SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The San Diego Police Department is investigating an alleged sexual assault at one of the city’s safe sleeping sites, Team 10 has learned.
The alleged rape happened a week before Christmas at “O Lot” near the edge of Balboa Park.
The campsite is one of two locations the city opened in 2023 for the homeless to stay at after the city council passed an ordinance banning public homeless encampments when shelter beds are available.
Since the sites opened, Team 10 has exposed a string of deaths at the camps and assaults.
Last November, Team 10 uncovered emails showing city officials were made aware of as many as eight possible rapes involving participants in the city’s safe sleeping program, along with multiple violent assaults and stabbings.
A manager with Dreams for Change, a nonprofit the city has awarded contracts worth over $20 million to in exchange for running day-to-day site operations at the sites, made the city aware of the physical and sexual violence.
“This person comes in every night and assaults a female client,” the manager wrote in one email entitled “Concerning Clients.”
Team 10 obtained the emails through a public records request after receiving a tip that a client had been raped at “B Lot,” near the Balboa Park Golf Course.
San Diego police spokesman Lt. Cesar Jimenez said he was unable to release any details on the alleged December assault, which is currently being investigated by the sex crimes unit.
City of San Diego communications director Nicole Darling said the safety of participants in the safe sleeping program is the top priority.
“The individual who reported the allegation is not a participant in the safe sleeping program,” she said in a prepared statement.
Darling didn’t elaborate further on who the victim was, but said all participants who stay at the city’s camp sites agree to a code of conduct that prohibits violence, threats and substance use on-site.
Team 10 has spoken with several current and former clients of the program who’ve alleged they’ve witnessed violence while staying at the sites.
“I didn't feel that that was safe because anybody can walk in and out the gate. It wasn't like a locked gate or anything,” said Asia Shafer, who told Team 10 she left B Lot to return to the streets last summer.
Shafer and other homeless people who stayed at the safe sleeping sites believe better-trained security guards are needed.
She said while she was a client at B Lot, she was offered work as a site patrol officer.
Security guard sexually harassed clients: lawsuit
“I've never been a guard in my life… I do have a criminal history. So, I'm like, I don't feel, comfortable doing that,” she said.
A federal lawsuit filed last summer by eight homeless people against the city and Dreams for Chance alleged the camp sites were unsafe and uninhabitable.
The lawsuit claimed a security guard at B Lot “wore an ankle monitor and frequently sexually harassed female residents, requiring favors in exchange for food or necessities.”
“Non-residents are able to get on the premises and have threatened residents with physical and sexual violence,” the suit alleged.
Nikki Brackeen, 42, told Team 10 she moved out of B Lot after a security guard put his hands on her waist and asked her to go to his apartment.
“He implied that I was a prostitute, and he wanted me to come out there and have sex with him and do drugs and party and it would be fun. And then I could come back to safe camp when I was done.”
Dreams for Change told Team 10 last year it never received any reports of sexual assaults by staff members and said one of the reported assaults uncovered in emails by Team 10 happened off-site.
“Though we also hear general claims of sexual assaults on the site, no specific person/victim has come forward or no witness has been able to identify it occurring. With general statements, we are left to keep investigating and encouraging participants to report with specific individuals,” the non-profit said in a statement.
Dreams for Change added the charity takes steps “during domestic situations as to not further victimize or traumatize.”
Investigative reporter Austin Grabish can be reached at austin.grabish@10news.com
