‘You Have Failed, Us And Yourself' – Bill Walton Has Had It With The Mayor's Approach To Homelessness

By Scott Lewis, the Voice of San Diego

September 16, 2022

For the last several weeks, Bill Walton, the basketball legend, Grateful Dead fan and avid bicyclist – perhaps San Diego’s most famous resident – has been sending Mayor Todd Gloria emails about the homeless crisis in San Diego.

He’s extremely frustrated.

“you have failed, us and yourself,” he wrote in one, Sept. 2, in a lower-case spoken-word style. He complained of bad personal encounters he had.

“once again, while peacefully riding my bike early this Sunday morning in Balboa Park, I was threatened, chased, and assaulted by the homeless population, in our Park,” he wrote Aug. 28.

“once again, you’ve done, and continue to do, nothing.”

But the emails are not a big deal because they reveal anything we don’t already know. They’re not a big deal because Walton is famous.

They are a big deal because Walton may be the biggest San Diego booster around. Walton’s career is as a broadcaster and promotor. But his role here, as a citizen, is as the captain of the hype squad for San Diego.

If there’s a cause in San Diego that needs a boost, Walton is almost always ready to help with a testimonial, cut a ribbon or hand out an oversized check. (He’s a current donor to Voice of San Diego and has recorded promotional videos for our fundraising campaigns – though he declined to comment on his correspondence with the mayor.)

His politics are generally in line with Gloria’s. When former Mayor Bob Filner resigned, there were rumors Walton would consider running for mayor. Since then, he’s been a convener of support for the political network that helped Gloria become mayor. Just recently, Walton held a fundraiser for Councilwoman Jen Campbell. He asked her to address homelessness above all to his gathered friends and neighbors.

All this shows Walton is not a gadfly or a persistent critic of Gloria’s. In fact, I could not think of, or find, anything negative Walton has ever said about San Diego or a cause someone was pursuing here or a political leader in town.

Until now. The mayor has lost him.

“you speak of the rights of the homes, what about our rights, we follow the rules of a functioning society, why are others allowed to disregard those rules,” Walton wrote, Aug. 24. “your lack of action is unacceptable, as is the conduct of the homeless population.”

Walton does not outline what exactly he wants the mayor to do. He mentions a law in Los Angeles recently passed that prohibits encampments near schools. He mentions enforcement he would like to see.

The mayor’s staff sent over a long response meant to convey they got it – “Bill’s frustration over our homelessness crisis is shared by people across our city, including the mayor himself, and in cities across the United States,” wrote Rachel Laing, the director of communications for the mayor.

But, as ever, it’s a very complicated issue and the pandemic made it worse, she said.

“As Voice of San Diego has covered, people living on the streets since the pandemic seem to be in worse straits than ever, with more behavioral health and substance abuse issues than we’ve seen prior to the pandemic. In our efforts to address the neighborhood impacts of homelessness – particularly encampments and the trash and unsanitary conditions that result from them – our crews are finding an increase in hording behaviors and anti-social behavior such as vandalism and unwillingness to put trash in available nearby receptacles,” she wrote. (You can read her full statement here.)

She wrote, though, the city doesn’t have the right to clear all encampments but they’re doing all they legally are allowed to do not only to clean up encampments but to expand shelter and services.

Gloria’s predecessor, Kevin Faulconer, watched homelessness explode into a public health crisis and then acted furiously to contain it but he never suffered significant political consequences. Walton’s emails are an indication that Gloria may be more personally identified with the problem right when anecdotal experience and data show the homeless crisis is worse than ever.

The San Diego Downtown Partnership recently reported that its monthly count of homeless residents had reached an all-time high. Advocates for the homeless told the Union-Tribune they had never seen it this bad.

The politicians know this is first, second and third on the list of issues that worry San Diego voters right now. And Gloria’s embrace of more enforcement and temporary shelters indicate he and his staff have heard the concern. Even the progressive Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, who came into our studio to record a special podcast on the topic, and who often talks about his own unsheltered stint, is supportive of more enforcement, especially focused, though, on people preying on the homeless selling drugs or trafficking them.

He said encampments and the conditions they create can’t be tolerated.

“The laws need to be adhered to. But I want to make sure that we are doing that work in such a way that will actually, again, reduce homelessness – that we’re not just moving folks around – that there’s a plan in place for ensuring that the actions that we take are aligned with best practices to actually reduce the number of people who are experiencing homelessness in our city,” Elo-Rivera told me.

But he’s steadfast that the principal cause of homelessness is the extraordinary, and rising, cost of living in San Diego and just the sight of homelessness is not something from which the city must protect residents.

“I would say our discomfort with someone’s homelessness is something that we kind of need to just wrestle with,” he said. Elo-Rivera said the city is about to deploy a team of experts to attend to the most disruptive people living on the streets to free up other service workers who can help more people find housing. Gloria recently flew to Sacramento to stand with Gov. Gavin Newsom as he signed into law a bill that would create CARE Courts, allowing first responders and family members to force people into treatment. Civil rights organizations are highly critical of the move.

“Today marks the day that local governments, like the City and County of San Diego, stand united with the State to say we will no longer turn a blind eye to Californians suffering from severe mental illness. Rather, we will step up and guarantee services to those who need them,” Gloria said in a written statement about the move.

It all probably won’t be enough to assuage Walton.

“you have given our bike paths and Balboa Park in our neighborhood to homeless encampments, and we can no longer use them, and they’re ours, this is unacceptable,” Walton wrote to Gloria.

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