Cold-Weather Shelter Loses in Escondido

In a surprise vote, the Escondido City Council on Wednesday night shot down a proposal to open a cold-weather shelter for the homeless.

“I think we will be doing a disservice to this community if we don’t do a little more critical thinking and take a deeper look at this issue,” Councilman Richard Foster said.

He and three other council members rejected the proposal to operate a shelter at the National Guard armory on Park Avenue.

The shelter, which would have operated either continuously during the winter months or only during cold nights, would have housed men, women and children, city staff members said.

The council voted, 4 to 1, to fund a van shuttle to an existing cold-weather shelter in Vista, while the city staff looks into the viability of using the armory this winter.

The staff was directed to come back to the council with a revised report next month discussing use of the armory and other options.

Homeless advocates seemed stunned at the decision.

“There is no other City Council that I would rather have this issue in front of,” Bob Klug, a member of the North County Interfaith Council, said before the vote.

Suzanne Pohlman, executive director of that organization, said, “I’m sure when communicated accurately, there will be no way that they can misconstrue” the shelter program.

“Tomorrow morning we will try to get our act together and just try it again,” Pohlman said.

Members of the City Council said that not enough details were available on how the shelter would be run.

“I don’t think we’ve thought this through and come up with a real plan on how this could work,” said Councilwoman Carla De Dominicis, who was concerned about how the shelter would handle homeless people with problems such as drug and alcohol abuse.

Kris Murphy, the lone dissenter, said the benefits of the center would be well worth the $15,000 it would take to run the shelter.

“It’s a real basic issue. It’s blankets and a warm bed to sleep in,” Murphy said.

However, those who run the Vista facility, the only other cold-weather shelter in North County, have expressed concern that a similar shelter in Escondido would go unused.

A letter to the city from Shirley Cole, executive director of Lifeline Community Services, which runs the Vista shelter, asked the city to “consider supporting the existing program instead of operating a separate site.”

In her Oct. 11 letter, Cole wrote that, in the four years the shelter has been run at the National Guard armory in Vista, about 70 people have been housed there a night, even though there is room for as many as 100 more.

Also, in the past fiscal year, the program gave shelter to 1,416 people, less than 10% of them from Escondido and more than half from Oceanside.

Cole could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Service organizations in Escondido disputed Cole’s claim, saying there is a tremendous need for shelters and that one in Escondido, unlike Lifeline’s, should be open continuously during the winter, not just when it is particularly cold.

“I’ve had to turn away four families with children this week because we had no room,” said Joel Marable, who works with the North County Interfaith Council.

“If it’s 50 degrees outside, that’s cold. Fifty-five degrees is cold,” said Marable, who is also chairman of the North County Task Force on Homelessness.

Marable also argued that more people would use a continuously operating shelter because they would be assured of a place to stay.

A cold-weather shelter would be open only if the temperature dropped below 40 on a rainy night or 35 degrees on a clear night.

Most agree that it is unclear how many homeless people are in the area.

“No one seems to know how many people at this time would utilize the local armory. Lifeline seems to think that it would not be used that much, but it is hard to tell without evidence,” said Pat Getzel, housing manager in the city’s Planning Department.