To help reduce the city’s $258 million budget shortfall, the Midway homeless shelter is scheduled to close in the upcoming weeks.
Although the 150-bed facility is located on San Diego County property, the county has so far declined to cover the expenses required to maintain the shelter’s long-term viability. The Midway neighborhood and other homeless shelters in the city would be significantly impacted by the shelter’s closure.
“It’s unacceptable,” Drew Moser, CEO of the Lucky Duck Foundation stated. “It would be a significant step backwards as it relates to addressing homelessness throughout the county.”
The Midway shelter structure is owned by the Lucky Duck Foundation, which also paid for its construction. According to Moser, the Midway facility has a very high number of individuals with behavioral and mental health concerns.
“The population that particular shelter serves, it’s people with high behavioral and mental health needs and require a higher level of services. The thought of sending 150 people back to the street is completely unacceptable,” Moser stated.
The Midway region was home to numerous homeless encampments on the streets before to the shelter’s opening in 2022. There are no longer any homeless encampments on the majority of the streets.
Shelters such as this one “actually clean up the neighborhood and give people a place to go to get off the streets and onto a brighter pathway,” according to Moser.
Therefore, the idea of closing it will undoubtedly affect the nearby community in addition to forcing people back onto the streets. Its closure will have a detrimental effect on the local population.
A few hundred yards from the homeless shelter, Mickey Maynard, owner of Crack in the Wall frame shop, adds, “It seems counterproductive and a move backwards.”
According to Maynard, trespassing and scavenging in and around local businesses have decreased as a result of the homeless shelter. He worries about what might occur if it closes.
“Less support for these people is not going to be good. People have been getting services at the shelter, directions to housing, opportunities to shower and clean up,” Maynard stated.
Instead of closing the shelter all at once, the San Diego City Council has been encouraged to set aside $500,000 to gradually reduce its size over a few months.
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In order to facilitate the evacuation of people presently residing at the Midway shelter, the San Diego Housing Commission informs that intakes at nine area shelters have been temporarily halted.
The nine shelters are listed here.
- Bridge Shelter (16th & Newton)
- Bridge Shelter (17th & Imperial)
- Bishop Maher Center
- Single Adult Shelter operated by Father Joe’s Villages at the Veterans Village of San Diego campus
- Connections Housing
- Lighthouse Interim Shelter
- Haven Interim Shelter (Only for the single women component)
- Rachel’s Promise
- Safe Sleeping
The people who assisted in the opening of the Midway shelter, however, are not happy with any plans to move the current residents or to eventually shut down the facility.
“We are not in the business of talking about closing beds or moving people around. We are the business of providing hope and an immediate pathway off the streets, then a permanent pathway off the streets. We are laser focused on how we can make more immediately available beds be added to the system, and this is the exact opposite of that,” Moser stated.
