The homelessness crisis in San Diego is complex and urgent, demanding innovative ideas and decisive action.

Over the last year, my team at the Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department has worked to add more than 900 new sheltering options — including traditional shelter beds and safe sleeping sites — but we know we have more work to do. Approximately 80 percent of shelter bed referrals are not met, because we don’t have enough resources to keep pace. Our outreach teams often have to tell people there is no space available — this is not acceptable to me and should not be acceptable to anyone. The status quo will remain unless bold action is taken.

We have looked at dozens of properties, both city-owned and private property, to keep adding much needed shelter beds. We’ve turned non-transitional spaces into temporary shelter for San Diegans trying to end their homelessness, but those are temporary solutions. San Diego has never had a long-term shelter campus solely dedicated and designed to help those experiencing homelessness. As a leader in this space, the type of campus proposed at Hope @ Vine would set the bar for how local governments address homelessness.

The property located near Middletown presents us the unique opportunity to create a space to address the varying populations experiencing homelessness, ensuring we are incorporating best practices, lessons learned from siting shelters in the past, voices from local leaders and those with lived experience. This facility will honor the humanity and dignity of every individual being served. We aren’t looking to lease a warehouse, we’re planning to build a transformative campus to deliver services and ultimately save lives in a modern, compassionate way that all San Diegans can be proud of.

When considering the size of the project, I understand some may be concerned about density and scale. Rather than a large, impersonal space, I ask you to imagine a bright, welcoming, state-of-the-art facility designed with care and intention. Creating a successful and sustainable design for this project is a top priority for me and my team. With 65,000 square feet of indoor space in separate buildings, we can create individual spaces for different populations potentially including families, older adults, veterans and other San Diegans. In essence, it will function as multiple shelters on one campus with outdoor patios and dining areas, a commercial kitchen, pet spaces, laundry facilities, and round-the-clock security and staffing to enhance safety for everyone. We also envision onsite medical and behavioral health services, as well as case management, job training, and other wrap-around services, will be offered.

It will be a place of hope and opportunity, helping people transition out of crisis and into a clean, safe and inclusive environment, setting them up to improve their lives and become self-sufficient.

Where do we go next? If this project is approved by the San Diego City Council on Monday, we have more work to do. One of my top priorities is hearing from those who have personally experienced homelessness. These individuals will be part of a working group with regional experts to help guide our efforts. This collaboration will be invaluable.

I know the Hope @ Vine campus will be a life saving asset for our most vulnerable residents working to end their homelessness with the ultimate goal of connecting people to long-term, stable housing. We know this can be a model that other cities look to as they similarly grapple with the complexities of homelessness. In the face of such urgent need, we cannot turn a blind eye to an opportunity that holds so much promise. The cost of doing nothing is too high.

Jarman is director of the city of San Diego’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department and lives in San Diego.

Originally Published: July 19, 2024 at 4:09 p.m.

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – The San Diego Zoo on Friday announced the official public debut date for the giant pandas Yun Chuan and Xin Bao.

Zoo officials said guests can get their first in-person look at the panda pair starting Thursday, Aug. 8.

There will be three ways for Zoo guests to see the pandas:

• On the day of their visit, guests can obtain a complimentary “Giant Panda Timed Ticket”
• Guests can enter a standby line on the day they visit the Zoo
• Guests can make reservations for an exclusive “60-Minute Early Morning with Pandas Walk Tour”

Visit https://zoo.sandiegozoo.org/giant-pandas for more information on how to see the pandas.

Yun Chuan and Xin Bao arrived at their new home on June 27 from China. They are the first pandas to enter the U.S. in 21 years.

Since their arrival, Zoo officials said the pandas have been getting used to their new surroundings in the newly reimagined Panda Ridge.

Zoo officials described Yun Chuan as “an almost five-year-old male identifiable by his long, pointy nose.”

Xin Bao was described as “a nearly four-year-old female best recognized by her large, round face and big, fluffy ears.”

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A widespread Microsoft outage disrupted flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday.

Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.

News outlets in Australia reported that airlines, telecommunications providers and banks, and media broadcasters were disrupted as they lost access to computer systems. Airlines in the U.K., Europe and India reported problems and some New Zealand banks said they were offline.

Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”

The company did not respond to a request for comment. It did not explain the cause of the outage further.

New Zealand’s acting prime minister, David Seymour, said on X that officials in the country were “moving at pace to understand the potential impacts” of the global problem.

“I have not currently received any reporting to indicate these issues are related to malicious cyber security activity,” Seymour wrote. The issue was causing “inconvenience” for the public and businesses, he added.

Israel’s Cyber Directorate that it was among the places affected by the global outages, attributing them to a problem with the cybersecurity platform Crowdstrike. The outage also hit the country’s post offices and hospitals, according to the ministries of communication and health.

Meanwhile, major disruptions reported by airlines and airports grew.

In the U.S., the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded. Travelers at Los Angeles International Airport slept on a jetway floor, using backpacks and other luggage for pillows, due to a delayed United flight to Dulles International Airport early on Friday.

Airlines, railways and television stations in the United Kingdom were being disrupted by the computer issues. The budget airline Ryanair, train operators TransPennine Express and Govia Thameslink Railway, as well as broadcaster Sky News are among those affected.

“We’re currently experiencing disruption across the network due to a global third party IT outage which is out of our control,’’ Ryanair said. “We advise all passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.”

Edinburgh Airport said the system outage meant waiting times were longer than usual. London’s Stansted Airport said some airline check-in services were being completed manually, but flights were still operating.

Widespread problems were reported at Australian airports, where lines grew and some passengers were stranded as online check-in services and self-service booths were disabled. Passengers in Melbourne queued for more than an hour to check in, although flights were still operating.

Airline operations in India were disrupted, affecting thousands.

The privately-owned IndiGo airlines told the passengers on X that the Microsoft outage on Friday impacted airline operations in India, inconveniencing thousands of passengers.

Several airlines made statements on X saying that they were following manual check-in and boarding processes and warned of delays due to technical problems.

Hong Kong’s Airport Authority said in a statement that the outage was affecting some airlines at the city’s airport and they had switched to manual check-in.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said on its website that the outage was having a “major impact on flights” to and from the busy European hub. The outage came on one of the busiest days of the year for the airport, at the start of many people’s summer vacations.

In Germany, Berlin Airport said Friday morning that “due to a technical fault, there will be delays in check-in.” It said that flights were suspended until 10 a.m. (0800GMT), without giving details, German news agency dpa reported.

Zurich Airport, the busiest in Switzerland, suspended landings on Friday morning but said flights headed there that were already in the air were still allowed to land. It said that several airlines, handling agents and other companies at the airport were affected, and that check-in had to be done manually in some cases, but that the airport’s own systems were running.

At Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport, some US-bound flights had posted delays, while others were unaffected.

Australia appeared to be severely affected by the issue. Outages reported on the site DownDetector included the banks NAB, Commonwealth and Bendigo, and the airlines Virgin Australia and Qantas, as well as internet and phone providers such as Telstra.

Hospitals in Britain and Germany also reported problems.

Several practices within the National Health Service in England reported that the outage had hit their clinical computer system that contains medical records and is used for scheduling.

“We have no access to patient clinical records so are unable to book appointments or provide information,” Church Lane Surgery in Brighouse in Northern England said on the social media platform X. “This is a national problem and is being worked on as a high priority.”

The NHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In northern Germany, the Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital, which has branches in Kiel and Luebeck, said it had canceled all elective surgery scheduled for Friday, but patient and emergency care were unaffected.

News outlets in Australia — including the ABC and Sky News — were unable to broadcast on their TV and radio channels, and reported sudden shutdowns of Windows-based computers. Some news anchors broadcast live online from dark offices, in front of computers showing “blue screens of death.”

In South Africa, at least one major bank said it was experiencing “nationwide service disruptions” as customers reported they were unable to make payments using their bank cards at grocery stores and gas stations.

The New Zealand banks ASB and Kiwibank said their services were down.

An X user posted a screenshot of an alert from the company Crowdstrike that said the company was aware of “reports of crashes on Windows hosts” related to its Falcon Sensor platform. The alert was posted on a password-protected Crowdstrike site and could not be verified. Crowdstrike did not respond to a request for comment.

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Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok. Associated Press journalists Danica Kirka and Brian Melley in London, Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles, Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Kanis Leung in Hong Kong, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Michael Corder in the Netherlands, Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, Gerald Imray in Cape Town and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed.