Homelessness along the San Diego River hits its highest total yet

Blake Nelson, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Oct 10, 2024

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SAN DIEGO — An estimated 423 homeless people are now living along the San Diego River, putting them at increased risk of drowning as well as creating new challenges for outreach workers, first responders and surrounding wildlife.

The most recent tally from the San Diego River Park Foundation was the nonprofit’s highest count in years. The increase was largely found in the city of San Diego — Santee’s population actually went down — and officials are hopeful that boosted outreach throughout the county will ultimately reduce totals everywhere.

“These funds and these resources, these things are working,” Kendall Burdett, a riverbed outreach worker with People Assisting the Homeless, said Thursday at a downtown press conference. “They work tediously, and sometimes we fall behind, but we catch up and we keep going.”

Multiple homeless people have drowned in recent years. At least three were swept away during January’s historic storm, and while local researchers are exploring the creation of a flood warning system, that project is far from a done deal.

The rising number of encampments comes as several cities have passed camping bans that increased penalties for sleeping outside. Sarah Hutmacher, the foundation’s chief operating officer, said she knew of individuals who’d chosen to live by waterways in an effort to avoid police on the street.

But homelessness overall has also grown countywide every month for more than two straight years. People may move to the riverbed only after long periods spent elsewhere, and officials said this population had, on average, been homeless a decade.

Rivers can simultaneously offer isolation from the outside world and a more stable community. Hand-built structures sometimes include brick floors, wooden walls and bookshelves, and outreach workers can face more hurdles in convincing those residents to move.

As a result, leaders are using a $17 million grant from the state to expand the number of service organizations working in the area. Outreach ramped up months ago in Santee, which has seen its riverbed numbers drop to an estimated 78 people since the spring.

Similar work began more recently in San Diego. That city’s waterway population surged earlier this year to nearly 340, and one plot of land near Sea World, below Interstate 5, appears to have dozens of people living in a makeshift village. Burdett, the outreach worker, said at least 10 of those residents had already been connected with rent subsidy programs and should soon be able to get housing.

Officials reported that 180 people had agreed to leave local riverbeds since January. Of those, more than 150 were now in some form of short-term housing, which can include traditional shelters. Twenty-two made it permanent housing and one was reunited with family.

“On all fronts, we are making progress,” county Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer said Thursday.

The population estimates were based on a census taken Sept. 26 through 29 and include people found living in vehicles. The count does not include Mission Trails.

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