Category: Urbanity

In the far northwest corner of Portland lies one of the largest urban parks in the United States—Forest Park. Years ago, I was fortunate enough to live right on the edge of this tree-covered paradise. Out the back door of our apartment, a trail led straight into the park, where countless other trails branched and twisted through the forest. Out the front door, city streets bustled with shops and trendy restaurants.

While I was fortunate to live in that perfectly placed apartment with access to urbanity and the wild, Forest Park is accessible to several neighborhoods of urban character. It’s even accessible from downtown Portland, but it takes a little more effort, requiring you to thread your way through concrete and traffic for a mile or so.

From downtown, it becomes apparent how stark the contrast is between the city’s concrete landscape and the forested sanctuary on its edge. One can easily imagine the soft dirt trails of the park extending into downtown—offering not only a more forgiving surface for runners and walkers, but small oases in contrast to the hard-surfaced urbanity. Those paths could meander and wind, weaving back and forth through whatever space we could make available for them. Ferns, trees, and other native plants could buffer the trails from concrete, and further pull the wilds into the city core.

My mind naturally wants to push the idea further, to create larger intrusions of nature into the city. And those may or may not be feasible, but certainly, and especially for a city like Portland, the vision of trails and nature growing into the city seems tantalizingly possible.

A new homeless shelter is in the planning stages here in San Diego, and as expected, the opposition has come out in force with their lawn signs.

The new shelter will be constructed at Kettner and Vine. Initially I had assumed this was somewhere in Mission Hills, since that’s where I have seen the signs, but it’s actually down the hill near the airport. And while I have the typical reaction to nimbyism as most urbanists do, I generally also have some sympathy, since there are times where their concerns are justifiable. In many cases I completely understand why someone would be against a new building that would directly impact them and their home.

The disapproval for this project however, especially in the areas where I’ve seen the opposition signs, seem to be misplaced.

The Kettner and Vine location is actually a great location for a facility like this. It would located in an area that is industrial in nature, which, if we’re looking to minimize the negative effects on neighborhoods, is exactly where you should site a large homeless shelter. The site does sit on the edge of the industrial area, but it is pretty strongly separated from the adjacent neighborhood by a wall of cars nine lanes wide (Interstate 5). A more perfect location would probably be deeper inside the industrial area, but since we unfortunately have to work with reality, this location is really as good as they come.

There are certainly a few homes that may be impacted with more homeless wandering around, and for them, I’ll give a free pass for going nuts on lawn signs. For most of the homes that I’ve come across voicing their outrage in the form of lawn signage — they’re really too far away, where any negative impacts are likely balanced out by the much larger, positive impacts.

Their opposition website notes a few items:

Too Close to Schools

The opposition website states that their are “over 10 pre-schools, elementary schools” close to this location. They don’t offer a definition for “close” of course. To most reasonable people looking at a map, there are two private schools that are pretty close; Holding Hands Preschool (0.6 miles away) and Montessori school of San Diego (0.3 miles away). As for the other eight, the distances are too far to be of concern. The next closest is over a mile-and- a-half away.

Tourism Concerns

Another main point highlighted on the opposition website, is that this proposal would “negatively impact tourism”. This one is just odd. A homeless shelter, far removed from tourist areas like this one is, won’t negatively impact tourism. A homeless guy urinating into an ornamental bush in Little Italy negatively impacts tourism. A woman sleeping on a cardboard box in the Gaslamp negatively impacts tourism. More shelters, like this one, and resources to address the homeless issue is exactly what is needed to improve the tourism experience. The notion that this shelter would negatively impact tourism is just a poor argument.

Other General Questionable Arguments

There may be good arguments against this proposal , but opposition groups seem to often dilute their arguments with highly suspect statements, like the ones noted above, or using statements like “situated along a bustling thoroughfare” (who cares?), or “project rushed/no transparency” (is there an actual timeline and a number of public planning sessions that the local nimby population would find acceptable? probably not). There may be perfectly sound arguments around budgets, or the diversion of funds from other strategies to address homelessness, and perhaps the planned size really is too large. But once an opposition group starts throwing out whatever points they think may stick, nothing much else they say has much credibility, at least with me.

Is a homeless shelter at Kettner and Vine a good idea? It probably is. The location seems to minimize the effects on the community as a whole (a solution that doesn’t negatively impact anyone is probably an impossible feat), and there is definitely a substantial need for more shelters. Should it be as large as proposed? I’m not sure. Perhaps it would be more effective as a smaller shelter, but I completely understand the efficiencies that can be gained with larger shelters, and honestly a larger shelter like this one would have a much lighter impact on citizens than numerous, smaller ones spread around in various neighborhoods across the city.

In the end, while no solution will ever be perfect or completely without impact, the proposed shelter at Kettner and Vine strikes a reasonable balance between meeting a pressing social need and minimizing disruption to the broader community. Opposition is expected and, in some cases, understandable — but much of what’s being raised against this project appears exaggerated or misplaced. If San Diego is serious about addressing homelessness in a meaningful and humane way, projects like this one need to be part of the equation. Thoughtful planning and community input should always play a role, but we can’t let fear or misinformation prevent us from making progress where it’s most needed.