Here’s how National City mayoral candidates plan to help unhoused people

Rodriguez: I really see it in two different camps. There’s a sizable portion of individuals that are living in their RVs or living in their cars. Oftentimes, if you would see them just walking by, you would not know that they are experiencing homelessness. And oftentimes when I’ve spoken to folks, they have jobs. Somebody has a job or they are on a fixed income because they’re seniors; there’s some source of income, they just can’t afford a place to live. So it is critical to have not just affordable housing construction, but to make sure that we take care of what’s already affordable. A few years ago, I was happy to champion rent control on mobile home parks because seniors reached out to us, a couple that were 80 years old, saying that their rent was being increased by 30% from one year to the next. And somebody living on fixed income, that is the difference between staying in their unit or being out on the street. And so I’m glad we took proactive action. We limited rent increases to 5%. We actually negotiated with the owners as well and found that that was something that was amenable to everybody. Making sure that we have truly affordable housing in our neighborhood is critical to address a large portion of the individuals’ issues. 

Then the other part are people that are experiencing severe mental health issues. When most people think of homelessness, that’s what they really have in mind. Not the caravans of people that are over on Food 4 Less or next to 24-Hour (Fitness) or in pockets of neighborhoods in the community. The severity of the issue and the solutions to those issues, I think, are very different. On one end, we must build and maintain already affordable (housing) and we need to help people get off the street that are experiencing some severe mental health issues where they themselves are not in the right state of mind. And also people in our community don’t feel safe walking in their neighborhoods. I am willing to continue to work on those issues proactively, but I do see them as separate. 

Bush: It’s decent, and it’s better than it was, but still there’s a lot of room for improvement. One of the things I’m really proud of is our homeless outreach team and the effort that they’ve put in. They develop relationships with our homeless folks. They know them by name. I’ve personally directed several individuals to Qiana (Williamson, the city’s homeless outreach director). She’s referred them here, so I really appreciate Rescue Mission having beds available and having the service and access. We actually have one of the residents that we successfully placed in the housing right around the corner of the street. That wouldn’t have happened had it not been for you all or our homeless outreach team.

I think that one of the things that we need a lot of improvement on still is the mental health and the people that are on fentanyl, that are on all kinds of drugs that are out here walking the streets. Some of them — indecent exposure, yelling and screaming and scaring folks. More quick police response time to that — when there’s those severe issues, I think we could do a little bit better there. 

The second thing, and this is this actually is a challenge for police, is the laws from the county at the state level of when folks have those mental health issues and not being able to detain them. Do you put them in jail or do you force them into detox? As progressive and as humanity-focused as I am, at the end of the day, there needs to be accountability. So when we see those folks on the street, we have to recognize the society. They cannot take care of themselves. They’re dangerous at times to society, to other people, but they are in danger to themselves. And so with a lot of the privacy laws, it restricts us from being able to take that action and to force them into detox. That’s where and I think it’s a conservatorship laws actually. So there’s some legal issues there, but those, we shouldn’t look at those as just barriers to stop there. We need to work with the county and with with all the state agencies on making sure that they’re, they’re placed into forced detox.

One of the things that I’m glad that we’re moving forward is is having more detox beds available at Paradise Valley Hospital. We need to do more work with that, but that is not something that we can do alone in the city. That’s why it’s important to collaborate with other government agencies, with our county Board of Supervisors on making those changes. And really, that’s the accountability and taking a harder stance on it. And of course, there’s the longer term housing development, and so we need to build more housing. We need to have more naturally affordable housing. Those are the smaller units.

Back in the day, we used to have what’s called single-room occupancy where it shared bathrooms in smaller units. That’s not the most ideal living, but that’s better than living on the street and being in trailers.

Rodriguez: Yes, I do believe that our police department is very responsive every time. There’s a chain of command everywhere. We talk to our police chief, and there’s a very quick response on addressing local issues. I find that communication with our departments to be critical and needed to have continuation within our city. I very much look forward to still having a local police department within our city so we can best service our community. One of the expectations that we need to have –  and I know our police department tries as hard as possible, I know our fire department tries as hard as possible – (is) making sure that whenever there’s a life-threatening emergency, we have the resources needed to respond within four minutes.

That four-minute time mark is critical and it’s a difference between life and death in an emergency situation. Making sure our departments are fully supported so that we’re able to provide those services for our communities in times of need; it’s critical. And so I look forward to continuing to work with our police department, with our fire, to make sure that we provide those services that our community desperately continues to demand.

Bush: Yes, absolutely. We’ve had our own police department for many for decades, and I don’t anticipate that’s ever going to change. Our police are about 45-50% of our annual budget, and that’s why it’s so critical that we make sure that all of the services that our departments are properly funded. One of the things I know has helped the police department is having a homeless outreach team. They’re in charge of public safety, but we can’t expect all of them to be social workers either and having to go back constantly to the same people over and over. There’s additional training that could help with that, with giving officers the support, the tools, the connections that they need.

They do a great job. There’s always room for improvement there. We need to expand our homeless outreach team and collaborate more with the county and those other agencies that focus on the detox and how can we give our officers the tools so that they can, when necessary, arrest those that are tripped out on drugs — on either alcohol, on fentanyl, whatever it is. We’re not just trying to jail people for the sake of jailing people. We are trying to rehabilitate them, and that’s going to take time and that’s going to take effort. After three days, if we just release them back into society, then it’s going to be the same loop of a problem over and over. It’s expensive but we need to be able to change and to move around our resources, look around internally.

That’s sometimes my gap in understanding as a council member, what are the needs of our police department? How can we better support them? And, and hearing that directly from the rank and file who are who are actually addressing the situation up front. Sometimes we don’t get that. Sometimes there’s that gap, that hierarchy and that leadership. So I would like to hear more from the rank and file about what tools that we can provide. But what I have heard is that the homeless outreach team is helpful. They just need some additional support.

Bush: There absolutely should be more government oversight. Because even to your question, “Is it enough?” I would say no, it’s probably not enough. But if we are not spending properly what we already have, then we can’t say that we need more, because otherwise it’s like the leaky bucket. You’ve got to plug the leak first. And so we’ve heard of a lot of stories just up and down the state where that money is being misused and that’s where we have to be better as government, and that’s at the state level. There needs to be better enforcement and oversight, transparency, accountability and where this money is going. 

What I like about the Rescue Mission and your model as a nonprofit — there are things that are streamlined that you guys do here on private property that is way quicker, more efficient and cheaper than others.

Your model, you have East County, the North County. The problem is, we need those sub-regions to step it up and, and do more because right now, only the South County, we’re taking the lead, National City. I’m proud of that. I’m proud of us taking the lead, but there’s a contract with Encinitas. So Encinitas and the city of San Diego, the city of El Cajon pay you all so that their homeless are here because you have a good effective model. But we need those regions to step up and support more. Even perhaps we as a city need to support you all more because there’s only so much, 160 beds. There’s only so much space that we can do.

And look, I’m not going to get into the divisiveness of jurisdiction over jurisdiction. At the end of the day, we’re all one region, right? So we should all help each other out. It shouldn’t matter these jurisdictional boundaries. We should all be trying to help each other out, but we can only do so much in National City. It’s proven that your model is effective, that you all do things that has been placing people better. But we also need more assistance and more other cities to step up.

Rodriguez: I don’t know. And the reason I don’t know is I don’t know how that’s divided up. How is it divided up per region, per city, per municipality? So I really wouldn’t know if that’s too much or too little. But what I would say is this: We need more money for housing. I’m sure you all have spoken to many people that are currently experiencing homelessness. They just can’t afford a place to live. And so providing additional housing vouchers for individuals that are experiencing homelessness to help get them off the street is critical. And so I think I don’t know if it’s enough money, $2.4 billion in the state of California, but I think that we have to do a deep dive into what that means for our region and our city. I think we have to maybe look at slightly different approaches to help people get off the streets.

I remember a conversation I had with a family that was experiencing homelessness this last January during the Point-in-Time count here at Food 4 Less, and they live in their RV. They have two little kids. It was six in the morning. They were getting their kids ready to go to school here in National City. And the gentleman that lives there works. They just happen to live in their RV. I bet that if we have some resources to be able to provide people to get off the streets, we would be able to, right? So I think thinking of better ways to allocate resources is important. And again, I don’t know how much that $2.4 billion is. 

But the federal government has divested from housing and mental health resources for the better part of 40 years. In absence of that federal funding, local agencies, counties, and cities have had to step up to deal with this issue. And so we need more help from the federal government — not just kind of placing blame on states on how they utilize the funds. We need to address these issues and we need the federal government to spend more money here locally to help address your issues and help increase your quality of life.

Rodriguez: I’m really torn on this. I’m a man of faith and I really appreciate the work that Donnie Dee continues to do. We have a need to help people, on an emotional level, to help folks get off the streets. And then when I speak to everyday residents that have an encampment next to their home, that could be an issue for them. And it’s an issue for them every single day because they don’t feel safe going to their front yard, to their backyard. So there needs to be a very balanced approach on how to address the issue. It’s not fair for residents that have an encampment right next to their home that they don’t feel safe, especially around our most transit corridors and our freeways.

And it’s also not fair for individuals to be on the streets. I think it’s a very nuanced approach. I think we have to work collaboratively with partners like the Rescue Mission to address these issues, but I am very torn on this.

Bush: Simple answer is yes. There’s complexities but I want to be direct with you all that I had a lot of reservations about this because I did fear about the humanity part of it and that there would be over-policing and it would cause other issues. From my perspective, that hasn’t happened. I think homelessness has improved since then because I think there has been more accountability. I’m really proud of our police and the approach. They’ve taken a human approach along with the partnership of our homeless outreach team. So I think that’s been effective. There’s still a long way to go. We need more shelter beds, we need more detox facilities, we need more.

And so things like that, they might seem little because it’s a few hundred thousand, but it adds up and that’s resources that could be spent here. We could be spending more money investing in just like other cities like Encinitas and El Cajon and San Diego.