Balboa Park Shelter Remains Closed Despite Rain and Cold

Although the chill wind and rain have prompted the county and the St. Vincent de Paul Society to open their cold-weather homeless shelters, San Diego’s municipal shelter remains closed.

Bill Wolf, spokesman for the San Diego City Office of Emergency Management, said the city was not planning to open the Municipal Gymnasium in Balboa Park Friday night because temperatures had not dropped low enough.

In San Diego, Wolf said, temperatures must go as low as 35 degrees--or 40 degrees if there is at least 1 inch of rain in the forecast--before the city will open its shelter. The county uses the same criteria, but nonetheless has opened its shelters because inland and mountain temperatures have gone that low. And the St. Vincent de Paul Society opens its cold-weather shelter whenever homeless people show up complaining about the cold, spokesmen there said.

But the city was sticking by its criteria.

“Do you know what city this is?” said Harvey Mandel, assistant director of the St. Vincent de Paul shelter. “They’re not going to open it. It’s not cold enough.”

Wilbur Shigehara of the National Weather Service office in San Diego said the low temperatures this week were in the mid-40s to low 50s. The low Friday was predicted to be 41 degrees, but tonight and Sunday they are expected to drop to the low 30s and upper 20s.

“Temperatures in downtown San Diego will approach near record,” he said. “Sunday morning will be close to 38 degrees.”

He also said the coldest Dec. 23 was in 1891, when the temperatures dropped to 37 degrees.

Although San Diego County uses the same temperature guidelines as the city, its shelters have been open for several days, county spokesman Bob Lerner said.

“Before 10 a.m., the county Office of Disaster Preparedness checks (with the National Weather Service) for a predicted low,” Lerner said. Based on what the Weather Service says, the county decides whether to open the shelter.

Lerner said that, in order to open the Vista shelters, the county uses a temperature reading for Escondido, “because if we use the Vista or Oceanside temperature, then we would never be able to open because the temperatures don’t drop that far (closer to the ocean),” he said.

The county has opened its shelters in the Army National Guard Armory in El Cajon and has also opened the North County Regional Center in Vista until Sunday. The armory in Vista will be used starting Monday.

Earlier this month the Regional Center, which houses two courtrooms and several county administrative offices, was the focus of controversy when Superior Court Judge Kevin Midlam ordered that the facility could not be used as a cold weather shelter because the safety of evidence and documents was at stake. Midlam reversed his order the next day after county officials assured him that security would be provided--and after county counsel ruled that the county, not the judge, controls access to the county building.

Lerner said that, because of the forecast low temperatures and the holidays, the county would keep the shelters open through Christmas Day.

Shelters in the city, including the St. Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center, said they had noticed an increase in the number of people going there.

Father Joe Carroll said the center was expecting to receive as many as 630 people Friday night and said that, by Saturday, the center could reach its limit and might have to turn people away.

Bill Molina, a social service administrator with the Salvation Army, said its shelter was also filled to capacity because of the weather.

“It is always filled around the holiday time and whenever the temperature drops we get more people,” Molina said.

Molina said that, if people had to be turned away, his organization would try to find other shelter for them.

Orange and Los Angeles counties, which use different minimum temperatures to determine when to open, have also opened their shelters.

Alan Wilkins, Los Angeles countywide homeless coordinator, said a county program to provide shelter has been in effect since November 1 and will continue until March 31.

He said the county is divided into four regions that have a total of 12 shelters. If the National Weather Service predicts that temperatures will drop below 40 degrees or below 50 degrees with a 50% chance of rain in any of the areas where there is a shelter, then all of the shelters in the region are opened.

The same guidelines are used to open shelters in Orange County, said Valerie Griffin, program manager for the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force.