Homelessness in San Diego

One of the ugliest societal issues in the US is homelessness. The amount of individuals living on the streets, in emergency shelters, transitional housing programs, or safe havens is deplorable, even if homelessness has decreased by 3% since 2015 and 15% since 2007. The Department of Urban Development's 2016 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress states that on one night in 2016, there were 549,928 homeless people living in the country. Five states—California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Washington—have the highest concentrations of homeless people. 22% (118,142 people) of all homeless people and nearly half of all unsheltered homeless people were found in California. San Diego is the fourth city with the largest number of homeless, following Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. It accounts for 6,955 homeless people on a single night count in January 2016. These numbers, however, are not accurate. First, the physical count is not accurate. Some homeless doubled up, that is they found their own refuge at friends’ or families’ houses. Other people cannot afford to rent an apartment and live in motels. They should also be counted as homeless. Another aspect is that the term homeless does not generally include people living in dwellings unfit for habitation, facing a loss of their housing, or fleeing domestic violence (Urban Issues, 2017, p. 205).

Issues

Among causes for homelessness is the recession, rises in the divorce rate, changes in mental health care, and lack of affordable housing (Urban Issues, 2017, p. 204). Other causes are insufficient income, unemployment, foreclosure crisis in 2008, domestic violence, mental illness and the lack of needed services, substance abuse and the lack of needed services (Homelessness in America, 2015)

Associated Issues

One of the aspects associated with homelessness in San Diego is socially-blind urban planning. The contrast between poor and rich is extreme in San Diego. The finest city of the United States is growing rapidly, attracting more and more people and businesses. Luxurious buildings are being erected every year. However, next to the prosperity, anyone can see a depressing side of this dream city.

The housing need is very high in San Diego where development projects planners do not take such issue as homelessness into consideration. They ignore such measure as displacement and treat areas housing homeless people as “vacant lots.” This also pertains to affordable housing for low-income residents. Housing the homeless is not reasonably addressed and lacks clear mandate on the responsibility of respective agencies and levels of government. Housing assistance takes too long to be effective.

Who is impacted; not impacted?

Homelessness has great effect on the society and is costly in terms of millions of dollars derived from taxes. The situation creates great strain to the families, individuals and social agencies. Some individuals and families find themselves on the street due to personal and economic crisis. In the long-run, chronic homelessness has significant costs arising from incarceration, emergency room visits, hospitalization, mental health, homeless and poverty alleviation programs.

Homeless individual tend to spend an average of four extra days compared to other patients (San Diego County, 2009b). Homelessness escalates health complications such as physiological disorders, addiction, HIV/AIDS and other illness that requires long-term care (San Diego County, 2009b). As result, each homeless patient sends additional $2,400 after hospitalization. Treating mental health among the homeless may cost the state $ 990 per psychiatric unit and additional $220 per bed in the detoxification units for a period of 5 days (San Diego County, 2009b). In case of incarceration, each inmate incurs between $ 15,000- 20, 000 every year.

What is the government doing?

The city is facing a severe problem of homelessness with one of the largest homeless population in the United States. The city had a record 10, 013 homeless individuals in 2010. Other cities in the US made a considerable step in addressing the homelessness issue resulting to the higher ranking of San Diego city. New luxurious buildings rise right next to ugly poverty, while the issue of homelessness essentially is being ignored. In his article “Socially-Blind Urban Planning” Baxamusa argues that the local government is engaging in a morally questionable socially-blind urban planning. For instance, the city provides funds for expansion of the convention center and a Chargers stadium, right where most of the homeless people find shelter.

The San Diego Housing Commission attempts to address homelessness issue that is caused by the several factors. The homeless individuals include those who need shelter only and those requiring a number of services. Therefore, the commission for housing launched several assistance programs. The programs main focus is on factors contributing to homelessness such as mental illness and drug abuse. Some program ensures the provision of affordable housing to the individuals suffering from economic displacement. Recently, some families from low-income groups benefited from 135 federal rental housing vouchers (Kerry, Pennell & San Diego Association of Governments, 2011). The Housing Commission in San Diego is committed to providing an estimated 1,500 federal vouchers aimed at rental assistance to homeless families and individuals in coming years.

Solutions

The state should work hard and improve the market affordability of housing through reduction of regulatory burdens. The laws are a big obstacle to the construction, housing supply and future growth and development of San Diego. The strict laws increase the burden and costs associated with home building. The political class aims at streamlining the permitting process through provision of incentives. The approach will play a role in the growth of transit corridors and implementation of measures that reduce the cost of home construction. Other measures include improving economic activities among residents and increasing housing affordability. The working families should have the affordable housing plan to encourage philanthropic and private investment in affordable housing.

Viable Solution

The cost effective and compassionate approaches will be the most appropriate in addressing homelessness. The San Diego City needs to implement the ‘housing first’ initiatives in solving homelessness. According to research, the best most viable approach in addressing homelessness should target resources that will help reduce chronic homelessness (San Diego County, 2009). Individuals who are homeless for more than a year are chronically homeless.

The Cost/benefit of these Solutions

Finding housing for the homeless people is not the only right thing to do but it is more cost effective for San Diego City. The statistics indicate that inpatient hospitalization, Emergency Room Visits, and prisons cost the San Diego’s taxpayers and estimated $36,600 for every homeless individual. Similarly, the cost of housing per individual was estimated at $27,000 (San Diego County, 2009). The states, federal government, and other development partners can save millions of dollars if they focus on settling the homeless families and individuals.

Recommendation

It will be just for the state to make middle-class Housing Affordable. The cities planners need to employ a multi-step approach thus increase the housing supply in the local market. Consequently, the cost of housing will drastically reduce so that average persons can afford a home in San Diego. Addressing the demand and supply will improve housing affordability crisis in the housing market.

The land use regulations in San Diego impede construction and would need amendment. The city needs to develop strategies aimed at reducing regulatory hurdles in building new houses. The burdensome regulations and current regulatory processes result to too expensive housing. The successful investors pass the extra costs to the consumers thus have a great impact on the overall cost of housing. One of the regulatory changes includes changing plans that guide the community in developing and streamlining environmental review (San Diego County, 2009). San Diego and other cities have outdated community plans where home builders are required to cater for expensive planning variances. The increasing uncertainty and costs are great barriers for average families to own homes. Creation of a Master Environmental Impact Report will help the city in expediting environmental review. Such reports will help review geographical areas thus ease applicants’ burden to complete their own environmental analysis.

Impact on Public Administration

The incentives need streamlining to encourage private investment near transit corridors. The city politicians in collaboration with Civic engineers and city planners in San Diego support development in the community (San Diego County, 2009). Such efforts will make development in the transit corridors a priority. The authority and city planners will be able to use additional to better leverage the private and public funding to incentivize urban renewal through expedited permitted innovative programs that reduce costs to the house builders. The builders under the urban improvement program will allow builders reduce parking demand. They will be able to buy transit passes for the tenants and offer alternative fee payment in the utilization of community parking options.

References

Homelessness in America: Overview of Data and Causes. (2015, January). Retrieved June 27, 2017, from National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty website: https://www.nlchp.org/documents/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet

Kerry, Nancy., Pennell, S., & San Diego Association of Governments. (2001). San Diego homeless court program: A process and impact evaluation. San Diego, CA: San Diego Association of Governments. Retrieved from http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/2001SANDAGHomelessCourtEvaluation.pdf

San Diego County (Calif.). (2009). Plan to end chronic homelessness in San Diego: Fact sheet. San Diego, Calif.: City of San Diego.

San Diego County (Calif.). (2009b). San Diego County HIV/AIDS Housing Plan Update 2009 San Diego, Calif.: City of San Diego. Retrived from http://www.sandiegocounty.gov/sdhcd/docs/San_Diego_County_HIV_AIDS_Housing_Plan.pdf

The 2016 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress (Rep.). (2016, November). Retrieved https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2016-AHAR-Part-1.pdf

Urban issues: Selections from CQ Researcher. (2015). Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.