With the annual count of homeless people in San Diego County underway, city and county leaders will not only be getting the information they need to get federal funding, they also will be facing some new and probably larger challenges.
The homeless problem is a problem in many big cities around the country but there are unique things about San Diego that have made it harder to solve it.
Some will point to the weather. When you have the best weather in America, there are some people who are homeless who will get here any way they can.
But one of the unique things about San Diego that really contributes to making the homeless problem a big problem is our cost of living. The cost of homes, the price of rentals, the price of gas all contribute to people not being able to afford a place to live. So they end up in shelters, their cars or in the parks or on the street.
And then there is the anti-tax increase history of San Diego, where it has been very difficult to get voters to approve a tax hike. So generating more revenue for the homeless or anything else is hard.
Fortunately, we have organizations like Father Joe’s Villages, the Alpha Project, the Rescue Mission and several more that help homeless people every day with temporary shelter as well as a path toward a better life. But to really solve the homeless problem it’s going to take a lot of people who care a lot about solving it.
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