FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Jan. 15, 2026

CONTACT:
MayorPress@sandiego.gov

Attachment: 2025 Progress Report
 

SAN DIEGO – In his State of the City address today, Mayor Todd Gloria outlined a clear-eyed assessment of the City of San Diego’s challenges and detailed measurable progress on building more housing, reducing homelessness, keeping communities safe, and fixing needed infrastructure.  

Speaking to City Councilmembers, state and local elected officials, binational dignitaries, City staff, and residents, the Mayor framed this moment as one of transformation – a city not avoiding hard decisions but confronting them directly. 

“San Diego is moving — with intention. We are building — with purpose.  And we are governing — with responsibility,” Mayor Todd Gloria said. “We are a city in transformation — and you can see it.”

From new housing and fewer encampments to safer streets and repaired infrastructure, the Mayor described a city that stopped deferring hard choices and finally aligning its ambition with action.

Stabilizing the Foundation: Budget and Fiscal Responsibility 
The Mayor detailed the steps his administration has taken to confront the City of San Diego’s long-standing $318 million structural budget deficit — the result of decades of underfunding and deferred decisions, while costs and demand for services rose.  This included reducing spending, moving City employees from leased offices into City-owned facilities (saving $13 million), restructuring leadership, eliminating six city departments, and cutting $35 million in contracts and management positions. 

As a result, the Gloria Administration closed $270 million of the deficit in a single year, putting the City on better financial footing for the future and closer to structural balance.

“You cannot build a stronger city on a fragile foundation. First, you stabilize the ground beneath your feet. Then you build something better,“ said Mayor Gloria. “We made tough calls to bring our finances closer to long-term stability. Because if we’re going to deliver on the basics you expect, we have to fund the city we are today, not the city we were 30 years ago.”

While acknowledging that difficult decisions remain, Mayor Gloria emphasized that stabilizing the City’s finances is essential to delivering basic services and sustaining long-term investments. 

Housing at the Center of the Agenda

Building more homes took center stage in the address, with the Mayor pointing to housing as one of the clearest examples of San Diego’s transformation and its ability to govern at scale. 

“A great city is one where anyone who works hard and plays by the rules can afford to live here -- where the people who teach our kids, protect our neighborhoods, attend our universities, and power our economy can live and thrive here,” Mayor Gloria said. “Because building housing isn’t ideological — it’s one of the most basic responsibilities of a city.” 

The City has averaged 8,700 permits for new homes annually over the past three years — more than double the City’s average during the previous two decades. Completed community plan updates in Mira Mesa, Barrio Logan, Clairemont, the College Area, University, and Hillcrest have added capacity for 105,000 new homes.  

Through City programs like Bridge to Home and Affordable Housing Permit Now, thousands of affordable homes have been funded or fast-tracked, with construction activity visible across San Diego neighborhoods.

• 2,676 affordable homes funded through Bridge to Home, with funding coming soon for hundreds more;
• 4,300 affordable homes approved through Affordable Housing Permit Now, with another 2,000 in the pipeline. 

“You don’t need a chart to understand what that means,” Mayor Gloria said. “You can see it. Cranes in the air, crews at work, foundations being poured, roofs popping up. Homes being built.”

The Mayor highlighted San Diego’s emergence as a statewide leader in housing reform with a recent UC Berkeley study citing the City’s reforms as a roadmap for jurisdictions seeking to increase housing production and expedite projects.

In addition, the mayor pointed to recent data showing a promising trend of the cost of rent continuing to decline year-over-year for the first time in 25 years.

“Still, I know that even with this progress, the cost of housing remains too expensive for too many families,” added the Mayor. “Until more San Diegans can look at their rent or mortgage without cringing, our work is not finished.” 

Mayor Gloria also doubled down on his determination to move forward with the redevelopment of the Sports Arena property. The 48-acre site is planned to deliver more than 4,200 homes, including affordable housing, new parks, and a new world-class arena. He announced it will move forward this spring with public hearings and a City Council vote.  

“Let me be crystal clear: The redevelopment of the Sports Arena will move forward. We will get this done,” the Mayor said. ”Public land should serve the public — and right now, serving the public means building more homes.”

The Mayor also reaffirmed the work to transform other underused public properties — including 101 Ash Street, the Old Central Library, and the indoor skydiving facility — into housing and public-serving uses.

He announced new progress for the Civic Center property, and his intent to bring forward for City Council consideration an exclusive negotiating agreement with the San Diego Community College District for the redevelopment of Golden Hall.

“My office will continue to work diligently with the community and the Prebys Foundation on advancing the broader vision for this property this year which will ultimately allow for housing, public spaces and the revitalization of our downtown,” said the Mayor. “Because when we expand housing opportunity, it doesn’t just change a skyline or improve a neighborhood. It changes what becomes possible for people.”

Nationalizing the Housing Conversation

Recognizing that the housing crisis is a national problem, the Mayor announced he will assume the Presidency of the United States Conference of Mayors later this year, and that he is doing so with a “laser-focus” on building more homes and bringing costs down.

“This is not just a San Diego problem. It’s an American problem. And the federal government must get into the game,” said Mayor Gloria. “The Trump Administration must strengthen — not gut— the tools that help communities build and make the American Dream real again!”

Reducing Homelessness

Mayor Gloria reported a nearly 14% reduction in unsheltered homelessness -- according to the point-in-time count by Regional Task Force on Homelessness.  The Downtown San Diego Partnership has also documented a dramatic reduction in tent encampments in the Downtown area.

“My administration has approached homelessness with a clear understanding: this issue is urgent, it is complex, and it requires action,” said the Mayor. “Together, we expanded shelter, strengthened outreach, created real pathways off the street, and insisted on a simple truth: a sidewalk is not a home.”

In 2025, City programs connected more than 1,350 people to housing, bringing the total over the past five years of the Gloria Administration to nearly 7,000. The City also opened its largest Safe Parking site to date at H Barracks, providing a safe alternative for people living in vehicles and enabling resumed enforcement for oversized vehicles like RVs.

Through a new agreement with the State of California, City crews were allowed to clear encampments along select freeway on- and off-ramps – state jurisdiction --- for the first time, removing more than 200 tons of debris and connecting nearly 100 people to shelter and housing. Preliminary data shows encampment-related fires along our freeway corridors were down 48%. He called on state leaders to work with the City to expand the program to cover more areas next to freeways where encampments exist.

Mayor Gloria also emphasized that while housing and shelter remain essential, the most visible remaining challenge on San Diego’s streets is severe mental illness and addiction.

“I see it – and I know you can see it too,” the Mayor said, describing people in crisis acting out in public spaces, struggling with addiction, and placing themselves and others at risk. “The truth is many of the people still living on our streets are not just unsheltered. They are untreated.”

He underscored that responsibility for behavioral health treatment rests with the County of San Diego but stressed that solving the crisis requires coordinated action across governments.

“This challenge is bigger than any one agency and it will only be solved if we operate as one system,” he added. “The County has the responsibility for treatment. And the City has the responsibility to insist that treatment exists while continuing to do everything we can to bring people inside and connect them to help.”

The Mayor called for expanded treatment capacity, including more psychiatric care beds, detox services, and long-term recovery options, as well as faster pathways from the street into care.

Continuing to Keep Communities Safe

Mayor Gloria noted that San Diego remains one of the safest large cities in America, with crime declining for the third consecutive year. Overall crime fell by 6 percent, with murders down 22 percent, sexual assaults down 7 percent, and vehicle thefts down 22 percent.

He pointed to the overwhelming approval of Proposition 36, a measure backed by the Mayor that provides law enforcement and prosecutors stronger tools to hold chronic retail-theft offenders accountable. While early progress is visible, the Mayor called on state leaders to fund the full rollout of Proposition 36 so communities can continue to see improvements in safety and accountability.

“This measure was approved by nearly 70 percent of California voters,” Mayor Gloria said. “It is the will of the people — and the state must fulfill it.”

The Mayor also highlighted action taken to restore dignity and safety in neighborhoods that have endured harm for far too long. In Barrio Logan, particularly around Dalbergia Street, residents and businesses have faced the unchecked impacts of sex trafficking because state law lacked sufficient tools to hold traffickers accountable.

“That is completely unacceptable,” Mayor Gloria said. “Exploitation was playing out in front of families, schools, and businesses — and we had to act.”

Working with state leaders, the City helped advance new legislation – Assembly Bill 379 – to crack down on traffickers and protect victims.

The Mayor then turned to immigration enforcement, warning that some of the most serious threats to public safety do not originate locally, but instead stem from decisions made in Washington, D.C. He sharply criticized the Trump Administration’s ICE operations, which he said are destabilizing communities and putting innocent people at risk.

The Mayor pointed to the visible consequences of those actions — families torn apart, neighborhoods thrown into chaos, and local police officers forced into volatile situations they did not create.

“Through its ICE operations, the Trump Administration is waging a campaign of fear that is terrorizing communities across this country,” he said. “We have seen where this kind of reckless enforcement leads. We have seen this danger firsthand — in South Park last May. And most recently the nation saw this firsthand, in the murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota — a life lost because of the callous and reckless actions of a federal agent, which outraged all of us.”

The Mayor reaffirmed that California law prohibits local law enforcement from participating in federal immigration enforcement and that San Diego will continue to follow that law fully and without exception, which is why he signed an executive order last July providing that clear direction to the San Diego Police Department.

“SDPD is here to protect our communities — all of our communities — including our immigrant community,” Mayor Gloria said. “We are a border city. A proud binational city,” the Mayor said. “And we will protect every community that calls San Diego home.”

Investing in the Basics: Infrastructure

Mayor Gloria said some of the most visible progress residents can see is happening at street level, as the City focuses on fixing long-neglected basics that affect daily life in every neighborhood.

“San Diego is a city of extraordinary beauty,” the Mayor said. “But we can’t just get by on our looks. We also have to be a city that functions well.”

Over the past year, the City resurfaced or repaired 468 miles of roads. Under Mayor Gloria’s administration, the City has now repaired more than 2,161 miles of streets — approximately one-third of all City-maintained roads. Crews also filled more than 44,000 potholes, and the City is on track to complete 370 miles of road repairs this fiscal year. 

Mayor Gloria highlighted progress on streetlight repairs, noting that reliable lighting plays a critical role in neighborhood safety and quality of life. With the City Council’s support in redirecting parking meter revenue to City crews, San Diego is on track to complete more than 2,000 streetlight repairs this year — the most ever in a single year.

Sidewalk improvements have also reached historic levels. Over the past year, the City replaced sidewalks at more than 1,500 locations, nearly tripling the previous annual record and removing trip hazards that residents encounter every day.

The Mayor celebrated the long-awaited victory over legal challenges to Measure C, a major win for the City’s infrastructure and economic future. After nearly five years of delays, the voter-approved measure — which increased the tourism tax paid by visitors — has generated $35 million since last spring.

The Mayor announced that the City will seek City Council approval this year for a five-year plan to invest $119 million in Measure C funds to modernize the San Diego Convention Center. The project is expected to substantially increase the Center’s economic impact while creating more than 3,000 union construction jobs and approximately 7,000 permanent jobs.

A City the World Is Choosing

Mayor Gloria concluded by tying together the visible progress San Diegans can see every day with the growing recognition San Diego is receiving on the world stage.

“When you pair stronger infrastructure and increased housing production, and combine it with a commitment to safety and dignity for all of us, something important happens,” the Mayor said. “This city becomes more than a place people visit. It becomes a place people choose — again and again — for events, ideas, innovation and opportunity.”

The Mayor said San Diego’s progress is being reflected in the global attention the city is now attracting. WWE returned to San Diego last fall for the first time in a decade, NASCAR will bring a major event to the city later this year, and beginning in 2027, the world-renowned TED Conference will relocate its global gathering to San Diego. San Diego is also one of three cities — and the only American city — under consideration to host the 2029 Invictus Games, an international sporting competition for wounded and injured veterans.

“These things matter not just because they’re exciting,” Mayor Gloria said. “They signal something bigger: that the City of San Diego is a world-class destination, a hub of talent, a city with an economy that attracts investment, and a community that welcomes visitors — with the infrastructure, housing, public spaces, and civic confidence to match its size and ambition.”

Stepping back from individual accomplishments, the Mayor said the broader story is about a city changing how it governs and what it chooses to prioritize.

“What you’re seeing is more than progress on individual issues,” he said. “You’re seeing a city that is aligning its ambitions with its action. You’re seeing a city that is matching its responsibilities with its resources. You’re seeing a city that is finally choosing long-term strength over short-term comfort.”

Closing the address, the Mayor underscored that San Diego’s transformation is ongoing — and unmistakable.

“San Diego is moving forward. We are building. We are leading. We are a city in transformation,” he said. “The markers of progress are all around — and there is even more ahead. All we have to do is choose to see it.”

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