Almost as soon as one closed, a new day shelter for homeless people opened in downtown San Diego’s East Village. The new shelter, which opened Oct. 1, replaces the Neil Good Day Center, which shut down Sept. 30 after more than three decades of service.
The new facility was carved out of a section of the decades-old Joan Kroc Center at the corner of 15th Street and Imperial Avenue. It’s smaller than the Neil Good Center, but will continue most of the services offered by its predecessor.
This includes bathrooms, laundry, mail and a reprieve from the elements. New services include working showers, which employees said were not available at the Neil Good Center for about a decade.
Father Joe’s Villages, the largest homelessness service provider in the region, operates the new day shelter. Renovations needed to make room for the new shelter cost Father Joe’s somewhere between $120,000 and $150,000 and the nonprofit said it will spend about $1.1 million a year to operate it.
Angelique Oates, who has been experiencing homelessness, checks in for shelter placement with Mireya Figueroa, an assessment specialist at the Day Center at Father Joe’s Villages on Wednesday, October 14, 2026. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Encampments — for years a chief complaint of the area around the Neil Good Center — are not allowed in the immediate area. Unlike at the Neil Good Center, people cannot bring in large possessions, such as shopping carts and pull-wagons.
Those wanting to use the new shelter enter on Commercial Street and pass through barriers into the shelter’s veranda, where they’re checked in. This area faces a plaza surrounded by several buildings operated by Father Joe’s, including the Village Health Center.
People can seek night shelter at this point as well or get their needs assessed by employees. Shelter beds are hard to come by though, so many opt to use the day shelter until they have to find somewhere to sleep that night.
“This morning we got three people in, that’s a big day,” said Father Joe’s Housing Program Manager Paul DeLessio.
Several clients passed the time watching a movie while others slept on the floor at the Day Center at Father Joe’s Villages on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in San Diego, CA. A new day center on the first of October aims to replace the recently-shuttered Neil Good Day Center. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Tami Camacho, 54, said Father Joe’s was able to find her space at Rachel’s Promise — a nearby shelter for women and children — after three days of trying. She said she lived on the streets a little over a week before that.
“It’s wonderful, it is. It’s very helpful,” Camacho said about the services found at the new day shelter. “As long as you’re getting here early enough, because they’re running out of beds.”
About 30 people were inside the new day shelter on a recent Wednesday morning. Most sat down in chairs and watched television. Six others laid down against a newly constructed wall separating it from a cafeteria.
Sitting and watching TV was 47-year-old James Dean, who said he used the Neil Good Center often in the four years he’s experienced homelessness.
Dean said he mainly used it to get mail, one of the flagship services offered by the Neil Good Center that’s been transferred over to the new shelter. The U.S. Postal Service will be forwarding mail from the old place to the new one for about the next month, Father Joe’s employees said.
When he found out online the day shelter was moving, he found it “a little inconvenient” at first, but said he likes that a lot of resources are within a stone’s throw of each other. He also likes that it’s two blocks away from the 12th Avenue and Imperial trolley station.
Tami Camacho, who is staying at a local shelter in downtown San Diego, stopped by at the new Day Center at Father Joe’s Villages to inquire about applying for a cell phone so that she could start applying for work. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“Pretty much it all works out for the better,” Dean said.
The new shelter will operate until the entire building gets demolished sometime in 2028 for the construction of its replacement, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Family Campus. Services will then be transferred to another facility at 5th Avenue and Ash Street, where they will remain for several years, according to the organization.
The Neil Good Center was partially funded by the City of San Diego, which opted to discontinue its support earlier this year. The building is owned by the California Department of Transportation, a complication that may determine the future of the property.