San Diego, CA
The Mayor Is Still Saying He Increased Shelter Capacity by 70 percent. He Still Hasn’t
As a central component of his re-election campaign, Mayor Todd Gloria continues to claim he’s increased homeless shelter capacity by 70 percent.
That claim is no more true now than it was in June 2023, when Voice of San Diego first fact checked it.
From the airwaves to his November ballot statement, Gloria is pushing the 70 percent figure as a key reason voters should re-elect him.
In one ad, a narrator ticks off several accomplishments. She tells voters Gloria has “increased shelter for the homeless by 70 percent!”
An independent expenditure group supporting Gloria called San Diegans for Fairness has also been pushing the claim.
Here’s how Gloria’s team does the math: They pick a convenient starting point where the number of beds was unusually low due to the pandemic.
Before the pandemic, and before Gloria took office, the city had 1,409 shelter beds.
Gloria’s team doesn’t use that number. They use a date in April 2021, about three months after Gloria took office.
Up until then, the city had been using the convention center as a shelter, because of the pandemic. But just before April 1, 2021, the convention center closed. Other shelters within the city were operating at lower capacity due to Covid restrictions.
So on April 1, 2021, there were only 1,071 beds available.
Today, there are roughly 1,856, according to the mayor’s campaign staff.
The math works like this: Between April 2021 – when the number was significantly restricted by the pandemic – and now, city homeless shelter capacity increased by roughly 73 percent.
But the city wasn’t providing 1,071 beds before Gloria took office. It was providing around 1,400. That math works out to a roughly 32 percent increase.
That’s not a small increase. But it doesn’t come close to the 70 percent Gloria is claiming.
I asked Gloria about the math at a press conference on Wednesday. He stuck to his administration’s interpretation of the numbers.
“In April of 2021 we had a very small number of beds,” he said. “We don’t have that anymore.”
Since Gloria’s 32 percent increase on shelter capacity, progress has actually stalled.
During the last 16 months, the city has only increased the net number of shelter beds by 51.
In January, at his State of the City speech, Gloria said he wanted the city to deliver 1,000 new shelter beds by early 2025.
That’s not looking likely. It would mean increasing overall shelter capacity to roughly 2,800 in the next few months.
The mayor had hoped to purchase a warehouse at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street that could be converted to shelter for more than a thousand people, but that plan is now in limbo.
It’s possible the city will tally a net loss of beds by early 2025.
The city is set to lose 614 beds at two large shelters operated by Father Joe’s Villages by the end of the year – and Gloria has known this was coming for months. City officials are now trying to come up with solutions to address the closures.
Meanwhile, Gloria’s administration has come up with alternative options. He has opened safe parking lots, where people can sleep in their cars, and safe camping sites, where people can sleep in a tent.
“We can parse on the numbers,” Gloria said. “We worked aggressively over lots of concerns and complaints and feedback to get this done,” he said, referring to shelter expansion.
Lisa Halverstadt contributed to this report.
Gloria relents on December Nights, some community cuts in budget revise, but arts funds still on chopping block
by City News Service | Times of San Diego
Some library and recreation center hours and December Nights support were restored in Mayor Todd Gloria’s revised Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Wednesday, but city funding for the arts could still be gutted.
Gloria was joined by civic leaders Wednesday morning to announce changes to his initial proposed budget, released last month. He added “targeted protections” of certain neighborhood priorities and maintained police and fire service levels while arriving at a balanced budget.
Proposed additions include protecting rec center and library hours in Council Districts 4, 8 and 9, represented by Henry L. Foster III, Vivian Moreno and Sean Elo-Rivera, respectively.
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The Learning Curve: He’s San Diego Unified’s Next Trustee – No Race Needed
By Jakob McWhinney | Voice of San Diego
The primary is still nearly a month away. The general election is even further out. Still, it’s already clear that Hayden Gore will be San Diego Unified’s next trustee. That’s because he’s running unopposed to fill the seat left open by current Trustee Cody Petterson, who opted not to run for re-election.
Though he’s a political newcomer, Gore was the early choice of San Diego Unified’s union. In fact, he was recruited by the former president of the San Diego Education Association to run for the seat.
It’s not hard to see why. He’s an avowed progressive and a longtime educator who led the then-newly formed union at High Tech High to its first contract. Exactly the kind of resume that would have SDEA champing at the bit.
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Join Us Friday, July 17, 2026 for the 11th Annual USD School of Law – RJS LAW Tax Institute
By RJS Law
The Institute is the premier annual tax event in San Diego. The region’s top tax attorneys, enrolled agents (EAs), certified public accountants (CPAs), law and business school professors will discuss topics including government loan relief and abuses, challenges in cross-border transactions, and practical and realistic solutions in trust, estate planning, and tax matters.
DATE AND TIME
Friday, July 17, 2026 from 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
LOCATION
Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, Theatre
5555 Marian Way, San Diego, CA 92110
EVENT STATUS
Open to the Public
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SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – For many families, libraries are a safe space for kids after school and a place to study.
After community outcry, the city is scaling down some of its proposed budget cuts, bringing the original $6.3 million in cuts to libraries down to $4.8 million.
Patrick Stewart, CEO of Library Foundation SD, said the change is a step in the right direction.
“We are very pleased. I think this moves the needle in the right direction.”
Mayor Gloria’s revised budget proposal restores funding focused on youth-centered programs, which includes bringing back library hours in Council Districts 4, 8, and 9 — those in underserved communities.
“This is City Heights and San Isidro, Barrio Logan, and Oak Park, and traditionally, those are smaller branches. And the kids and the families in those communities frankly, they use their library very differently than in a lot of other communities, and it’s a lifeline to them,” said Stewart.
The City Heights library is among those included in the mayor’s revised budget to restore funding. While library officials say this is a good first step, there is still concern about long-term financial challenges.
In order to voice concerns about how deep the cuts go, the Library Foundation has created a way for supporters to express that through postcards. Thousands of cards have been mailed directly to Mayor Gloria and councilmembers.
Stewart said the effort is making an impact.
“They’re seeing that this is hundreds and hundreds of people that are taking this very seriously, so it helps them to know immediately what their community feels like when it comes to these proposed cuts,” he added.
The restored funding would also keep Monday hours at Carmel Valley Library and protect the North Clairemont Library branch from closure.
Library officials remain optimistic as the revised budget heads back to the City Council.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
A man suspected of a fatal shooting in Barrio Logan was arrested Tuesday.
Benito Garcia Jr., 31, was arrested in the 3600 block of Grand Avenue in San Marcos at about 1 p.m. Tuesday for allegedly gunning down 64-year-old Raul Torres near the east end of the Coronado Bridge, according to the San Diego Police Department.
Patrol officers responding to an anonymous report of a shooting found the mortally wounded victim on a sidewalk in the 2000 block of National Avenue, near Chicano Park, shortly after 10 p.m. last Tuesday. Torres died at the scene, SDPD Lt. Lou Maggi said.
Police have not disclosed a suspected motive for the slaying.
Garcia was booked into San Diego Central Jail on suspicion of first- degree murder. He was being held without bail pending arraignment, scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
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