{"id":501513,"date":"2026-10-19T23:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T23:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/501513\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T23:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T23:10:09","slug":"new-downtown-san-diego-homeless-shelter-replaces-one-that-operated-for-decades-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/501513\/","title":{"rendered":"New downtown San Diego homeless shelter replaces one that operated for decades \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost as soon as one closed, a new day shelter for homeless people opened in downtown San Diego\u2019s East Village. The new shelter, which opened Oct. 1, replaces the Neil Good Day Center, which shut down\u00a0Sept. 30<\/a> after more than three decades of service.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s smaller than the Neil Good Center, but will continue most of the services offered by its predecessor.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Father Joe\u2019s 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\u2019s somewhere between $120,000 and $150,000 and the nonprofit said it will spend about $1.1 million a year to operate it.<\/p>\n

\"OnAngelique 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)<\/p>\n

Encampments \u2014 for years a chief complaint of the area around the Neil Good Center \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

Those wanting to use the new shelter enter on Commercial Street and pass through barriers into the shelter\u2019s veranda, where they\u2019re checked in. This area faces a plaza surrounded by several buildings operated by Father Joe\u2019s, including the Village Health Center.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0until they have to find somewhere to sleep that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis morning we got three people in, that\u2019s a big day,\u201d said Father Joe\u2019s Housing Program Manager Paul DeLessio.<\/p>\n

\"OnSeveral 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.\u00a0 A new day center on the first of October aims to replace the recently-shuttered Neil Good Day Center. \u00a0 (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Tami Camacho, 54, said Father Joe\u2019s was able to find her space at Rachel\u2019s Promise \u2014 a nearby shelter for women and children \u2014 after three days of trying. She said she lived on the streets a little over a week before that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful, it is. It\u2019s very helpful,\u201d Camacho said about the services found at the new day shelter. \u201cAs long as you\u2019re getting here early enough, because they\u2019re running out of beds.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Sitting and watching TV was 47-year-old James Dean, who said he used the Neil Good Center often in the four years he\u2019s experienced homelessness.<\/p>\n

Dean said he mainly used it to get mail, one of the flagship services offered by the Neil Good Center that\u2019s 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\u2019s employees said.<\/p>\n

When he found out online the day shelter was moving, he found it \u201ca little inconvenient\u201d at first, but said he likes that a lot of resources are within a stone\u2019s throw of each other. He also likes that it\u2019s two blocks away from the 12th Avenue and Imperial trolley station.<\/p>\n

\"OnTami 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.\u00a0(Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty much it all works out for the better,\u201d Dean said.<\/p>\n

The new shelter will operate until the entire building gets demolished<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost as soon as one closed, a new day shelter for homeless people opened in downtown San Diego\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,5196,5314,23,100,3054,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-501513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-downtown-san-diego","tag-east-village","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\/501513","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=501513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}