SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – The Rosecrans Shelter in San Diego's Midway District is set to close after opening its doors in 2022, leaving 136 clients in need of relocation.
The shelter, which focuses on individuals dealing with severe mental illness, will lose its nearly $5 million in funding as it's not included in the City of San Diego's proposed budget for next year.
"It is the first that I've seen in my four decades of true partnership between the City and the County, and it was working well," Bob McElroy said.
McElroy, president of Alpha Project, the non-profit contracted to run the homeless shelter, called it a flagship program for the area.
He described the current situation as chaotic. "Panicking basically. Panicking from top to bottom," McElroy said.
The San Diego Housing Commission confirmed the funding would keep the shelter operating only until June 30.
The closure stems from a disagreement between the City and County of San Diego. The County wants to demolish the building next to the shelter and cut off utilities, while the city argues this would create disruption, noise, and high costs to relocate the utilities.
As part of the fallout, nine homeless shelters have temporarily suspended new intakes. The Housing Commission announced that "formal communication to all shelters about the intake suspension occurred May 21. This is to support the transition of clients at the Rosecrans Shelter to alternative shelter options due to the uncertainty about the future operations of the Rosecrans Shelter in the upcoming fiscal year."
Affected shelters include Bridge Shelter (16th & Newton), Bridge Shelter (17th & Imperial), Bishop Maher Center, Single Adult Shelter operated by Father Joe's Villages at the Veterans Village of San Diego campus, Connections Housing, Lighthouse Interim Shelter, Haven Interim Shelter (Only for the Single Women Component), Rachel's Promise and Safe Sleeping.
The Housing Commission noted that the intake suspension doesn't affect referrals into beds specifically reserved for the San Diego Police Department.
McElroy expressed concern for those who must be relocated. "This is the first time that many of the folks that are in this shelter have ever come into a shelter before," McElroy said. "That's all I'm hearing; violation of trust, I'll never go into another shelter. They finally trusted the system and the system let them down."
The County has stated the demolition of the adjacent building won't happen until next March. They recently voted to approve $800,000 to help pay for moving the utilities to the shelter, if it were to stay, which was expected to cost as much as $2 million.
Additionally, the Housing Commission is asking the city council to approve at least $500,000 to manage the closure of the shelter by the end of August.
"I'm hoping and praying we get at least a six-day extension and, even that is a tremendous challenge. I mean Father Joe's, you know, Golden Hall took two years to wind down," McElroy said. "I'm hoping at least 50 percent of the people, you know, what to transition into either another one of our facilities or someone else's. But certainly, many of the folks are deeply traumatized and hurt."
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