Day centers are a place for people experiencing homelessness to connect with housing navigation services, access a bathroom and take a shower.
Father Joe’s Villages opened up a new day center at their main campus in downtown San Diego on Oct. 1, carving out a section of the Joan Kroc Center. The day before, the Neil Good Day Center closed its doors after more than three decades of serving unhoused San Diegans.
The city of San Diego eliminated its funding for Neil Good during the most recent budget cycle. The city’s contract ended on June 30, but it continued partial funding until the center’s final day.
In a statement to KPBS, a city spokesperson said, “as our homelessness response has evolved, we are prioritizing limited resources toward programs that maximize shelter capacity and help connect people to permanent housing.”
If Father Joe’s hadn’t opened a new center, people experiencing homelessness in downtown San Diego may not have anywhere to safely rest during the day.
“Most people take for granted that if they want to sit down and relax, they can sit down and relax, if they've had a long day, they can just sit on their couch and decompress,” Frank Kensaku Saragosa said. “Unhoused people don't have that. And when you close the day center, you close one of the very few places where that's possible.”
Saragosa previously experienced homelessness in San Diego and personally utilized the Neil Good day center.
He said because unsheltered people tend to worry about their safety and personal belongings, they often end up staying awake all night. Saragosa said that’s why having a day center where people can safely rest is important.
“A lot of people, if they sleep, they sleep with one eye open,” he said. “It's a very shallow sleep. So during the day they're really tired. And they can't sleep in parks, they can't sleep in the libraries, you know, there's a million places where they can't stop.”
And people experiencing homelessness that are outside during the day are at a higher risk of police contact, said Brandon Greene, the director of Policy Advocacy for the Western Center on Law and Poverty.
Greene said something as simple as having a place to use the bathroom can help keep people experiencing homelessness safe.
“The increased penalties for things like sitting, laying, loitering in public spaces have continued to go up as sort of criminalization has become the go-to in a lot of places,” he said. “And so this cannot only entangle folks with increased police contact, but that can come with increased fines and fees that people can't afford to pay.”
The day center features an alcove with chairs, a bike rack and a window to talk to housing navigation services. Inside, half the center has showers, bathrooms, laundry machines and a barber shop. The showers have been available for decades.
But now on the other side, Father Joe’s has partially remodeled one of its cafeterias to make room for the day center. Here, people can sit, lay down, charge their phone and watch TV.
This portion of the day center was converted from one third of a cafeteria for families being sheltered at Father Joe’s. Father Joe’s Coordinated Services Director Paul DeLessio said there’s been no change to how the cafeteria operates on the other side of the day center’s wall.
“Now people can have respite in here, so they can sleep here during the day,” DeLessio said. “Women can come in here during the day that are living outside, sleep behind our security.”
He also said during extreme weather events, Father Joe’s folds up the tables in that cafeteria to open that area, as well as the alcove and rest of the day center, for inclement weather shelter.
The remodel was completely funded by donations. And now, Father Joe’s will have to raise $1.1 million annually to keep it running. But without this center, people experiencing homelessness in downtown San Diego might not have a safe place to go during the day.
The new day center offers showers, bathrooms, laundry machines, a mail center, barbershop, housing navigation services and more. Father Joe’s provides soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shaving razors, combs and more.
People utilizing the day center can go across the street for lunch, to use a computer, and access healthcare services.
The new center doesn’t have an outdoor area and is smaller inside. But Father Joe’s CEO and President Deacon Jim Vargas said they’ve been able to accommodate the same amount of people. The day center has the capacity to serve up to 200 people a day.
“We haven't turned anyone away, and that's the key,” Vargas said. “Not turning anyone away and continuing the services that we've had in the past.”
Their main concern with the new location is storage. Unlike the old center, Vargas said the new one doesn’t have enough room for everyone’s belongings. So people with a lot of items are referred to a storage area a few blocks away.
But like Neil Good, the new center does have a mailing center. Vargas said this is especially important now because CalFresh and Medi-Cal keep clients informed about federal changes via mail.
And UC San Diego Homelessness Hub researcher Stacey Livingstone said mail services are particularly important for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
“They're more prone to sweeps and when a sweep occurs people can lose really important things including their IDs,” Livingstone said. “And you really need an ID like a driver's license to do everything to apply for a job, to obtain housing.”
She said day centers also offer people experiencing homelessness an escape from the discrimination they face everyday.
“They have a break from their housed neighbors looking at them disapprovingly while they were sitting on a sidewalk or in another public space when they felt their visible cues of homelessness were putting them into a stigmatizing light,” Livingstone said.
A day center gave Sargosa an escape from the outside world and a place to access services. But it also gave him a community.
“I know people don't really think of unhoused people as having community, but we do,” he said. “We form friendships, we form relationships, we do things together, we make plans together. And so, if I was looking for friends, I would pass through the Neil Good Day Center because it was very likely that they might be there.”
Saragosa said understanding the system would be hard enough with consistent access to a phone. But for someone living on the street, he said it’s “unbelievably confusing.”
So once he entered permanent housing, Saragosa said he was able to tell his friends from the day center how he did it and give them tips for navigating the system.
“Whatever the reason, a lot has had to happen to somebody for them to end up on the streets, but we're still human beings,” he said. “The world isn’t friendly to unhoused people.”
The new day center at Father Joe’s main campus downtown can be accessed from Commercial St. and 15th St. They’re open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
