Mayor Todd Gloria delivered his fourth State of the City Address on Wednesday, addressing the city's ongoing issues, such as homelessness, housing affordability, infrastructure and public safety.
Gloria -- San Diego's 37th mayor -- took the stage at the Balboa Theatre at 6 p.m. Wednesday to discuss gains his administration has made in the past year, even as he faced harsh criticism from erstwhile supporters.
At his 2023 address, Gloria spoke of the need to redevelop the city's civic core, including City Hall, the beleaguered 101 Ash St. property and Civic Theatre. However, a lack of interest from developers at least partly due to high interest rates and a Downtown yet to fully recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic stymied the plan last year.
The mayor also continued to come down hard on the use and sale of fentanyl, a powerful opiate that has seen a massive increase in use, as well as overdoses and deaths in the past five years. He signed an executive order in 2022 that called for the San Diego Police Department to prioritize enforcement of fentanyl trafficking and sales crimes.
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In San Diego County, the introduction of fentanyl has led to a 2,345% increase in the number of accidental overdose deaths, up from 33 deaths in 2016 to 807 deaths in 2021, officials said. Fentanyl overdoses claimed the lives of more than 800 San Diegans in 2021, 113 of them homeless, according to the mayor's office and the SDPD. Five years ago, there were only two reported deaths of homeless people from fentanyl overdoses.
Gloria has continued to change to a punitive tack on the homelessness issue, joining with City Councilman Stephen Whitburn in pushing for the Unsafe Camping Ordinance, which the council passed 5-4 in June.
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The proposal is intended to ban tent encampments at all times in certain sensitive areas -- parks, canyons and near schools, transit stations and homeless shelters -- regardless of shelter capacity. Signs have gone up across the city, effectively criminalizing homelessness in large swaths of the city.
Barbara Pinto, a member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, compared the proposal during public comment "to pouring water on a drowning man."
Pinto urged the council to focus on providing more affordable housing. Others suggested the council either table the proposal or scrap the plan altogether and craft a new one. More than a few opponents urged the council to go with the 2019 community action plan to tackle homelessness.
Addressing the council at the time, Gloria said it was reasonable to ask that sidewalks are passable, that public parks are safe and accessible, and that natural canyons aren't under a constant wildfire threat.
"This ordinance is a call to action, and a call to uphold the principles of compassion, fairness and personal responsibility," he added.
As a move to have a place to put these unhoused people, the city opened "safe sleeping" sites, including one in Balboa Park's O Lot, located on city property at the edge of Balboa Park near the Naval Medical Center. That site has a capacity for up to 400 tents, each allowing space for two people.
In addition to tents, the program provides on-site amenities and services, including meals, restrooms, showers, laundry, storage trailers, case management, basic needs assistance and resource referrals, according to the city.
Moments before stepping on stage to deliver the State of the City in 2023, Gloria signed an executive order directing all relevant city departments to complete their review and approve 100% affordable housing projects within 30 days -- a process that otherwise could take upwards of six months.
However, the rate of home building has remained far below what the city and county require, said Ray Major, chief economist for the San Diego Association of Governments. He estimated the region has a deficit of 100,000 housing units.
In 2023, Gloria highlighted the potential to add to the region's housing stock through the redevelopment of the Sports Arena area, with its promise of 4,000 new homes -- roughly half of which will be affordable. But the group developing that project, Midway Rising, announced major changes in October, including cutting 250 middle-income housing units and a 200-room hotel.
Gloria touted successes and cast an eye toward the future on Wednesday night, laying out a path to improve streets, reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness, build more housing and maintain public safety as he looks toward reelection in November.
