Public Safety

Hundreds Of Homeless Out In The Rain

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published January 19, 2010 at 1:11 PM PST

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

The homeless who have beds in the city’s winter shelter tent downtown are keeping dry, but hundreds of others remain out in the rain.

Bob McElroy of the Alpha Project says his staff are out in the canyons and backstreets, distributing plastic sheeting to those still outside.

“A lot of folks that we have out there are trapped by mental illness and they don’t even know they are being rained on, so that’s’ kind of tragic." McElroy said, "We wrap them up like a burrito and tuck them in a corner somewhere and hope they make it.”

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Father Joe Carroll of St Vincent De Paul Village says he has opened the doors for people who have nowhere else to stay dry.

“Last night we took 199 people in,” Carroll said. “The back-up is our dining rooms, which give us another 250 spaces to put people on the floors. We’ll keep taking people, we’ll fill up every floor in the building, and we’ll be open through Saturday so we’ll be open every night this week.”

Father Joe says he has extra space because a two story mens' shelter was recently cleared out, ready for demolition, as the Bishop Maher Center is replaced.

He says he is running low on dry blankets and socks.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.