Mayor Picks Fight Over County Homelessness, Behavioral Health Response

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has long had a beef with county government’s response to the region’s behavioral health and homelessness crises. He kicked off 2025 by putting a spotlight on his dissatisfaction and continued to shine it in the months to come. 

“My fellow San Diegans, it is my hope that any time you see a person on the street suffering from extreme mental illness or addiction, that you think of the County of San Diego and ask: When will they step up to provide the services they need to end this crisis once and for all?” Gloria said during his January State of the City address. 

He criticized the county’s decision to postpone implementation of a state conservatorship expansion law and what he described as lackluster preparations for the new law that took effect in January, arguing the county has the resources and responsibility to act more urgently. 

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Frustrated county officials including Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, a former city councilmember, have spent the months since trying to shift the focus to how the two governments can partner. They also sought to highlight the county’s stepped-up work on behavioral health and homelessness in recent years. They also noted that the county was still among the first in the state to implement the conservatorship law. 

“Frankly, the mayor has not, in my opinion, done his due diligence to even reach out to my office to help navigate some of the issues that he talked about or get the facts about what he’s talking about because I heard a lot of things that were misleading,” Montgomery Steppe told Voice of San Diego after the speech. 

Weeks later, Gloria started another fight. This time, he demanded that the county fully fund a Midway District homeless shelter on county property that the city, county and philanthropists teamed up to open in 2022. Gloria left nearly $5 million in operations funding for the shelter out of the city’s budget and called on the county to foot the bill. He said he made the call after learning of the county’s plan to demolish the building next door to the shelter, a move he said would result in additional costs for the city and make it untenable for shelter residents. 

“They point to their budget situation, their political circumstances currently and for all the reasons why it can’t be done, I hear about what they can’t do, while they can continue to do a construction of a project that is making this shelter difficult to continue,” Gloria said. 

About that budget situation: The county’s historically rosy budget situation is shifting, a theme officials likely emphasized in meetings with Gloria. The county projected a $138.5 million deficit before approving budget that closed it this summer and more recently, the county’s faced an expected $300 million annual hit to its budget due to federal cuts. 

Still, county Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer attempted a save for the Midway shelter. Fellow supervisors approved her proposal that the county use $800,000 in its unspent federal stimulus funds to try to chip away at the city’s $1 million to $2 million cost to reconnect utilities to the shelter, a step necessitated by the planned demolition. She didn’t heed Gloria’s demand that the county fully fund the shelter, citing the original partnership that called for support from both local governments.  

“My belief has been that if the county continues doing its share that the city will continue to be a good partner,” Lawson-Remer told Voice. 

Lawson-Remer’s attempted olive branch wasn’t enough for Gloria. He argued the deal still left the city paying far more for the shelter than the county and criticized the county for still having 2021 American Rescue Plan Act money to deploy. (Lawson-Remer’s office noted in its board proposal that it proposed reallocating funds that it initially directed toward a city and county partnership on a domestic violence shelter that came in under budget.) 

The Midway shelter ultimately closed in July, forcing dozens of homeless residents to find a new safe place to stay and halting other intakes in most of the city’s other shelters in the weeks before the closure. 

Shelter residents suffered throughout the budget debate. Richard Daniels, a senior who has osteoarthritis, spinal stenosis and scoliosis, said in May he felt the foundation had been “snatched” from under him. 

When I asked Gloria to respond to concerns from residents like Daniels at a May press conference, he pointed to his administration’s work to open new homeless shelters – and sought to draw more attention to the county. 

Lawson-Remer tried to sidestep a public fight then and as I worked on this story. 

In response to a request for comment, Lawson-Remer’s spokesperson referred me to an April Voice podcast interview where she sought to stay above the fray. 

“I hope that as regional leaders we can come together to solve problems together and not blame each other. That does not feel constructive,” Lawson-Remer said. “I think we’ve gotta have good partnerships. We have had a lot of good partnerships with all of our cities so I’m interested in us coming together to find solutions together, not pointing fingers.” 

Asked to respond specifically to Gloria’s State of the City address comments imploring San Diegans to focus on the county when it sees people struggling with behavioral health crises on the street, Lawson-Remer said the county has added thousands of new treatment slots the past few years to try to better serve people in need. She also said the county is bound by laws that restrict when – and how long – people can be held against their will for treatment or evaluation. 

But Gloria and his team have decided that the mayor needs to call out what they see as a lack of urgency at the county. While Gloria has repeatedly traveled to Sacramento to advocate for state behavioral health reforms and hired the city’s first behavioral health officer, he has argued the city’s ability to address behavioral health crises is limited. He says the county – not the city – has the funding and responsibility to attack the crisis. 

In response to questions about his beef with the county over the past year and criticisms of his approach, Gloria’s office supplied a statement: “The mayor will continue to work productively and in good faith with the Board of Supervisors to address the crisis unfolding every day on our streets.” 

Drew Moser of the Lucky Duck Foundation, which supplied the tent structure that the city and county once filled with 150 shelter beds in Midway, agreed both the city and the county have a role to play in addressing the region’s behavioral health and homelessness challenges but found the situation over the past year demoralizing. 

He suggested the city and county resolve in 2026 to work on their relationship so they can attack regional crises more effectively – together.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen progress when finger pointing is taking place. None of us are perfect, but we can all look inward at what each of us can do to be better,” Moser said. “When you’re looking at these two 800-pound gorillas, they’ve got significantly more resources than any other entities at play. The finger pointing is not the answer.” 

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