SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Miguel Pelayo moved to San Diego from Idaho in the past year.
“I was homeless because I was looking for some place for live,” Pelayo said.
In his journey to move to a place where the weather was good for his health, he ended up homeless for four months.
“I’m disabled. My money every month is not too much. I was sometimes paying a hotel, you know,” Pelayo said. “It’s not easy when we are homeless, you know. Different places, living alone. I don’t know different situations. But we need help. It’s most important; we need help.”
And more help could soon be on the way at the Homelessness Response Center.
The City of San Diego is looking to possibly put shelter beds or affordable housing at the one stop shop for services run by the San Diego Housing Commission in collaboration with PATH San Diego.
Deanna Villanueva, who is with the housing commission, is supportive of the possible idea.
“We’re already in conversations with the City about where and how we would still provide the resources and services that we provide here if the use of the site were to change,” Villanueva said.
Villanueva told ABC 10News no decisions have been made about that just yet.
PATH said if the city does pick the center to add shelter or housing, the resources at the center would still be offered in the redevelopment or offsite.
They’re resources that address critical needs for a homeless community in crisis.
“I think it’s really helpful to look at it holistically. So, in that way, that this is amazing to have people transitioning into housing or transitioning into shelter and getting all of their resources. Because this just don’t happen in a vacuum,” Jourdan Lopez, a team supervisor at Homelessness Resource Center, said.
Those same resources helped Pelayo get into his own apartment.
“God blessed me on this part for I found this place. I feel great with in that I’m glad to know these people and I have apartment now,” Pelayo said.
PATH San Diego told ABC 10News that the response center has served 2,500 people in the last month.
