San Diego homelessness level drops on costly clean-up effort, mayor says

As Los Angeles County grapples with a growing homeless population, San Diego has managed to get more people off the streets and into shelters, according to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer..

The homeless count is] down 6 percent county-wide,” he told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney Opens a New Window. on Friday. “It really is about challenging the bureaucracies that have been entrenched in the status quo and doing things differently.”

By comparison, Los Angeles County homelessness spiked 12 percent over the past year.

“One of the things that we are doing in San Diego, that I think is really having a dramatic effect of getting people off the street is, we’ve established bridge shelters with help and wraparound services. A storage center for belongings that is helping to clean up our streets and our sidewalks. And really a sense of our overall attitude that says a sidewalk or a tarp or a riverbed is no place for a home,” he explained.

Although the effort has been costly, Faulconer believes “its money well spent.”

“I just signed our budget yesterday – over $3 billion in San Diego and one line item alone for helping to clean up our sidewalks, remove trash, my “Clean SD” program, is $10 million," he said. "I feel strongly about this. I feel passionately about this—that’s how you have to run a major American city. We care about the cleanliness—we care about our environment—and we care about getting people off the street and ensuring that that’s happening.”

The cops pick them up after a couple of days... There sent to a mental health clinic..can only keep them ten days.. If they agree they go to the Salvation Army for rehab then Catholic Charities which was a work program IF they go back to the street the process starts all over.. Some you will see over and over for a while and then there gone Must have been rehabed or they moved to another area

Some you will see over and over for a while... You need a "rehab" with bunks and bathrooms where they can "sleep it off" instead of going back to the streets & jail. Been watching this cycle for fifty years.

The City of San Diego tolerates it. Neighboring cities in San Diego County do not. The bums in National City and Chula Vista are told or know that they are welcome in downtown San Diego and they hop on the trolley and go there. You don’t see bums on the street in low income National City. I wonder why? Across the bay in Coronado you see no vagrants. The Coronado PD picks them and drive them across the bridge to San Diego. Faulconer is a putz.

The problem there is they did take them of the streets.. They were letting them commit petty crimes.. So the druggies and homeless moved there.. Now the numbers are to great and they do not want to do what it takes to get them of the street In fact... it is not against the law to sleep on the street in California

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