A top San Diego official largely wants government out of homeless services. Here’s what he hopes comes next.

When Eric Dargan took office more than a year ago as San Diego’s chief operating officer, the city’s highest unelected position, he quickly flagged several problems.

Ruined infrastructure. Aging fire-fighting installations. Police recruitment. These would be his priorities, he thought.

He then asked residents about their biggest concerns.

“Nine out of ten people would call me ‘homeless,'” he said in an interview. “If that’s your number one concern, then it has to become my number one concern.”

Dargan is now trying to reshape how government responds to the growing crisis, inspired in part by what he witnessed as head of Houston’s public works department.

In short, he wants less bureaucracy and more philanthropy.

“In my opinion, the $78 million we spend on homelessness should be spent on stormwater, streets, facilities and public safety,” he said.

In 2021, the city created a Department of Homeless Strategies and Solutions to take a more active role in recruiting service providers, and the office has grown to encompass more than a dozen positions all by obtaining tens of millions of dollars in public subsidies. The fiscal year 2024 budget was approximately $44 million.

“My plan is to completely eliminate my homeless department,” Dargan continued. “But the only way I can do that is for this community, the city of San Diego as a community, to come together and say, ‘We’re going to take this fight back.'”

Data from the San Diego Foundation shows that donations are increasing for housing and shelter, business organizations are increasingly making homelessness a priority, and a range of religious groups have long provided shelter space. accommodation.

But Dargan wants much greater support.

Every resident must contribute, he argued. Companies must report employees who are at risk of losing their housing. More churches should start food pantries.

The first step in this overhaul is “San Diegans Together Tackling Homelessness,” the fundraising effort announced in January by Mayor Todd Gloria with an ambitious goal of raising $370 million, much of which would go toward to a 40-story affordable housing complex downtown.

Although Dargan decides how those funds will be distributed, the plan calls for input from a 10-member advisory board. So far, four people have agreed to join us, he said. (Dargan declined to give their names until the full group could reunite.)

“I’m looking for billionaires who would like to leave their legacy in this city,” he added. “But if I can convince 1.4 million people to give me $300 each, it’s all good.”

The Lucky Duck Foundation is one of the region’s largest philanthropic groups, and its CEO, Drew Moser, said it is always open to cost-effective methods to reduce homelessness. He is also “cautiously encouraged” by the city’s recent efforts to increase shelter capacity.

Still, Moser was less hopeful about a future in which much of San Diego’s homelessness bill would be picked up by donors.

“It’s a steep hill to climb,” he said.

Four billionaires are believed to live in San Diego, according to a recent report from Henley & Partners, a residency and citizenship planning firm. More than a dozen other parts of the country appear to have more, including the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Houston.

Dargan is wary of drawing too sharp a contrast between San Diego and Houston, a city that has cut its overall homeless population in half over the past decade, according to federal data.

Texas often has cheaper housing, more available land and fewer building regulations, he noted. But Dargan thinks Houston does a better job of supplementing federal funding with local donations and minimizing government oversight.

Although Houston’s mayor has an office for homeless initiatives, only one employee is listed online.

Services are largely overseen by the Houston/Harris County Homeless Coalition, a nonprofit similar to the San Diego Regional Homeless Task Force.

“We are poor cities,” Kelly Young, the coalition’s president and CEO, said of the lack of local government funding. “All agencies are responsible for raising the funds necessary to operate their organization through philanthropy. »

The coalition is also taking a more active role in placing homeless people in specific programs. Young said they have a central system to track both open beds and how service groups are doing their jobs.

“This puts the responsibility on providers, not the individual, to determine how to obtain housing,” she added.

San Diego sometimes has difficulty reporting when shelter space is available because the city and housing commission oversee separate networks.

Other elements of homelessness in Houston may be more familiar to San Diegans. This region’s numbers have increased since 2021 (when fewer than 3,050 individuals were counted in a point-in-time count) to last year’s total of 3,270. Local media outlets cited residents expressing many of the same concerns about people on the streets.

Additionally, Houston still uses the “Housing First” model to end homelessness, which has been criticized by some conservative leaders in San Diego who want to place more emphasis on treating mental illness and disability-related disorders. substance addiction.

Dargan believes California’s drug laws are too lax and he favors the proposed Sunbreak Ranch shelter, which would build a massive campus on land to be determined that could house and offer support services to thousands of people. Supporters of the project have solicited private donations, including through a public request for $200 million to Elon Musk.

“I love Sunbreak Ranch,” Dargan said. “But the reality is you can’t force people into a system.”

If Gloria is re-elected in November, Dargan hopes much of her vision can be realized by the end of the mayor’s second term.

Asked if Gloria agreed with Dargan’s approach, mayoral spokesperson Dave Rolland wrote in an email that “with government funding for homelessness programs limited and needs great, the intention of the philanthropic campaign is simply to help close the gap.”