They may not be home for the holidays, but for almost 300 people living in a large tent downtown, it’s the next best thing.

“Last year, Christmas was on the street,” said Lynette Gresham, 51, one of about 270 homeless people living in a tented shelter run by the Alpha Project near Petco Park. “Here, everybody is like family. And I’m a big kid at heart. I still believe in Santa Claus.”

Carlito Fisk, 46, said he has a better outlook these days and plans to have a better Christmas than last, which was spent in jail.

“I’m around people who are positive,” he said. “Things are getting better. I’m hoping I can get a job soon.”


The large industrial tent on Newton Avenue just off 16th Street is one of three the city of San Diego plans to operate as bridge housing, or a place for homeless people to stay while getting help to find a permanent home.

Veterans Villages of San Diego is scheduled to open a second tent for 200 people Friday morning and Father Joe’s Villages is expected to open a 150-bed tent for families before the new year.

Almost three weeks since its Dec. 1 opening, however, the Alpha Project tent still is not at capacity because of delays related to a new intake system. The number of beds has been scaled back from 350 to 325 to meet a requirement to space them 30 inches apart, the internet wasn’t hooked up until Monday and a scanner to check people in and out still wasn’t working earlier this week.

“It’s a little chaotic right now,” Alpha Project President and CEO Bob McElroy acknowledged.


All things considered, however, McElroy said things are running smoothly, and people inside are grateful.

An 18-foot Christmas tree greets people just inside the entrance of the tent on Newton Street, and McElroy said he is trying to find a Santa available Christmas Eve to hand out presents.

On Wednesday morning, a half dozen people inside the tent drank coffee and watched “The View” on a large TV. Outside, people used the portable showers, socialized, smoked and walked their dogs, which number about 60, on the grounds.

McElroy estimated about 10 percent of the residents have jobs and are saving their money, and several attend City College. About 60 percent are seniors, he said.


The plan is for each person to move out, preferably to permanent housing, within 120 days. The clock hasn’t started ticking yet because people still are moving in, and efforts to find housing for each person haven’t kicked in, McElroy said.

Under a similar shelter program operated by the Alpha Project until two years ago, McElroy said he could have filled the tent in about a day by opening it up to people already associated with the nonprofit.

Now, they are using a new coordinated entry system that tracks homeless people throughout the county based on a survey called the Vulnerability Index and Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool, more commonly known as the VI-SPDAT.

Alpha Project Chief Operating Officer Amy Gonyeau said the system makes sense because it gives priority to people with the greatest needs and who are most likely to find housing soon because they already have some type of rental assistance.


But there are drawbacks that are just surfacing.

“We’re spending a lot of time working with other agencies, trying to find the clients,” she said. Sometimes a countywide search can’t find a person on top of the list, she said, and sometimes it turns out the person already has been housed, but the Alpha Project wasn’t aware of that.

Gonyeau said things also could go smoother with more housing navigators — staff members who help people find homes. The Alpha Project tent will have eight housing navigators, and Gonyeau said it would help if other agencies pitched in to bring the staff to 20 or 30.

She said another looming uncertainty is whether housing can be found for the residents once the housing navigators begin their work. The countywide vacancy rates for apartments this year was a low 3.7 percent.


Despite the challenges ahead, McElroy is optimistic that the streets of San Diego will look very different once the tents are open and running, although it might take a couple of years to see the full effect.

Michael Smith, 36, is among the people who say they are grateful to stay in the tent, which he said residents call “The Dome.”

“I think this is a wonderful place,” he said. “There’s people here with full bellies and warm blankets who are still bitching, but I’m grateful. I think they just don’t know how to appreciate it.”

Before moving into the tent, Smith lived in the temporary encampment the Alpha Project operated near Balboa Park for about three months. He calls himself an “upper classman” because of the experience and said he leads others by example, reminding people new to the site to clean up after their dogs and to wash down the showers when done.


Before moving into the encampment, Smith said he had been homeless for a month after being laid off from his job at NASSCO.

“The first three days were the hardest,” he said. “Dealing with the cold at night. You sleep for like two hours until your body gets cold, then you wake up and walk around.”

Nina Schauf, 54, also lived in the camp for three months before moving to the big tent.

“It’s comfortable and I’ve got good friends,” said Schauf, who had worked as a certified nurse’s assistant for 25 years before moving to Reno with her fiancé. She moved back to her hometown of San Diego after he died, and had been sleeping in Embarcadero Park when an Alpha Project outreach team worker brought her to the encampment.


“We keep ourselves sane,” she said about her friends at the tent. “And we’re looking forward to our houses. That’s what we’re praying for this Christmas. Housing and a good job.”

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gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT


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