Homeless on SD streets jumps 19%

While homelessness in San Diego County is slightly down from last year, the number of people living on the street has jumped 19 percent, according to a report released Friday by the Regional Task Force on the Homeless.

An annual count conducted in the pre-dawn hours Jan. 29 found 8,692 sheltered and unsheltered homeless people throughout the county, a .6 percent decrease from last year.

Homelessness in the county is down 3.6 percent over the past five years, and efforts specifically aimed at helping veterans appearing to be paying off, said task force Executive Director Dolores Diaz.

For reasons not clear, however, the number of people in shelters has decreased by about 18 percent while the number of unsheltered people has increased almost 19 percent, she said.

“I was disappointed in the number of unsheltered, but I was very pleased with the silver lining in this, in that we are seeing reductions where we put the resources and the efforts.,” Diaz said at a news conference in United Way’s Mission Valley headquarters.

Overall, 3,752 people were in shelters and 4,940 were unsheltered.

Volunteers in this year’s count found a 69 percent increase in the number of tents or other hand-built structures homeless people lived in throughout the county, Diaz said.

Surveys with homeless people found about 70 percent said they were living in San Diego when they became homeless, while about 24 percent said they already were homeless when they came to the city.

The annual count is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Department, which uses the figures as part of its formula to determine homeless funding throughout the country.

This year’s count found a dip in the number of homeless people in the city of San Diego, but significant increases in homeless people downtown and in the northern and southern ends of the county, Diaz said.

Downtown, the number of unsheltered homeless people increased by almost 21 percent for a total of 1,006.

Specifically, the concentration of homeless people around Petco Park and Market Street saw an increase from 314 to 400.

The area around Market Street between State Street and 9th Avenue saw an increase from 151 to 276 since last year.

While the city of San Diego has the largest concentration of homeless people in the county, the overall number is down 8 percent from last year. The count found 2,348 sheltered and 2,745 unsheltered people in the city for a total of 5,093.

Oceanside had the second highest number of homeless people of any other city in the county, with 667 in and out of shelters.

Chula Vista had the third highest homeless population with 538, closely followed by Escondido with 532.

Vista was next with 423 homeless people, followed by El Cajon with 321.

The 876 people in coastal North County cities represented a 38 percent increase from last year. North County inland cities had 1,159 homeless people, a 26 percent jump.

The 896 people counted in South County represented a 27 percent increase, while the 668 people counted in East County was a 29 percent decrease from last year.

Diaz gave a caveat about East County, however. Because the number of people counted in an El Cajon shelter could not be verified according to HUD standards, she said, the actual count might have been 300 greater.

That could explain some some, but not most of the drop in sheltered homeless recorded this year.

Diaz said the figures released in Friday’s report do not explain why the homeless numbers changed, but are intended to provide a snapshot of homelessness from one specific day.

The task force will have to dig deeper to search for why the sheltered number had decreased, Diaz said, noting a more comprehensive report is due by June 30. She could not say whether there were fewer shelter beds in January compared with the previous year.

Friday’s report did give some specific data about efforts to help homeless veterans.

The overall number of homeless veterans in the country decreased from 1,381 to 1,157, a drop of 16 percent. The number of veterans living in shelters dropped from 750 to 584, a 22 percent decrease, and the number of unsheltered vets dropped from 631 to 573, a 9 percent decrease.

Cara Franke, a coordinator with the Veterans Affair’s San Diego Health System, said the decrease is the result of a concentrated effort to help homeless veterans.

“VA locally has really put a lot of our resources into addressing the chronic homeless veterans, specifically with our HUD VASH (Veteran Assisted Supportive Housing) program or our permanent housing program,” she said about the 39 percent drop in chronic homelessness among veterans.

Of the 1,485 VASH vouchers, 1,163 already have been used for veterans to rent apartments, she said. Another 200 veteran a have vouchers and are looking for housing, Franke said. This year’s count made an extra effort to count unaccompanied homeless youth, which has been a difficult population to identify, Diaz said.

The count found 145 people younger than 18, with 31 in shelters and 114 unsheltered. Of homeless youth aged 18 to 24, the report found 226 in shelters and 459 unsheltered.

The report can be found at the Regional Task Force on the Homeless’ web site, www.rtfhsd.org/publications.

gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

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@GaryWarthUT