Morning Report: Rare Good News on Homelessness
EM - News Moderator 
If San Diego wants to dramatically reduce homelessness, it can’t just move people who have landed on the street into homes. It also needs to stem the flow of people losing their homes.
Our Lisa Halverstadt reports that new data from the Regional Task Force on Homelessness shows the region turned the dial on both missions over the past year.
From October 2024 through September, the Task Force reported that just 212 more people sought homeless services for the first time than moved into housing – a gap that totaled in the thousands in previous years.
The Task Force data showed a 13 percent year-over-year drop in people falling into homelessness and a 17 percent uptick in people moving into homes.
South County Report: Waterfront Dreams Come True
After more than a decade of advocacy and bureaucratic wrangling, National City residents could finally have access to the waterfront.
On Wednesday, a years-in-the-making plan to expand resident access to the San Diego Bay with a park, hotels and campgrounds, and consolidate port operations, jumped through its last regulatory hoop.
The National City Balanced Plan concentrates port operations to one area to free up space for the public. South County reporter Jim Hinch explains why this has been a long time coming and what the expansion will offer residents in his latest South County Report newsletter.
Read the South County Report here.
In Other News
- County supervisors earlier this week approved a lease allowing United Airlines to return to McClellan-Palomar Airport despite legal questions. (KPBS)
- Encinitas will take a more punitive approach to homelessness next year despite the upcoming loss of its safe parking lot for people living in vehicles. (inewsource) Our Tigist Layne recently interviewed Mayor Bruce Ehlers about the city’s homelessness response.
- A past city analysis found nearly 500 intersections that “may have an elevated risk of fatal crashes,” including the San Carlos intersection where an 11-year-old boy was killed in October. (Axios San Diego)
- The Port of San Diego and the operator of its Coronado Ferry Landing retail center have seven months to agree to a new lease deal – and they have a lot to hash out. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.
The post Morning Report: Rare Good News on Homelessness appeared first on Voice of San Diego.
