Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - NEWS RELEASE

SAN DIEGO – Mayor Todd Gloria won unanimous City Council approval today for his plan to extend the Operation Shelter to Home program at the San Diego Convention Center through March. The program supports hundreds of San Diegans experiencing homelessness and helps connect them to permanent or longer-term housing.

“Extending Operation Shelter to Home for a few more months allows us to protect this vulnerable population as we ramp up vaccinations around the region,” Mayor Gloria said. “In the meantime, we will continue to keep our program residents safe with daily health screenings and other COVID-prevention measures, while at the same time working to permanently end their cycle of homelessness.”

Mayor Gloria’s plan includes using funds that had previously been allocated to shelter operations and remained unspent due to cost savings, as well as other funds the City Council had previously approved for homelessness programs, totaling roughly $8.3 million. City Council’s action today authorized $5.6 million in additional funding to operate the emergency shelter through the end of March. Council also approved a companion item for the San Diego Housing Commission to commit up to $2 million in federal “Moving to Work” funds to support existing shelter contracts from February through June.

“Ongoing shelter operations at the Convention Center will enable the agencies working together there to continue to connect San Diegans experiencing homelessness with permanent or longer-term housing solutions,” said Housing Commission President & CEO Richard C. Gentry. “The San Diego Housing Commission supports this collaborative initiative, which already has helped secure housing for more than 1,100 individuals and more than 40 families.”

The City and County of San Diego, the Housing Commission, the Regional Task Force on the Homeless and the San Diego Convention Center Corporation came together in April to shelter and protect hundreds of San Diegans experiencing homelessness in the Convention Center. The agencies all committed in December to an extension with the threat of the virus still looming.

The Housing Commission’s Housing Navigation Teams will continue to prioritize moving people staying at the shelter to permanent or longer-term housing as quickly as possible, with plans to safely transition those who have not yet been matched to housing or another longer-term housing option to the City’s shelters by the end of March. The shelters have been reconfigured to allow for physical distancing guidelines and other safety protocols to prevent the spread of illness.

In December, Operation Shelter to Home experienced an uptick in COVID-19 cases similar to the broader San Diego community. Due to the protocols in place, people who tested positive were immediately notified and moved to an off-site hotel managed by the County of San Diego for public health use. Since that time, the COVID-19 detection among clients has been reduced back down to a 2.3-percent positivity rate, compared with the region-wide 14-day average rate, which was 11.9 percent for that same time period.

Extension of Operation Shelter to Home ensures accommodations for single adults experiencing homelessness while the region continues to see COVID-19 case rates increase across the community. This will allow residents to continue to shelter in a safe, sanitary environment under ongoing guidance and support from County public health, until public health officials can determine the timeline for a vaccine being made available for this population.

BACKGROUND ON OPERATION SHELTER TO HOME

Operation Shelter to Home launched on April 1 by moving individuals already in shelters into the San Diego Convention Center to allow for proper physical distancing to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Because the effects of the pandemic were creating staffing challenges at the City’s various shelters, the program centralized staff in one place to ensure personnel could be efficient even with limited numbers.

One of the core missions of Operation Shelter to Home is to find permanent housing for individuals. So far, the agencies have housed more than 1,186 individuals and 43 families during the pandemic with more than 200 others in the process of finding a permanent or longer-term housing solution.

Updates on the shelter are posted online at sandiego.gov/coronavirus/sheltertohome.