SAN DIEGO -- A plan to turn the Midway post office into a huge homeless housing community is raising a lot of questions in the neighborhood.

The Midway post office was once the main distribution center for San Diego. It has not been that for 17 years now, and the U.S. Postal Service has put the 436,000 square-foot facility for sale.

One of the groups making a bid on the property is a non-profit organization called Amikas. They envision a self-sustaining home for people who are now on the street, focusing on homeless veterans.

"One in three people you pass living on the street is a veteran," said Jeeni Criscenzo, a co-founder of Amikas. "That is unacceptable."

The home would house a few hundred at first and, ultimately, perhaps 2,000. The idea would be for people to live in clusters of six- to ten-person households.

"[The clusters would be] so everyone has a sense of community," said Criscenzo. "This is not a big massive warehousing situation."

Everyone at the home would have a job, like cooking, cleaning, baking or building things.

Under the Amikas plan, the parking lot would be a farm, and the job of some of the people living at there would be to grow food.

Postal customers who spoke to 10News liked the idea.

"I hadn't thought about it, but it seems like a good idea," one of them told 10News.

"I don't think it would hurt to have more homeless shelters, that's for sure," said another postal customer.

Some business owners across the street agree.

"I'd be for it," said Ron Marcotte of Sign Diego. "I'm compassionate and I think something needs to be done."

"I don't have a problem with it. If anything, it would get some of them off the street," said Denny Burroughs of O'Reilly Auto Parts.

But another local business owner is not happy at all about a homeless shelter nearby.

"I had almost a thousand dollars in vandalism due to the homeless just last month," said Kim Ciniello, who owns Ivy's Super Bright Laundry. "My business could not survive if there were 2,000 homeless people living behind it."

Ciniello bought the laundromat in February and has been working to clean it up and attract more business.

"We still have regular homeless people who sleep in the back of the postal property but along the back fence, so there are still the vandalism issues here," Ciniello said.

Questions were also raised about financing.

"Our checking is about zero," said Criscenzo. "We're looking for individual donors. We're looking for funding from grants."

Amikas, which has only been around for about a year, has never operated a shelter.

When asked if Criscenzo's organization was biting off more than it can chew, she said, "You don't know until you can try."

The U.S. Postal Service said there are other proposals to buy the Midway facility. They would not say how many or who the other proposed tenants are.

Next week, the Midway Planning Board will decide whether to support putting a homeless shelter there, and Amikas still needs to secure funding.

The entire sale process should take about two years.