East county residents express frustration with temporary shelter site, authorities see it as a step towards a permanent solution
Monday December 16th, 2024
Meet the Burners
SAN DIEGO - Brett and Karla Burner have been Spring Valley residents since 2009. Theirs are two of the many voices in opposition to the county’s proposal of setting up a tiny homes village near Sweetwater Road and Troy Street in Lemon Grove.
“We pay attention to what's happening in the city. So I, once again, was surprised, like I didn't even know about this..the most frustrating part about this is that the community itself does not feel like they've been informed, and decisions are being made that are going to directly impact the neighborhoods, the businesses and the communities,” Karla Burner said.
This comes right after the community’s vehement rejection of the Spring Valley shelter site on Jamacha Road, just a three minute drive away from the original site. The new location itself borders Spring Valley and is next to a busy street without pavement. Residents from both neighboring communities came together at a community meeting with city officials to protest the project.
The Burner family said that they, among others, felt unprepared, uninformed and unincluded in the decision-making process. The lack of communication, transparency, and consideration for existing residents shocked and angered the community.
“We're firm believers that when there's a community problem, it's not somebody else's problem. And it wasn't so much of a reaction of the ‘not in my backyard’ but it's sort of like, what are you putting in my backyard?” Karla Burner said.
At the community meeting, residents felt that officials had picked a poor location because of its proximity to a school, nursery and liquor store and lack of access to public transport and walkable streets. The Burners questioned why that particular location was selected rather than an empty lot in a wealthier area. This echoes the sentiment of County Supervisor Nora Vargas in an article for NBC in June 2024 in which she questioned why a site wasn’t being placed in areas like La Jolla or Del Mar.
“This is a working class community. So that means that people here, if they’re homeowners, are holding on with everything they've got to their properties, to their, you know, making it paycheck to paycheck…you're choosing a place in the middle of people who are already struggling to hold on to their property values as it is,” Brett Burner said.
The couple said most community members wanted to seek long term solutions to the homelessness crisis in their neighborhoods but disagreed with this approach due to lack of evidence of it working long term, including the ability to keep it funded. .
“Human dignity is really the core of all of this. If you start something and don’t finish it, you’re saying that people are disposable,” Karla Burner said.“We have an epidemic of hopelessness and that should matter to us. That should be important enough to say we’re gonna take our time and put some thought into this and not just knee jerk reaction type things that are not long term solutions.”
County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, a Lemon Grove resident, said that much of the decision-making process was made before her time as county supervisor. Steppe acknowledged that she didn’t have in-depth knowledge about the site selection and other details about the project, but said that they did continually seek community feedback.
“I dealt with what was given to me when I came in, but these conversations started before I got there,” Steppe said. “We've canvassed the community, we've done a lot of different things on top of that town hall. And so we're confident that this will be a good thing for the community.”
Steppe added that unhoused residents of Lemon Grove would be prioritized in their applications for the project’s housing. She said that careful consideration and analysis had been done in site selection. Those selected for the program would be coming from existing programs and are looking for a next step for support.
“And we are not dismissing the feelings that people have. We will not say stay stagnant, though. We have to move forward. We have to do something, and we continue to engage with the community members that are near the site,” Steppe said.
The site would host 70 homes as opposed to the original plan of 150 shelters in Spring Valley. Much like the successful Chula Vista site, it would also offer wraparound services to support its new residents. The project is set to be in full operation in two years.
“There's going to be a lot of restrictions as well,” Karla Burner said. “There should be, but some people just are not going to want to. They can't make that change on their own. They can't just say, ‘Yeah, I'm just going to be clean from here to there, just so I can get into a tiny house program.’ So there's so many levels to it. And again, when you're asking a community to be willing to partake in that, to say, ‘yes, we want to be a part of that solution,’ but then you just dump it on them. That's not making them part of the solution.”