City Plans To Eventually Shutter Golden Hall Shelter

By Lisa Halverstadt, the Voice of San Diego

March 1, 2023

This post first published in the March 1 Morning Report. Subscribe to the newsletter here.

For nearly four years, San Diego’s City Hall complex has sheltered hundreds of homeless residents. The city is now planning to move hundreds of people staying in its Golden Hall event space to other locations by the end of the year.

Rachel Laing, a spokeswoman for Mayor Todd Gloria, said the roughly 50 unhoused families now staying at the City Hall facility’s second floor learned Tuesday that they will in the next couple months move into a 42-room Barrio Logan motel the city recently leased if they haven’t yet secured permanent homes. Laing said intakes at the facility are now paused while the city prepares for those moves.

Laing said the city also expects to move transitioned-aged youth and homeless men out of the facility and into yet-to-be-announced locations by the end of the year. Golden Hall is now outfitted with 46 beds for youth ages 16-24 and 324 beds for unhoused men. The city will for now continue to welcome newcomers into those shelter programs.

Laing said the city recently decided that Golden Hall can no longer indefinitely remain a shelter under a temporary use permit it has relied on since 2019.

“We can’t have indefinite shelters in places that are just not made for it,” Laing said. “We’re going to find a better place and move everybody.”

The city last fall temporarily moved more than 350 unhoused residents out of Golden Hall for two weeks of repairs, particularly to address water leaks and other damage.

Worth Noting: The city last fall inked a contract with Salvation Army for its 32-bed family shelter in Kearny Mesa.

• The county reports it has now confirmed seven hepatitis A cases countywide, including five among the unhoused population. That’s up from four cases last week. The county is keeping close tabs on what it now describes as a small spike in cases in the wake of a large outbreak that made national headlines several years ago. A spokesman said the county is continuing to ramp up vaccinations, including at homeless shelters, and has thus far inoculated 194 people to try to combat further spread.

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