580 tons of trash removed from San Diego homeless encampments

Sep 19, 2023

In the seven months since the city of San Diego launched the Hot Spot program, it has collected 580 tons of trash from the streets and sidewalks around homeless encampments.

"Our streets are not as clean as they need to be," Mayor Todd Gloria said last week. "Our ongoing crisis of homeless encampments is making that problem worse, and we have to make our streets safe and sanitary."

The program was launched as a pilot in October and is part of Gloria's proposed 2024 fiscal year budget to continue as a permanent program. About 140 tons of waste were hauled away in the program's first two months. As of this month, it has removed 580 tons from city streets.

The city for the past several years has conducted regular encampment abatements that require people to temporarily move all their possessions from sidewalks to make way for cleaning crews. Abandoned tents and other items left behind often are thrown away during the cleanups, but people usually return and trash again piles up.

The Hot Spot crews crisscross downtown streets as their daily routes begin and then spread out to other neighborhoods. People in encampments do not have to relocate or move their possessions, and the crews do not remove anything from inside a tent.

The two-person sanitation teams drive rear-loading refuse packer trucks throughout the city from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. each day except Sunday, when only one truck makes the rounds.

Besides the two sanitation workers, each crew includes a code enforcement officer familiar with the city's 2011 Isaiah settlement that followed a lawsuit claiming the city and Downtown San Diego Partnership had unlawfully thrown away possessions of dozens of homeless people. The settlement requires a three-day notice of abatements if no storage options are available and a three-hour notice if storage is available.

Misty Fusco is one of the code enforcement officers who regularly goes out with a crew.

"We’re looking at things like their purses, their wallets, their keys," she said as examples of items that would not be discarded. "We’re only looking for trash. I will ask them ahead of time, ‘Is this your stuff? Do you want me to take it away for you?’ I try to be respectful."

It's often not hard to spot what should be discarded. On a recent round, the crew pulled over on Island Avenue near 17th Street and used a shovel to scoop up broken plastic toys, cardboard, an empty champagne bottle and other trash.

On another street, they hauled away a broken box spring and piles of other discarded items.

Fusco said some homeless people have come to expect the daily visits and have trash bags waiting for them.

"They’re very helpful," she said.

On Island Avenue, encampment resident Chris Coleman swept around his tent and said he always has trash ready for the crew.

"My whole thing out here is clean up, clean up, clean up," he said. "There's a lot of bacteria out here. There's hepatitis A and a lot of things going down."

Coleman said the weekly abatements were not enough to keep the sidewalks clean, which he described as a mess before the daily clean-ups.

"I preach wash your hands and take your trash out," he said. "Most of us weren't born like this. My grand daddy said just because you’re poor you don't have to act like it and look like it."

Coleman said he has been homeless since his wife died of cancer five years ago. He worked as a truck driver and the couple lived in Hillcrest for 20 years before her death.

"It kind of haunted me when I came home at night and she's not there," he said. "One day I came home and thought, I’ve got to go. I put my things in storage and walked away. This is where I ended up."

The Hot Spot program cost $1.4 million to launch, including $970,000 in one-time costs that included new equipment. Going forward, it will cost about $400,000 annually.

Gloria said the new program is not about enabling people living on the street, but about managing a crisis.

"We’re addressing the realities on the street," he said. "As we work to respond to our homelessness crisis, we have to address the current conditions on our sidewalks and keep them safe and sanitary."

Coleman said the homeless population sometimes is unfairly judged, and many are responsible people.

"They say we don't pay taxes, but we do every day," he said. "We go to the store just like everybody else and we buy things. Everybody here's not on drugs and partying every day."

Coleman is hopeful his time on the street will be coming to an end soon, and said he is working with a local group that has found housing for him.