The San Diego City Council passed a resolution Tuesday to create additional permanent supportive housing units in every district to address its homelessness problem.
Permanent supportive housing (PSH) was found to be the most effective intervention to address homelessness for those with significant challenges, according to the council’s staff report.
PSH units have subsidized housing and wrap-around supportive services. Households pay 30 percent of their income for rent, according to the city council.
Nearly 90 percent of households in the program do not return homelessness within a year, the staff report said.
This type of housing is relatively low in San Diego compared to other major cities. San Diego had 119 PSH units per 100,000 residents in 2017. San Francisco had 971, Washington D.C. had 961, and Boston had 722.
The Los Angeles City Council adopted a similar resolution, pledging to create thousands of new PSH units within three years. It had 198 PSH units per 100,000 residents.
San Diego’s resolution promised to create at least 140 new PSH units in every district.
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The San Diego Housing Commission’s Housing First San Diego plan set a goal to create 500 new PSH units between 2018 and 2020.
A Point-in-Time Count census showed 1,227 chronically homeless households within the City of San Diego in 2018.
Districts 1, 2, and 5 had no PSH units, according to the census. District 3 had the most with 1,093 PSH units.
The city currently has nearly 3,000 PSH units already, the staff report said.
The State of California has more than $32 million to spend on homeless solutions in the San Diego area. The county can also compete for millions more for affordable housing developments, according to the city council.
The Select Committee on Homelessness Committee sent the proposal to the full city council on July 30, 2018.
The city council vote Tuesday was unanimous.
