The excerpt below was originally published on:
San Diego Has a Housing Crisis, Not an Arena Crisis | Voice of San Diego
By Ricardo Flores
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Earlier this year, Voice of San Diego published an article on the history of the Frontier Housing Project, a once thriving diverse community located in the Midway District.
The article shared the historic truth that just before World War II, the Navy and federal government made plans to build thousands of units in the Midway neighborhood to accommodate the many workers supporting the military and defense contractors and manufacturers. That came out of concerns that they did not have adequate shelter, as many families were homeless and living in squalor, Voice reported.
This rediscovered history shared how Midway once contained one of only two integrated communities in San Diego, as follows:
“… Only two neighborhoods in San Diego allowed and accepted people of color in any significant concentration outside of southeastern San Diego before the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Frontier was one and Linda Vista was the other.”
The Frontier Housing Project would eventually provide low-cost housing for 20,000 residents – Black, Brown and White – with three schools to serve the new community.
But Point Lomans, who had long derided the construction of Frontier Housing requested that the new racially integrated community be “separated by a 10 or 12-acre strip.” Meanwhile city leaders called the community a “worthless slum” and an area with the greatest deterioration. By the 1950s, the city of San Diego had purchased most of the Frontier land and “was actively plotting to eradicate the neighborhood as soon as possible.”
The City told taxpayers that it would resell the property later for a considerable profit. But for the most part, it never did. The city found a developer who built the current Sports Arena and leased it for $1 per year in rent.
Currently, the city of San Diego is using the California Surplus Land Act – which aims to connect developers who are interested in building more affordable homes on surplus local public land that is both available and suitable for housing development – to lease the 48 acres of taxpayer land within the Midway District.
The goal of the CA Surplus Land Act is “to increase the availability of real property in California for affordable housing development by requiring the prioritization of affordable housing when selling or leasing public lands no longer necessary for agency use.”
Public lands should be used for the greatest public good – which in San Diego means housing, housing, and more housing. City leaders have articulated the importance of housing but the real test will be their decision at Midway.
As San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has stated, “Residents who grew up here and want to remain here to raise families of their own. We cannot lose our resolve to house our own children in the face of people who fear change. That’s not how a thriving city works.”
San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera was equally unequivocal on the importance of housing when he wrote in a statement about the city’s eviction moratorium, “Housing is a human right.”
I agree.