San Diego school leaders have approved a proposal to turn an empty lot at a shuttered campus into a place where homeless families can sleep in their vehicles, a milestone in a years-long effort to boost services for a growing population of vulnerable kids.
Board members with the San Diego Unified School District voted unanimously Tuesday to turn part of Old Central Elementary in City Heights into a safe parking lot. As long as the San Diego Housing Commission also signs off on the deal next week, officials hope to open the site by Thanksgiving.
“I know what it feels like to call a car home and not know whether the place I was parked was safe,” said Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who once slept in a vehicle while attending law school. “No child or family should ever have to know that feeling.”
San Diego Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera speaks Wednesday at a news conference in a parking lot at the Old Central Elementary campus that’s slated to become a safe place for homeless families to sleep in their vehicles. (Denis Poroy / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Elo-Rivera spoke Wednesday at a press conference on the lot, which has room for 40 households. A large turf field nearby will be available for kids to play on, and two bungalows offer space for homework, meal preparation, movie nights and meetings with case managers. (A playground, however, may be too old to use.)
Families attending San Diego Unified schools should get first dibs. If spots later remain available, officials plan to open them up to children from neighboring districts.
There are likely to be many candidates. During the last academic year, San Diego County overall had 19,841 homeless students, according to the California Department of Education. That was a significant increase from the year prior, when fewer than 17,900 were counted.
Those numbers include children who are couch surfing with friends or relatives.
A field at the Old Central Elementary School, which could soon host a safe parking lot for homeless students. (Denis Poroy / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Leaders estimate that 8,000 kids in San Diego Unified alone lack stable addresses. The problem has become so pronounced that one district employee, Kristy Drake, works as a designated homeless liaison who can visit families at shelters and street corners.
“A lot of times those are families who have a child with high needs,” Drake said Wednesday, “or they are newly homeless and don’t know what else to do.”
The Old Central Elementary site is a stopgap. The 10-page license agreement between the school district and housing commission lasts only one year and expires in November 2026. The property is then set to become an affordable housing complex for district employees.
“Even though this is temporary, I believe our intention is to be able to take this to other sites,” district board member Shana Hazan said during a public meeting earlier this week.
The project cost more than a half-million dollars. The San Diego City Council previously budgeted $250,000 for the effort, while the Regional Task Force on Homelessness kicked in $343,000, according to a press release.
A parking lot at the Old Central Elementary in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The site is to be overseen by Jewish Family Service, which already runs several safe parking lots around the region. Jesse Mendez, the nonprofit’s director of safe parking, said staffers plan to spend the next few weeks cleaning the bungalows, fixing fences and installing lights.
The program will allow pets and have security guards overnight from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. There is not room for RVs.
Leaders have long tried to turn the site into a safe parking lot. At one point it looked like the proposal would flounder over funding woes, but the district and housing commission revived discussions earlier this year.