The City of San Diego announced Wednesday its emergency shelter at the San Diego Convention Center has helped more than 525 people experiencing homelessness find housing, with hundreds more on the path to a home after being matched with housing vouchers or subsidies.
Operation Shelter to Home opened on April 1 and is a collaborative effort between the City, County of San Diego, San Diego Housing Commission, Regional Task Force on the Homeless, San Diego Convention Center and homeless service providers.
Officials say the main objectives of the shelter are to protect the health of San Diegans experiencing homelessness amid the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic and work to house them quickly.
“San Diego is housing people at twice the rate we did before the pandemic, a remarkable feat and proof that we are going to keep our promise to come out of this crisis with fewer people living on our streets,” said Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
The operation is on track to house an estimated 700 people by the end of September.
San Diego was the only major county in California to see a reduction in homelessness in 2019 and then continued that progress with an additional 6 percent according to the 2020 Point-In-Time survey.