On Monday April 19, Mayor Todd Gloria announced that $10 million of his $4.6 billion proposed spending plan would be used to address San Diego’s homelessness issue. According to KPBS, the spending of the $10 million includes $1.35 million to expand substance abuse treatment programs and $6.3 million for adding up to 300 interim shelter beds to help get people off of the streets at night. Mayor Gloria also plans to use $2.3 million for programs that work to benefit homeless people, such as the People Assisting the Homeless Coordinated Street Outreach Program. According to 10 News, Mayor Gloria hopes that “the actions will help the city make significant progress on strategies laid out in the Community Action Plan on Homelessness.

When asked what she thought was the best way to combat homelessness, junior Maya Haskal said “I think a good way to stop homelessness would be to put more funding towards shelters and more attention towards helping people with addiction and jobs.” Addiction does seem to be a big problem for homeless people as “according to Didenko and Pankratz (2007), two-thirds of homeless people report that drugs and/or alcohol were a major reason for their becoming homeless.” Haskal’s idea of putting attention toward addiction is shown in Gloria’s plan, with $1.35 million being used to expand substance abuse treatment programs.

Junior Dylan Lancaster had a similar response when asked the same question. He stated “I think the best solution is to create more homeless shelters funded by the government in which more people can go for help”. This idea of creating more shelters to combat homelessness can be seen directly in Mayor Gloria’s plan, with 63% of the $10 million being spent toward creating up to 300 shelters to help get people off the streets. San Diego has the 4th largest homeless population in the country, with over 8000 homeless people, so hopefully this major problem will be addressed with this new plan and will get homeless people off the streets.