\u201cYou can come here and sleep in the day. That\u2019s about the only place,\u201d said 56-year-old Sean Davis, who\u2019s been unhoused for 8 years. \u201cYou can\u2019t sleep in the library. And if you sleep in public parks, there\u2019s no camping.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than the specific services it provides, the Neil Good Day Center also essentially serves as the front door to the city\u2019s homeless services. For the past 35 years, it has been the place people came to get a shelter bed placement or navigate the city\u2019s daunting tangle of homelessness bureaucracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many fear what will be lost with the closing of the day center. Father Joe\u2019s plans to open a new, smaller center with fewer services just two blocks from the current site. But service providers say the current site on 17th Street has been a pillar of the community for decades and can\u2019t be easily replaced.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t build a site like the Neil Good Day Center,\u201d said Josh Bohannan, chief strategy officer at Father Joe\u2019s Villages. \u201cIt\u2019s the perfect location. It\u2019s the perfect size. People know where to go, and we have that community trust here at the Neil Good Day Center. I\u2019m hoping it all transfers and translates over to whatever we build next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Downsizing Commences<\/p>\n
Father Joe\u2019s leaders plan to retain many of the center\u2019s core services, such as showers and laundry, at the new day center, which they aim to open before the rainy season begins in November.<\/p>\n
But the new facility probably won\u2019t have the capacity for services such as short-term personal storage, outdoor respite spaces and package delivery, according to an Independent Budget Analyst report. Overall, service capacity is expected to decrease by at least 25 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not gonna be able to serve the same number of people,\u201d Bohannan said, \u201cand there will be less services and probably less hours of operation and days of the week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city is giving Father Joe\u2019s until Dec. 31 to vacate the property, and will pay only about half of the center\u2019s operating costs until then. After that, the facility will be funded entirely by Father Joe\u2019s.<\/p>\n
To fully support the transition, Father Joe\u2019s will need to fundraise another $237,000 to maintain its current service levels through the end of the year, and between $100,000 and $150,000 to build the new facility within the nonprofit\u2019s campus on Imperial Avenue. Father Joe\u2019s leaders anticipate the new space, which will likely replace part of an existing cafeteria, will be about a third of the size of the Neil Good Day Center.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a huge undertaking. But the center\u2019s manager Paul Sheck said it\u2019s well worth the cost.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/voiceofsandiego.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0412-1024x752.jpg\")
Clients charge their devices and watch TV at the Neil Good Day Center on June 5, 2026. Photo by Bella Ross. Credit: Bella Ross<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/voiceofsandiego.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0414-1024x781.jpg\")
A man speaks with an employee inside the Neil Good Day Center on June 5, 2026. Photo by Bella Ross. Credit: Bella Ross<\/p>\n
The center has historically served 7,000 people a year, about 2,000 of whom were newly homeless. Sheck said the operation was extremely cost effective. The city provided $948,000 of the center\u2019s $1.7 million budget \u2013 but that city portion of funding will now be gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey come here scared, they\u2019re uncertain, they don\u2019t know what the next move is for them or how to navigate the system,\u201d Sheck said of the center\u2019s newly homeless clients. \u201cWe take the time out of our day to do that and help them get where they need to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
This includes assisting people with direct shelter bed referrals. Aside from The Hub<\/a> in the Downtown Central Library \u2013 open two hours a day, six days a week, by appointment \u2013 the center is the only city-funded, walk-up counter in town where people can directly access resources.<\/p>\n Service providers say the ability to connect with people over time and in-person can be a game changer.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many people are shelter resistant or provider resistant because they\u2019ve been burned,\u201d said Bob McElroy, president and chief executive officer of the Alpha Project, which previously operated the center, before Father Joe\u2019s. \u201cThey might have a bad taste in their mouth, and it takes the personal relationship of talking to somebody who\u2019s been there, done that.\u201d<\/p>\n State of Services<\/p>\n The center\u2019s downsizing is part of a broader reshuffling of homeless services, largely in response to budget cuts. This includes the shuttering of more than 30 public restrooms<\/a>, including portable restrooms that served unhoused people downtown.<\/p>\n Among this year\u2019s cuts were 37 beds at the Lighthouse shelter in National City, 50 beds on 16th and Newton Avenue and two safe parking sites in City Heights and Serra Mesa. The city also plans to add 292 beds in various locations, according to Matt Hoffman, a spokesperson for the city\u2019s homeless services department, creating a net increase of 205 shelter beds compared to last fiscal year.<\/p>\n Hoffman said the city is prioritizing shelter offerings and housing over the day center.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Day Center was opened decades ago when the city did not offer robust homeless services,\u201d Hoffman wrote in a statement. \u201cWith now approximately 2,600 sheltering options across nearly two dozen programs \u2013 our service ecosystem has evolved and the focus remains on prioritizing limited resources toward programs that maximize shelter capacity and connect people to housing.\u201d<\/p>\n Even with all the options Hoffman cited, data shows only about 8 percent of shelter bed requests<\/a> are fulfilled. In other words, 92 percent of the time when a person requests shelter, no bed is available.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Uncertain Future of San Diego\u2019s Skid Row<\/p>\n When the center opened its doors 35 years ago, East Village was still known as the Warehouse District.<\/p>\n In an effort to revitalize the Gaslamp Quarter, city leaders looked to downtown\u2019s eastern edge as an ideal spot to relocate the area\u2019s homeless people. Service providers such as Father Joe\u2019s Villages and the San Diego Rescue Mission planted roots there \u2013 long before the tent-lined streets would fall under the shadows of today\u2019s high-rise apartment complexes.<\/p>\n This effort to centralize the city\u2019s homeless population effectively created San Diego\u2019s own skid row<\/a>: a stretch of 17th street adjacent to the Neil Good Day Center.<\/p>\n Service providers say the area\u2019s gentrification played no small role in the day center\u2019s demise.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow East Village is built out, and it\u2019s outrun the Neil Good Day Center, and that\u2019s who suffers,\u201d McElroy said.<\/p>\n City officials say the center has spurred complaints for years about surrounding encampments, trash and open-air drug use. But it\u2019s unclear how putting a smaller center with less services two blocks away will fix all that.\u00a0<\/p>\n For one, there will be fewer public restrooms.<\/p>\n \u201cThe feces, the urine, the bodily fluids can be a concern for the whole community, not just in the homeless realm,\u201d said Davis, the unhoused man I spoke with at the center. \u201cOther than the Neil Good Day Center and Father Joe\u2019s, the toilets are next to none.\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Father Joe\u2019s current toilets are already \u201coverwhelmed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Davis also worries that a reduction in daytime respite spaces will create trouble for people with nowhere else to sleep. In San Diego, it is illegal to camp on most public property under the city\u2019s Unsafe Campaign Ordinance<\/a>, and officials have recently ramped up enforcement against people sleeping in vehicles<\/a> and alongside freeways<\/a> despite the limited availability of shelter beds.<\/p>\n The center\u2019s operators worry that changes to the space and its offerings may chip away at the community trust they\u2019ve worked so hard to cultivate. But it\u2019s better than nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t not have a day center in San Diego,\u201d Bohannan said.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated Posts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When San Diegans caught wind of proposed budget cuts to arts programs and libraries this spring, they fought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[15743,74,76,75,27214],"class_list":["post-366597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-budget-cuts","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-shelters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/voiceofsandiego.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0413-1024x712.jpg\")
A restroom in the outdoor courtyard of the Neil Good Day Center is shown on June 5, 2026. Photo by Bella Ross. Credit: Bella Ross<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/voiceofsandiego.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/EVBefore-570x380.jpg\")
East Village before Petco Park was built. Photo courtesy of the San Diego Padres.<\/p>\n