The City of San Diego has proposed using a former juvenile detention facility in Alpine known as Camp Barrett as a migrant shelter.

The proposal, requested Friday in a letter to the state, comes after nonprofits working to support arriving asylum-seeking families have called repeatedly for help from local and state governments.

The San Diego Rapid Response Network established a temporary shelter after federal officials implemented a policy change that means migrant families receive little assistance navigating to their final destinations once they’re released from custody.

That shelter, at its fifth location since the policy began in late October, has been frequently at capacity and has operated through private donations and a large network of volunteers.


While federal immigration officials drop off some asylum seekers at the shelter directly, they take others to bus stations around the county.

People who live and work near the bus stations have learned to call the network’s hotline to report groups of migrant families in need of food and shelter for the night.

Volunteers drive to the stations and help families call their sponsors to purchase bus tickets. Those who aren’t able to get same-day buses end up at the shelter.

In recent weeks, the shelter has frequently had to use a secondary location as an overflow space because there were more people released than the shelter was authorized to hold.


That approach is not sustainable, shelter leaders have said.

“We’ve been patching this thing together minute by minute,” said Kevin Malone, executive director of the San Diego Organizing Project, one of the organizations spearheading the network. “Everyone is really stretched.”

Volunteers have worked around the clock, even over the recent holidays, to ensure that families are screened, fed and connected with transportation to their sponsors’ cities.

A slew of local politicians are among those who gave their time in recent weeks, including Chula Vista Mayor Mary Salas, Rep. Scott Peters, state Sen. Toni Atkins, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, County Supervisor-elect Nathan Fletcher, County Supervisor Greg Cox and city Councilwoman Barbara Bry, according to a post on the network’s Facebook page.


Even if Camp Barrett, a juvenile correctional facility that the city closed last year, is approved as a shelter, it may take time before it’s ready to take in families.

“At this time, this is only a proposed option,” said Ashley Bailey, spokeswoman for Mayor Kevin Faulconer. “There would still need to be assessments done to the property and discussions between all stakeholders about any necessary adaptations the site would need, who would be in charge of operating the facility and what resources other agencies can provide before anyone can move onto the site.”

Alliance Healthcare Foundation has agreed to fund the endeavor, according to the city’s letter to the state. The organization did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Camp Barrett, owned by the city of San Diego, closed at the beginning of last summer after more than 20 years of housing boys who were considered wards of the juvenile court. Based on a Grand Jury report released in the year before the camp closed, the site may need considerable work to reopen as a shelter.


The report called Camp Barrett an “unsuitable, deteriorating and aging facility.”

“The physical condition of the offices, classrooms, and dormitories is clearly substandard and in need of major repairs,” the report says. “The dormitory buildings are concrete. They are outfitted with bunk beds and a common restroom area with no doors for privacy.”

The camp’s capacity is 125, according to the report. Rapid Response Network leaders have called for a shelter that can house about 250 to account for variation in the daily releases.

Families helped by the shelter include those who asked for asylum at ports of entry and those who made the request after crossing the border illegally. All have made asylum requests.


Each of the adults is fitted with an ankle monitor, and each family is given a court date in the immigration court closest to their destination city before being released from federal custody.

Federal immigration officials used to provide more assistance to families before releasing them to wait for their court hearings, but that changed in late October when officials said they could no longer assist migrants with connecting to their sponsors to get bus or plane tickets to their final destinations because of the number of arrivals.

The city of San Diego has been meeting with regional partners since late November about the issue, Bailey said.

The city of San Diego, joined by Chula Vista, National City and the County of San Diego, previously sent a letter to the state requesting that it open National Guard armories as migrant shelters, similar to 2016 when an influx of Haitians arrived at the San Diego border from Brazil. The Office of Emergency Services responded that the National City armory was not able to be used, and the San Diego mayor’s office said it has not yet heard whether other armories might be made available.


At the county level, Fletcher and Cox also hope to offer up potential shelter sites if they can get enough votes to approve several asylum seeker-related actions the two plan to present on Tuesday.

On top of authorizing the county to identify potential facilities, they hope to create a working group with state and local government officials as well as advocates to put together a longer-term plan to support asylum seekers who arrive at the San Diego border.

“Nonprofit and advocacy groups have performed a heroic task thus far. They should be applauded for what they have been able to pull together,” Fletcher said. “It’s time for the rest of us to step up to help them.”

He hoped that, if the board approves, he and Cox can begin touring facilities that same week.


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kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on Twitter