Months after flooding caused a last-minute evacuation, residents move back to downtown homeless shelter

Hundreds of people have returned to a homeless shelter downtown months after severe flooding forced a sudden evacuation and raised questions about whether the facility was even salvageable.

The Alpha Project tent on 16th Street and Newton Avenue took in several feet of water during the historic storm that hit San Diego on Jan. 22, forcing residents to live out of a gym by Balboa Park.

“It’s good to be back,” said Bob McElroy, Alpha Project’s president and CEO.

Wednesday’s reopening is welcome news for the region’s strained shelter system which regularly turns people away, although the facility is still considered temporary and officials continue to search for longer-term solutions.

The scene during January’s storm was devastating.

A walker lays on its side in a downtown Alpha Project tent after flooding on Jan. 22, 2024.

(Kristian Carreon/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Floodwaters overturned portable restrooms and refrigerators as they swept past row after row of bunk beds. Residents fled out the back, abandoning family photos, medication and, in some cases, their wheelchairs. At least one disabled man had to be carried out.

An asylum seeker from Nigeria lost his laptop. A staffer’s parked car filled with water, rendering it undrivable. McElroy estimated that more than half the residents lost everything they had.

The company Clean Harbors was brought in to clean a structure soaked with both rain and human waste. Pressure washing removed debris. Insulation was torn out and replaced.

“The site was fully sanitized,” city spokesperson Matt Hoffman wrote in an email.

Invoices for that work are still being submitted and the total cost is not yet known.

In the meantime, the displaced lived in the Balboa Park Activity Center. Blue cots were spread across the floor while volunteers helped deliver food and clothes.

An average of 314 people a day slept there over the past three-plus months, according to McElroy. There was turnover, and during that period 14 were connected to some form of housing.

Three hundred and sixteen moved back to the tent Wednesday. They’ll now be closer to several organizations that offer a range of services, including the bathrooms, laundry machines and mailboxes in the Neil Good Day Center.

The land beneath the tent’s 326 beds has long been slated for a housing project, although it’s unclear when that shift might take place.

The developer has “stalled” on its application and the earliest date the shelter might close again is at least nine months away, Hoffman said.

Homelessness has grown every month for the past two years. Mayor Todd Gloria has proposed using a lot by the airport, known as H Barracks, as a place for homeless people to sleep in their vehicles and hopes to turn an empty warehouse at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street into a 1,000-bed facility.

Yet some city council members have expressed hesitation about spending millions of dollars on new shelters when San Diego’s budget deficit threatens other homelessness programs.

Residents and staff of Alpha Project’s downtown tent at 16th Street and Newton Avenue return to the shelter on Wednesday.

(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)