From the riverbed to a real bed: One San Diegan’s journey from homelessness to housing

For more than a decade, Tim Moore often washed his clothes by hand on the banks of the San Diego River, where he lived in a tent on an island with dozens of other unhoused residents. 

Now, he’s learning how to work the machines with card readers in the laundry room of his new apartment building in Grantville. Technology has advanced a bit since he’s lived indoors.

“The first time I did laundry here I stuck my laundry in the dryer, not realizing it was the dryer,” Moore said with a laugh, pointing out that they all look the same. “I put soap in there and everything.”

Moore is one of several who have recently moved into housing from an island in the middle of the San Diego River with the help of state and federal funding. inewsource featured Moore and others living the “island life” in a makeshift community of unhoused residents earlier this year, including the enforcement and hazards they tried to avoid.

The riverbed has seen an increase in the number of people and tent encampments in the year since San Diego passed a ban on camping in public. Months after inewsource’s story about Moore and others on the island, city officials said they wrapped up an ongoing effort to clean out the riverbed and connect folks living there with resources. All told, crews have removed 156,000 pounds of trash and debris — roughly equivalent to the weight of three humpback whales.

About 10 people living on or near the island have moved into housing, while roughly 40 others are awaiting their turn for permanent solutions in various transitional housing or shelter, according to a representative with PATH, a nonprofit homeless service provider.

“This cleanup and its dramatic and positive outcomes are the product of months of outreach with individuals experiencing homelessness along the river,” San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said in a statement. “This was a multi-jurisdictional effort with many partners working in the riverbed to ensure stable options were available for everyone.”

For the first time in 14 years, Moore has an indoor place he can call home — a second-floor studio with walls, a ceiling and a door he can close and lock. 

It has a bathroom — “I get a shower every day, which I love.” 

It comes with a bed — “I actually don’t sleep on the ground (anymore),” he said, “I figure I better get used to that.”

And it has big windows with dozens of long vertical blinds he can open or close to let in sunshine. 

“It’s different,” he said, looking through the blinds at the traffic below. Two weeks had passed since his move-in day. “I’m used to being on the outside looking in, and now I’m on the inside looking out. It’s definitely different.”

The one big difference about living inside, though, is food. While he doesn’t have much right now, he looks forward to the luxuries of refrigeration.

“I can freeze food now,” he said. “I can buy anything I want as far as food goes now. When you’re out there (in the riverbed), you really gotta pick and choose your food.”

Moore’s apartment building in Grantville is what’s called permanent supportive housing, which combines affordability with wraparound services for those experiencing chronic homelessness. Services include case management, employment assistance, access to treatment, or financial literacy, to name a few.

Moore’s rent and utilities, totaling $1,800 a month, are covered by a federal housing subsidy for the next two years, he said. He said he hopes to use this as an opportunity to find work and save money. He even landed a couple job interviews applying online as a delivery driver for Amazon. The last time he was in the job market, he applied through the newspaper or by showing up in person.

“I’m beside myself because I can’t — I’m having a hard time concentrating on things with everything that’s going on,” he said.

On one hand, he recognizes this as a life changing moment.

“Being inside, like with food and being able to take a shower, and being able to go look for work right now, is a plus,” he said. “I couldn’t do all that in the riverbed; it’s virtually impossible.”

On the other hand, he said part of him misses the community he had in the riverbed.

“There are days when I wish I was back outside to a degree,” Moore said. “I’ve got no one to talk to.”

People who manage to end their homelessness after moving into permanent supportive housing have a 96% success rate, said Kendall Burdett, an outreach specialist and case manager with PATH. That means roughly 96 out of 100 people who enter a housing situation similar to Moore’s don’t return to unsheltered homelessness.

But the key to that success, Burdett added, is finding and contributing to a community.

“What Tim was doing on the island was contributing to a community,” Burdett said. “They looked out for each other’s stuff.”

The residents there called it “island rent,” which included lending a helping hand and sharing provisions. And the rent was due every day.

“Even though it might have been chaotic,” Burdett added, “you were still part of a community to which you were contributing and you weren’t just sitting in the room by yourself staring at a window.”

And there are plenty of opportunities to get involved, whether it’s participating in on-site support groups, tending to a community garden or joining a community cleanup effort. Once someone is given help and starts seeing stability in their life, Burdett said it’s staggering how often they want to give back.

“The goal is that we want to put somebody in a housing solution where they can remain,” Burdett said.