dealers.

On the same day, the St. Vincent de Paul/Joan Kroc Center for the Homeless turned down an offer from a building industry foundation to construct a 300-bed shelter. The agency, which operates two shelters and a home for AIDS victims, said that it is too financially burdened by those responsibilities and a lengthy legal fight to run another facility.

Since October, the builders had collected $650,000 in pledges of cash and services for the project. That is not the kind of gift that should remain unspent in a city that still needs beds for its homeless. We applaud St. Vincent’s commitment to fiscal responsibility, which will avert funding crises that have afflicted other nonprofit institutions, but hope the donation will be transferred to another project for the homeless or one that promotes low-cost housing.

The council’s decision is more curious. There is no arguing that Horton Plaza Park, although still lovely, has become a place that most people quickly skirt on their way to the mall. We would be as happy as the downtown merchants to see it transformed into a place where pedestrians feel safe enough to pause.

But the council vote will uproot scores of homeless and others who use the park peacefully. It smacks of a classic attempt to sweep these people out of the view of tourists rather than deal with the more fundamental task of housing the thousands who live on San Diego streets. Moreover, with the park’s benches and grass removed, where will city office workers and shoppers sit while they munch food from the planned kiosk or listen to the proposed musical performances?

This is the latest in a series of attempts to close or regulate the park, which received a $775,000 revamping five years ago. In 1924, business interests pressured the council to replace the grass with flowers in order to chase out “old gossips and cranks” who knocked the city.

Some relief may be provided when the city finally opens its day center for the homeless, which has been delayed for years by government bickering and a lawsuit. That won’t happen until at least next year. In the meantime, the homeless--and the drug dealers, drunks and mentally ill who are undoubtedly among them--will congregate in public places as long as they have nowhere else to go.