A Conversation with Emily Tianshi

Recently, I had the chance to speak with Emily Tianshi, who interned with San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s office over the summer. Emily is going to be attending Stanford University in the fall. Her job at the mayor office involves answering emails and calls, which puts her in direct contact with the homeless, or with people calling about the homeless situations around San Diego. 

Our conversation gave me more insight into the homelessness systems and services San Diego is implementing than any article that may be floating around the depths of the internet. Mainly, I learned that the difficulty in creating new policy regarding homelessness was the idea that the unhoused cannot be immune to the law. Homelessness in itself is not a crime, but other, more specific things such as trespassing are. 

There have been many efforts to combat homelessness in the city. The city of San Diego partners with various nonprofits to create a month-long outreach program over the summer of 2021. They provided emotional support and physically sheltered hundreds of people with this service. The city will be initiating part 2 of this program this month, called “Safe Haven Shelters.” This is an attempt to reach those struggling with addiction, providing not only shelter, but also doctors, therapists, and emotional support in general. There will also be a system implemented that allows an individual to show up intoxicated, which will reach many more in need of support.

The city is also working on creating sheltering solutions for those with particular needs. For example, one woman who had been the victim of domestic abuse was not comfortable living in a conventional shelter with others. She was moved into an individual hotel room in order to make her feel more comfortable while getting back on her feet.  The city is working on making single-person housing such as this more widespread.

There seems to be major reason for this sudden action in combating homelessness is Hafsa Kaka, the new Director of Homelessness Strategies and Solutions in San Diego. She is working on prioritizing addiction as a major factor in the homelessness issue. There is so much exciting progress being made, and all of us as a city are very interested in seeing what’s next on this road to crushing homelessness!