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action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home2/speakcit/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114<\/a> By Megan Burks<\/span> In his State of the City address<\/a> Thursday, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced the “Housing Our Heroes” initiative. It calls on landlords to rent to homeless veterans and could be the missing piece of the puzzle, say those working on the problem.<\/p>\n In 2014, San Diego joined two dozen other cities in pledging to end chronic veteran homelessness<\/a>\u00a0by 2016. Now the clock is running down and many of those cities have outpaced San Diego.<\/p>\n Michael McConnell heads the local arm<\/a> of the national initiative, 25 Cities<\/a>. He said there’s enough in rental subsidies to house nearly all of the veterans on San Diego streets, but not enough landlords are willing to rent to them.<\/p>\n “That’s really where we’ve been falling short, due to our tight rental market and the lack of a high-level, coordinated effort to recruit landlords,” said McConnell. “We know from other cities across the country that when you do make the ask, landlords and property managers do step up to help end veteran homelessness.”<\/p>\n Those cities include Salt Lake City and Phoenix, where mayors Ralph Becker and Greg Stanton drummed up support with a friendly competition<\/a> to see which city could end homelessness first. (Salt Lake City won, announcing an end to chronic veteran homelessness in 2013. Phoenix followed in 2014<\/a>. And yes, both cities had significantly fewer homeless veterans than San Diego.)<\/p>\n While McConnell’s group has done some work to recruit landlords \u2014 reaching out at Chargers games with a tailgate party and a flyover banner reading, “Landlords help end veteran homelessness” \u2014 he said leadership on the issue has been lacking until now.<\/p>\n Indeed, the house hunt for any Section 8 tenant in San Diego, let alone veterans, has stretched from about a month to 45 days<\/a> in recent years. And with a decade-long wait<\/a> to become a Section 8 tenant, the need far surpasses the supply.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for the San Diego Housing Commission, which administers the city’s Section 8 program, said there are currently 5,338 property owners who make 14,281 units available to individuals and families with rental vouchers. KPBS found some of those units were infested or in disrepair<\/a>, but tenants stay because they feel they have no other options.<\/p>\n
\nPhoto Credit: The AjA Project<\/span><\/p>\n
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