Escondido Mayor Dane White and challenger Elias Velazquez laid out opposing philosophies on homelessness Tuesday during a debate at the Grand Ritz Theater in downtown. Velazquez is one of three candidates running to unseat White in the Nov. 3 election.<\/p>\n
The debate was hosted by San Diego Rescue Mission and moderated by its president and CEO, Donnie Dee.<\/p>\n
Homelessness is a top issue this election season.<\/p>\n
The number of homeless people who are sheltered in Escondido has decreased from 307\u00a0in 2025 to 271\u00a0in 2026. Since 2023, the beginning of White\u2019s term, the total number of homeless people, both sheltered and unsheltered, has increased from 488 to 552. However, the percentage of homeless people who\u00a0are unsheltered has decreased from 62% to 40% during that same time period.<\/p>\n
White has largely implemented treatment- and public safety-first policies since his term began. Velazquez is running on a more housing-first platform. On some issues, though, the lines blur for both candidates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not necessarily somebody that\u2019s 100% housing first. I\u2019m not somebody who\u2019s necessarily 100% treatment first, but I\u2019m somebody who believes that right now the city of Escondido has extremely narrowed its ability to address this issue,\u201d Velazquez said.<\/p>\n
White touted his creation of a homelessness subcommittee and criticized his predecessor \u2014 Mayor Paul McNamara \u2014 saying there \u201cwas no policy\u201d or strategy before he took office. His platform is that his policies work and\u00a0others\u00a0don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when you look outside, it\u2019s pretty obvious there\u2019s an epidemic of people who have simply lost the ability to manage their lives because of an addiction and providing the pathway to get past that I think is a critical first step,\u201d\u00a0 White said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SUT-L-LOOK-AHEAD-ESCONDIDO-CLEANUP-001.jpg\")
A homeless encampment lines the side of the Escondido Creek near Citracado Parkway in Escondido on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. Escondido declared a local emergency over impacts from homeless encampments in the area after recent water quality tests showed elevated bacteria levels. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Velazquez said getting the city back to a housing-first strategy will save money and that Escondido is \u201cpaying out of pocket\u201d for homelessness services due to an approach preventing it from applying for state, and some federal, funds.<\/p>\n
Grants from the state typically require recipients to have a housing-first model. In June, Encinitas declined to request $3.9 million in funding from the state over concerns \u201cstrings attached\u201d related to housing-first mandates.<\/p>\n
El Cajon also rejected state funding for its HomeStart program. It had previously received about $1 million a year from California\u2019s Permanent Local Housing Allocation Program. The city instead opted to spend more than $700,000 of its PLHA funds from the state on treatment-first programs, including Rescue Mission\u2019s South County Lighthouse.<\/p>\n
While the Trump administration continues its attempts to block federal funding for housing-first programs and advise local governments to decline state funds that mandate it, both Velazquez and White agreed the city should do everything it could to get as much funding as possible to fund homelessness services, regardless of the source.<\/p>\n
White referenced his own experience of homelessness and drug addiction as an example of why mandated treatment works. White said that a lack of action from the Legislature enables people to sleep on the streets and so they can continue to use drugs. If this changes, he believes, the issue can be alleviated.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of mandating treatment in this state, we\u2019ve settled on handing out needles and crack pipes until an affordable housing unit opens up and I think you\u2019re seeing the results of that,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n
In June 2024, Escondido\u2019s City Council passed an ordinance that White authored that banned sleeping outside, including on sidewalks. White said the ordinance has helped public safety and curbed the spread of disease.<\/p>\n
Velazquez supported this ordinance, but thinks enforcement is tricky. With no outreach abilities, the Police Department\u2019s interactions with homeless people are only with an intent to enforce the law. Velazeuz believes this doesn\u2019t solve the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue doesn\u2019t go away just when you shift somebody, and I think that the city needs to have a much more comprehensive, wrap-around approach, to get these people out of homelessness, not just out of our parks and out of in front of our businesses,\u201d Velazquez said.<\/p>\n
Velazquez is a volunteer coordinator at the Oceanside-based Brother Benno\u2019s Foundation and a former intern for McNamara. He is endorsed by the San Diego County Democratic Party and San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council.<\/p>\n
White is endorsed by the city firefighters association, state Sen. Brian Jones, county Supervisors Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson and the mayors of Vista, Poway and Santee, all of whom are Republicans.<\/p>\n
Rescue Mission is a faith-based nonprofit that runs shelters and programs in San Diego County through a treatment-first approach.<\/p>\n
At the end of the debate, Dee said Rescue Mission \u201cdoes not believe that homelessness is a government problem to fix. We think it\u2019s a community problem to fix. \u2026 We can\u2019t wait for the government to figure this out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Escondido Mayor Dane White and challenger Elias Velazquez laid out opposing philosophies on homelessness Tuesday during a debate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1400,7,10428,23,100,3054,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-451747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-escondido","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-north-county","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451747","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=451747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}