With additional major winter rainstorms reaching San Diego this week, Mayor Todd Gloria, City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) President and CEO Lisa Jones announced today that a recently acquired SDHC property will provide short-term emergency shelter for City of San Diego households displaced by recent storms and associated flooding.

“When there’s a need in the community, we have an obligation to use every available resource, every available asset, to fill that need,” Mayor Gloria said. “Here, we have 50 rooms that we can immediately use to temporarily house families whose lives were suddenly devastated. This is how government agencies are supposed to respond to an emergency, and I thank the San Diego Housing Commission and City Council President Elo-Rivera for their partnership in this effort.”

“Providing shelter and support for our neighbors whose lives were upended by the storm is a top priority,” Council President Elo-Rivera said. “I'm grateful to Lisa Jones and the San Diego Housing Commission for working quickly to find a housing solution for flood victims in their time of need. These creative options were possible through collaboration between the City, County, the Housing Commission and State of California. The road ahead of us is long, but this quick and meaningful action shows that we can create creative housing solutions when we all work together.”

SDHC recently completed its purchase of the property, which previously operated as a hotel on Midway Drive in the Midway community. Fifty units at this property will be made available to assist households affected by the storms. Seniors, those with disabling conditions, and families with children will be prioritized.

“Our neighbors are struggling to recover from the record-breaking rain and flooding last week that upended their lives. Making this site available for a short-term emergency shelter will give these families the shelter and support they need during a difficult time,” SDHC President & CEO Lisa Jones said. “Our community has come together in this crisis. I want to thank our City and County leaders, our Housing Commission staff and the Alpha Project team for acting quickly to make this possible.”

Alpha Project will operate the short-term emergency shelter at the SDHC property. Households will be identified through housing assessments SDHC staff is conducting at shelter and resource locations in the city’s most impacted areas and in collaboration with community-based organizations.

In addition, SDHC is operating an emergency hotel placement program until resources from the County of San Diego are available to provide other options. To date, SDHC has triaged a total of 152 households for emergency housing needs and as of 12 p.m. today, 61 households have been placed in hotels, and 14 are pending move-in. An additional 77 households have been connected to other resources.

SDHC acquired the former hotel property on Midway Drive with funding awarded through the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) Homekey program, as well as City of San Diego and County of San Diego funds, to create permanent affordable rental housing units with supportive services for people experiencing homelessness. HCD has granted emergency waivers and approvals for SDHC to use the property as the short-term emergency storm shelter.