More beds for the homeless

Local homeless services provider Father Joe’s Villages is pushing to expand its capacity of permanent housing for homeless individuals to a total of 947 beds, the group announced on Monday (September 12).

"A growing part of San Diego’s homeless crisis is the lack of permanent affordable housing — our city has a vacancy rate of nearly zero," said Father Joe's president and CEO Jim Vargas in a release. "These modifications are part of our long-term vision to invest in diverse strategies that most effectively, and permanently, get people off the streets."

One hundred thirty-four beds in existing facilities for transitional homeless populations will be converted into longer-term housing. These include downtown facilities for single adults at Commercial and 15th and young-adult housing for those aged 18–24 at the Toussaint Center at Fifth and Ash. New housing for another 91 people will be "in scattered-site housing throughout San Diego County."

In addition to the permanent shelter beds, Father Joe's says it provides shorter-term solutions to approximately 700 individuals. Still, the most recent count on unsheltered homeless individuals in San Diego included nearly 8700 people, a number advocates have argued is itself a significant understatement."