Proposals for new shelters often face pushback.
Residents across the county frequently raise concerns about how homeless people will affect neighborhoods, and the district attorney’s office has found a correlation between life on the streets and crime, including an increased likelihood that homeless people will be victims.
But in at least two cases, creating a new shelter partially decreased the workload on local officers.
Police data show that arrests and calls for service dropped at addresses in Escondido and La Mesa when those buildings, both former hotels, began housing homeless people. Although some numbers later ticked up in La Mesa, many of those situations didn’t involve crimes.
Law enforcement officials acknowledged the drops, while one cautioned that it might be too early to say if the decrease will hold.
Leaders of local homelessness organizations said having staff on site at all hours, as well as robust programming, was key.
“When you’ve got the right connected to a property like this, then we see great successes,” said Eric Lovett, founder and executive director of Urban Street Angels, which helps run the La Mesa facility. “Not just with the youth being successful, but we see the community coming around.”
In Escondido, police had repeatedly visited an America’s Best Value Inn & Suites, according to data obtained through a records request. Some months saw more than a dozen calls about the Centre City Parkway motel, with “disturbance” reports the most common complaint.
That business license ended the first year of the pandemic, in October 2020, a city spokesperson said. Later that month, the building became a shelter run by the nonprofit Interfaith Community Services.
Calls to the police department plunged.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/yYPKy/2/The shelter was low-barrier, meaning participants could still be wrestling with addiction, and it continued through 2021, said Interfaith CEO Greg Anglea.
During that stretch, there were never more than three calls a month, with some periods seeing none. While two cases involved possible weapons, others were more benign.
The nonprofit closed the building last year for renovations, and it re-opened in May as The Abraham & Lillian Turk Recuperative Care Center for homeless people who just got out of the hospital. About 70 individuals currently live there, Anglea said. That includes some who had been staying in a more traditional shelter, known as Haven House, which closed after funding ran low.
Only a handful of calls have come in during each of the Turk Center’s first few months, and there have been just two arrests at the site since Interfaith took over: One in 2021 for intoxication and another this year for suspected child neglect, although it’s not clear from the records if those people had been staying at the shelter.
“We have a higher level of staffing at the Turk Center, and a higher level of oversight,” Anglea said.
Escondido Police Chief Edward Varso said he wanted more data before forming an opinion about the effects of the building’s transformation. Calls to the fire department, which often handle medical emergencies, were up, and that part of town continued to require a lot of attention from officers, he added.
“I would say it’s too early to tell,” the chief said.
A similar, if slightly more complicated dynamic has played out in La Mesa.
Several years ago, a Travelodge on University Avenue closed for new construction. A city spokesperson said it was shuttered by June 2020, and calls surged over the following months, police data show. Reports of “disturbing the peace” were common.
“Officers located and recovered several stolen vehicles from the parking lot and because of that, officers frequently initiated security checks and suspicious vehicle checks,” La Mesa Police Lt. Katy Lynch wrote in an email.
That workload has decreased since November 2021, Lynch said.
That was the month three organizations began housing dozens of young adults at the site, which was renamed the Vista Sands Apartments.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/BBbTk/3/The facility is primarily for people aged 18 to 24, although some participants who were domestic violence victims or SDSU students have been older, according to leaders of Urban Street Angels, Home Start and San Diego Youth Services, all nonprofits.
Vista Sands’ first year did see a higher number of calls than the period when the building was last a hotel. However, the top reasons police came by were not to investigate crimes: There were 10 check-ins from the department’s homeless outreach team, nine instances of medical aid and four welfare checks.
There has been only one arrest so far, for alleged felony vandalism.
About 75 people currently live at the facility, which is low-barrier and offers a range of services, including job training, leaders said.
Vista Sands is crucial to solving the region’s homelessness crisis because many people in local encampments first ended up on the streets when they were young, said Walter Philips, CEO of San Diego Youth Services.
“If we’re able to nip that in the bud now,” he said, “there’s a good chance they won’t become part of that chronic population.”
