By Macy Meinhardt, California Local News Fellow
Grappling a $258 million budgetary deficit, Mayor Todd Gloria vowed in his fifth annual State of the City address to squeeze every penny in the next year in order to protect core services including homelessness, roads, housing development, and public safety.
Maintaining core functions “with a quarter billion dollar budget deficit will be an immense challenge,” the mayor said, demanding “responsible stewardship of every dollar and clear eyed decisions about our priorities.”
The backdrop of this year’s state of the city signified this approach. Gloria traded the flashy Balboa Theatre production he has used in previous years for a bare bones address held in city council chambers.
State of Our Budget
During the address, Gloria, who secured 55% of the vote for a second term, poised himself as a mayor set to fix the faults left by previous administrations, particularly focusing on resolving the looming structural deficit.
In previous years, the city has used American Recovery Act funds and other one time expenditures in order to stay afloat. That can no longer happen anymore, the mayor asserts.
“We must acknowledge a fundamental truth that we can no longer do things in a certain way simply because it’s how they’ve always been done. The task ahead of us is to right our city’s budget, not just for this year, but for the long term,” said Gloria.
The failure of Measure E on the November ballot was a huge blow to the city’s plans for addressing the structural deficit; meaning expenses are fastly outpacing revenue.
Measure E, a half cent sales tax, would have brought up to $400 million annually for the city to fund services including public safety, emergency response and neighborhood and park services.
Gloria cautioned residents and city departments to prepare for “deep cuts” in the near future. Additionally, residents could expect to see fees on trash services in the coming year as well as an increase in parking rates as the city tries to increase revenue.
State of Homelessness
The state of homelessness is another critical concern as roughly 11,000 San Diegans live on the street, with 64% of them directly in the city, according to data from The Regional Task Force of Homelessness .
Last year, San Diego allocated $43 million to address homelessness, the city’s largest investment on the issue.
Throughout the last four years the city assisted over 25,000 people through programs and secured permanent housing for 4,700 residents. The mayor also touted the success of the unsafe camping ban, which has reduced the downtown homeless population by nearly half.
But Gloria sent a strong message to county leaders that this is not a burden the city should be carrying alone.
“My fellow San Diegans, it is my hope that, anytime you see a person on the street suffering from extreme mental illness or addiction, you think of the County of San Diego and ask them: When will they step up to provide the services needed to end this crisis?”
The mayor pointed to how closely intertwined mental health and addiction are to homelessness. Serving as the regional Health & Human Services Agency, behavioral health, mental health, and substance abuse treatment should be services the county provides–not the city.
State of Our Infrastructure & Housing
Exacerbating San Diego’s financial dilemma is the approximate $6 billion backlog in structural improvements needed; including stormwater upgrades, road repairs, sidewalks, parks, libraries, fire stations and police facilities.
Devastation caused by the January 2024 floods in underserved communities brought urgent calls to revamp the city’s aging stormwater system. Since the flooding event, the city has cleared out up to 18 miles of stormwater channels in flood prone areas.
Road repair is also a top infrastructure priority for the mayor, despite tight financial constraints. In 2024, the city repaved 538 miles of roadway, a record for San Diego.
Regarding the state of housing, Gloria highlighted efforts to increase affordable housing production, including policy reforms he initiated that boosted annual permits to nearly 10,000 in 2023 and 8,500 in 2024.
Plans for 2025 will include a focus on starter homes to promote first-time homeownership and generational wealth, he stated.
State of The People
The flip slide of Gloria’s expedited housing goals is the impact it is having on underresourced communities in which these projects are being proposed, residents say.
In the past few months, residents of Southeastern and city leaders have been embroiled in controversy over a discriminatory housing code, known as footnote 7, that gave way for large density housing projects in the neighborhoods of Encanto and Emerald Hills.
Another issue emerging in Encanto centers around several proposed ADU projects slated for the community, with residents arguing the neighborhood lacks the infrastructure, amenities, and quality to safely support them.
“We are not a dumping ground for the mayor,” said Encanto resident Yolanda O’Donnell.
Despite arriving over an hour early, many citizens from southeastern communities were denied entrance to the event. While the event was streamed online and residents watched from the overflow room, the optics of Mayor Gloria addressing a room primarily composed of city employees raised concerns about inclusivity and equitable access into the event.
“We just wanted the mayor to see us. We’re encouraged to come down to share our voice, to let these things become aware, and then to just be ignored, it is disheartening,” said Lisa Becerra with Neighbors for Encanto, a newly mobilized community group to raise awareness against ADU projects in their area.
“He likes to say he is for the people but he is screwing the people who live here,” said Encanto resident Saige Gonzalez, who is associated with the group.
