Dear Neighbor,

Last week, I delivered the 2024 State of the City address. It’s an opportunity to share the progress we’ve made over the last year and talk about the vision, goals and plans for the year ahead and well into the future.

We’ve done a lot over the past few years, but my speech primarily focused on the issues that concern San Diegans the most – public safety, homelessness, housing affordability and infrastructure.  

In my first address, in the depths of the pandemic, I declared the state of the city was “fragile.” The next year, I said it was “ready” to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic and embark on the long road toward realizing its potential. Last year, I talked about how the city was “rising” to overcome the challenges we faced.

This year, I was proud to report that we are making considerable progress on all fronts, and the state of our city is getting stronger every day. We have more work to do, but we've proven that, together, we are up to the task.

Here are the big announcements from my address:

·   New executive order on housing: Doubling down on an executive order I signed last January to expedite permits for 100% affordable housing projects, I announced that have signed a new executive order today requiring all relevant City departments to review new housing projects under the City’s Complete Communities program within 30 days, dramatically speeding up a process that currently can take up to 12 months. Complete Communities is a transit-oriented incentive program that allows home builders to expand their projects in exchange for building a certain number of affordable homes.   

·      Major expansion of homeless shelter options: Consistent with the City’s Comprehensive Shelter Strategy, I announced my intention to increase the number of shelter beds for people experiencing homelessness by at least 1,000 by the beginning of 2025. This will be a net increase, over and above the existing beds in Golden Hall and in East Village that will need to be relocated.  

·      Support for Fixing Proposition 47: In light of alarming crime trends involving the illicit drug trade and organized retail theft, I announced my support for statewide action to amend Proposition 47, which passed in 2014 and reclassified certain drug and theft crimes as misdemeanors. The law is being exploited and needs to be updated in order to meet its objectives of reducing overincarceration and recidivism while addressing its unintended consequences. 

·      Former central library to become housing: In a longer-term action, the City will embark on an ambitious proposal to redevelop the site of the old Central Library Downtown to create additional shelter space as well as hundreds of new affordable, permanent homes for low-income and formerly homeless San Diegans. 

·   Honoring the late Padres Chairman Peter Seidler: I announced that we have initiated the process to rename one of the streets that leads to Petco Park as “Peter Seidler Way,” honoring the late San Diego Padres chairman’s legacy and his work to address homelessness in San Diego.   

·      Philanthropic campaign to help tackle homelessness: The City is launching a philanthropic campaign to help carry out plans to address homelessness. Called “San Diegans Together Tackling Homelessness,” the campaign already has commitments totaling $250,000. 

·   Citywide Project Labor Agreement: The City has reached agreement with the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council on a citywide project labor agreement that will apply to all major construction projects. The agreement will ensure hiring for these good-paying jobs is done locally, that workers are well trained and that there are strict safety standards on the job.

Some of the progress on our priorities I announced in the speech are highlighted below.

As always, it’s an honor to serve as your Mayor. 

Mayor Highlights Progress on Top Issues at the 2024 State of the City 

Public Safety 

San Diego is one of the safest cities in the country. In 2023, the most serious crimes fell again in the city: Murder and rape were down nearly 12% and 16% respectively. Robbery and burglary were down 7% and 16%, respectively.   

This a testament to the dedication of our police officers and our City’s commitment to support them. The City has been dogged by police officer recruitment and retention issues for years, and we’re successfully demonstrating that San Diego is a great place for first responders to build a career and raise a family.

In addition to raising police officer pay, we recently opened a first-of-its-kind childcare facility for police officers to ease the burden created by the nontraditional hours our officers often must work. This facility -- the brainchild of the San Diego Police Officers Association and partly funded by a state grant secured by Senate President pro Tem Toni Atkins -- is serving as a model for police departments across the country. 

Rather than losing officers to other agencies, we’re now seeing officers choose to come work for the San Diego Police Department. 

We’ve also improved recruitment and retention in our Fire-Rescue Department, with efforts to recruit more women into the ranks so successful that San Diego was selected as the location for the Women in Fire International Conference this year.

And we’re doing more to ensure our first responders have the equipment they need to do their jobs. Our Smart Streetlights and Automated License Plate Recognition technologies are being deployed to help solve serious crimes, and Fire-Rescue is building our reserve fleet for large-scale emergencies. We’re also about to start design on a new, state-of-the-art Fire Training Facility in Kearny Mesa.

The two leaders who oversaw these improvements to our Police and Fire-Rescue departments for the past five years – Police Chief David Nisleit and Fire Chief Colin Stowell – have both announced they will retire later this year, each after 36 years of dedicated service. 

We’ve begun a national search for our next police chief with a series of community forums in each Council district, and we’ll launch a national search for our next fire chief soon.

Addressing Homelessness 

In 2023, we took substantial action to address homelessness in San Diego, including the continued expansion of traditional shelter capacity and the City’s successful Safe Parking Program. 

We also launched a Safe Sleeping Program to bring more unsheltered San Diegans off the streets. The program includes two sites offering space for up to 1,000 people. In just half a year, this option has moved more than 600 people off the streets. 

All told, since April 2021, the City has more than doubled the number of options for people experiencing homelessness to come off the street. 

City-funded outreach, shelter and family reunification programs have combined to successfully place more than 1,400 formerly homeless San Diegans into permanent housing in 2023, bringing the three-year total to 3,603. 

In conjunction with the launch of the Safe Sleeping Program, Councilmember Whitburn and I collaborated on the Unsafe Camping Ordinance, which bans tent encampments on public property.  

The new law is working as intended, clearing encampments without widespread arrests. In fact, since the ordinance passed in June, only one person has been arrested – but hundreds have accepted shelter.   

For some, mental illness is a key factor in this challenge, so we’re pushing to ensure better access to treatment. CARE Court, which I joined Gov. Gavin Newsom in announcing and supporting, is now in effect. As chair of the bipartisan Big City Mayors coalition, I championed conservatorship reform legislation authored by Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman -- and we got it passed and signed into law. 

To ensure we have the treatment beds that will be needed to implement these reforms, Proposition 1 will be on the March ballot. The measure will generate funding to add about 11,000 new behavioral health treatment beds and 27,000 new outpatient facilities statewide, and the City Council last week voted unanimously to support the measure, making it the City of San Diego’s official position.  

Building More Housing 

As a renter myself, I understand the housing reality of today. Not only is typical rent on a one-bedroom apartment around $2,600 a month, but it comes with the anxiety and hassle of racing against dozens of others just to apply for that hard-to-find vacant unit

My housing policies are designed to send a clear message: To every hardworking San Diegan, this Mayor wants there to be a place for you in this city. To every young person, that I want you to stay in this city that helped raise and educate you. To every senior on a fixed income, that you shouldn’t have to spend your golden years worried that you’ll lose your home. That’s the progress we’re working toward, and we’re seeing significant increases in permitting new homes. 

The City permitted approximately 8,000 homes in 2023 – a 51% increase over the roughly 5,300 homes permitted in 2022. Approximately one third of the homes permitted in 2023 were deed-restricted affordable housing. 

The vast majority of the homes permitted last year – 2,063 of them – were permitted under a program called Affordable Housing Permit Now, created through an executive order that I signed moments before delivering last year’s State of the City address. That order requires permit applications for 100% affordable housing projects to be reviewed in 30 days or fewer. I'm proud to report the City has exceeded that requirement, reviewing projects within nine days, on average. 

To continue this momentum, I secured City Council approval of a second Housing Action Package, which will make it easier to create new student housing and single-room apartments for low-income San Diegans; build more three-bedroom homes for middle-income families; protect people from being displaced from their communities; turn underused commercials sites into housing; and more. 

In addition to policy reforms, the City is investing directly into affordable housing programs. Through the City’s Bridge to Home initiative, we have pledged $63 million to bring 16 housing projects over the finish line, resulting in permits for 1,337 affordable apartments, with 368 set aside for people experiencing homelessness.

My new executive order, which I signed Wednesday, will require permit applications that fall under our Complete Communities program to be reviewed within 30 days. What has typically taken up to 12 months to review, I am ordering be done in just one

Last year, our Complete Communities Program accounted for 1,000 of the new homes permitted, with 15% of those set aside for low- and moderate-income San Diegans. 

This new, faster timeline will likely increase those numbers and help get the supply and demand for housing back into balance to bring rents down.

Improving Infrastructure 

For the past three years, we have been making record investments to fix crumbling roads, broken streetlights, cracked sidewalks and decaying pipes and stormwater culverts. Our investments have been guided by solid data and policies that ensure we’re prioritizing the most-needed projects.

The City repaired or resurfaced 252 miles of roadway in 2023. That’s nearly a 20% increase over 2022 and a 57% increase over 2021. Over the past three years, the City has repaired or resurfaced nearly 627 miles of city streets. 

City crews also filled 61,305 potholes in 2023 – a 94% increase over the prior year and an astonishing 122% increase over 2021.  

As promised in last year’s State of the City address, the City updated its Street Preservation Ordinance to ensure that public and private utilities that tear up San Diego’s roads restore them to as-good or better condition than they found them.    

Looking forward, the City in 2023 conducted the most exhaustive pavement-condition study it’s ever undertaken to update data that will guide decisions on which streets to repair and in what order.  

I also provided updates on sidewalk and streetlight repair and detailed the City’s investments in parks in all corners of San Diego. 

The City opened four new parks and upgraded 10 others in 2023, bringing the three-year total to 19 new parks and upgraded 31 existing parks. During the next two years, the City anticipates creating 16 new parks and upgrading 34 more.   

Even with all of this considerable progress we have made in the past three years, there’s still much work to do. 

 All of us can visualize the kind of San Diego we want to live in, the kind of city we want today and the kind of city we want to leave to our grandchildren tomorrow. We’re putting in the hard work to achieve this vision -- and we’re making progress every single day.

Attending the 42nd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade 

I was honored to attend the 42nd Annual Martin Luther King Jr Parade, where San Diegans gathered to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Thank you to the local chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity for hosting this commemorative event and giving our city an opportunity to honor Dr. King's vision while enjoying cultural performances, community discussions, and educational exhibits. 

Yes-In-God's-Backyard New Housing Project in Logan Heights 

I joined Yes in God’s Backyard (YIGBY) as they marked a significant milestone and broke ground on a new construction project in collaboration with Bethel AME Church of San Diego. This multifamily project will deliver 26 new homes on church property in Logan Heights, offering affordable housing to formerly homeless veterans and seniors. This development project is an innovative collaboration between philanthropic organizations, the faith community, the private sector, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the San Diego Housing Commission.  

Honoring San Diegans Working to Make Our City More Equitable  

Every year, the the USS Midway Museum's Diversity Equity and Inclusion Board hosts a Martin Luther King Jr. Dinner to award and acknowledge San Diegans for the work they do in their communities. This year, Dr. John E. Warren and Dr. Leonard J. Thompson were honored for the work they do to make San Diego a more equitable place for all of us.