SAN DIEGO – Citywide homelessness is down in the latest Point-in-Time Count. But a Pacific Beach unsheltered services provider doubts the reliability of that assessment, noting the situation there is worsening.
Homelessness is growing, she said, especially among seniors.
Homelessness in the city dropped 13.5% from a year ago, according to data released by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness from the most recent Point-in-Time Count in January.
But the homeless status quo looks quite different from the viewpoint of a service provider who deals with unsheltered people along the coast everyday.
Of the count, Caryn Blanton, executive director of Shoreline Community Services, a drop-in resource center for the unhoused in Pacific Beach, said: “It’s just one moment in time, with volunteers going out to count at 4 a.m., and they’re back by 8 a.m. It’s just a snapshot. It’s a minimum look.”
Blanton noted that the annual count is split. “Part of that number is people out on the street,” she said. “The other part is people who are counted in shelters. So last year they’re saying that snapshot in time number was higher, just over 10,000, and now they’re saying that number is down 7% from last year.”
Homeless count numbers are skewed toward certain subgroups of the homeless population, contends Blanton. “The areas in the count that showed the biggest progress were families, veterans, and transitional-age youth 18 to 24 years old, the three target populations focused on,” she said. “That’s the good news.”
But there is some bad news too. “They should have talked to seniors, people age 55 and over,” Blanton said. “One in three of those people were living in their cars. And 50% of those people were found to be (homeless) first-timers. That’s not good news. People on the margins are finally falling through the cracks, and it’s not by choice.”
Numerous factors, like medical conditions and the loss of a spouse or a death in the family, are disproportionately impacting the aging beachfront homeless population. “This aging population, they’re so vulnerable,” Blanton said. “Living out of your car is often the first step to being totally out on the street.”
Concerning the homeless who contact Shoreline Community Services for a variety of needs, Blanton said that number is presently growing, not shrinking. “The number of homeless individuals contacting us here in the Central Beach Area in 2024 was just over 900, but over 21,000 were accessing homelessness services in the entire San Diego region,” she said. “In 2025, that number is reported at 23,000 throughout the region accessing services. I believe that’s closer to the real number of how many people there are out there.”
Blanton noted that all three target populations of families, veterans, and transitional-age youth in the Point-in-Time counts are smaller subsets of the dominant aging over-55 homeless beachfront population.
So what needs to be done to stem the growing tide of homelessness along the beachfront and elsewhere? “We need to stop the flow before people become homeless,” Blanton said. “Some people age 55 and older are struggling. Programs that support them with subsidies are way less expensive than caring for people after they fall into homelessness. One example is rental subsidies that help them stay where they’re currently housed. That’s important.”
Shoreline in PB participates every year in the count. Afterward, Blanton talked to unsheltered people who came in in asking them if they’d been counted. “Most of our people said they weren’t counted,” she said. “That was the same last year.”
Shoreline’s executive director noted one bit of surprising data from the annual counts. “Over 80% of people who are out on the street are not coming from somewhere else,” Blanton said. “People like to think that the homeless are coming in from all over. But 80% of the people who’ve fallen into homelessness have always lived in San Diego. These are homegrown folks.”
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