America’s Finest City— San Diego

Yesterday started the annual point-in-time homeless count for 2023; early results show dramatic increases.

8th Street, San Diego, Ca. — Sidewalks are blocked, and pedestrians have to walk in the street with traffic — Photo by Author

My hometown of San Diego, California, is known as “America’s Finest City.” I’ve written about how beautiful San Diego is, but I am sad to say there is another side to my city that is disturbing and getting worse.

Homelessness here and in many places around the world is becoming an increasing problem, and many just want to sweep it under the rug, kick the can down the road, or pretend it doesn’t exist.

Yesterday, at the early hour of 4:00am, well before the sun even rose in the eastern sky, 1,500 volunteers assembled for the annual count of the San Diego Homeless.

The Count last year was 8,427 homeless, officially called the “unsheltered population,” but this number is expected to be much higher in 2023.

There was no count conducted in 2021 due to the pandemic. But the count in 2020 was 7,638, or an increase of about 10%.

I spent the night in a homeless shelter seven years ago.

It followed my arranging a donation of 100 mattresses from an old barracks to Father Joe’s Villages Homeless Shelter.