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By Gig Conaughton, County of San Diego Communications Office
October 5, 2022 (San Diego) - The County of San Diego released its Annual Report Tuesday calling on San Diegans to “Connect With Us” to build “a just, sustainable and resilient future.”
The report also listed accomplishments and cited goals ranging from ending homelessness to enhancing communities and correcting climate change.
The County’s Annual Report provides a snapshot of what it has achieved in the past year and outlines goals it looks to accomplish.
County Chief Administrative Officer Helen Robbins-Meyer opened the Annual Report by calling on residents to connect with the County to help build a future that would make all San Diegans proud.
Robbins-Meyer said the County was moving community engagement to the center of its general management system to make it easier than ever for people to be a part of their local government.
“This year we’ll ramp up community engagement more than ever,” Robbins-Meyer said, “from adding a Community Engagement Manager and Community Engagement web hub, to expanding our translation services to eight languages.”
The report included a long list of achievements. Some included strengthening regional firefighting by adding three firefighting helicopters, enacting new gun-safety laws, and spending $20 million on five housing projects to help low-income homeless San Diegans, seniors and veterans. The County also expanded Mobile Crisis Response Teams to help people experiencing mental health issues and worked on an ambitious Regional Decarbonization Framework plan that aims to move the entire region toward zero-carbon emissions.
The Annual Report broke the County’s accomplishments and goals into eight categories: Community Engagement; Enhancing Communities and Keeping them Safe; Equity and Access; Homelessness and Housing; Justice Reform; Mental Health and Substance Use Support; Supporting Families; and Sustainability and Fighting Climate Change.
The County provides services and programs that touch the lives of nearly every person living in the region.
For example, it provides public health services, which took on added importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides law enforcement through the Sheriff’s Department, health and social services, and guides land use in the unincorporated areas. It runs elections regionwide, monitors beach water quality, and operates County parks and 33 public libraries.
Other highlights from the Annual Report include:
- The County’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice implemented its new Budget Equity Assessment Tool that helps County departments prioritize services and allocations with equity in mind. The tool uses a series of questions and public input to better understand how department allocations affect historically marginalized vulnerable communities, those who are low-income, or those that have historically, or currently, suffer from inequality.
- The County completed its new Youth Transition Campus in Kearny Mesa. The campus is designed to be less like a correctional facility and more like a therapeutic, rehabilitative center to provide young people the help and resources they need to succeed.
- The County, health professionals and law enforcement opened One Safe Place, a new family justice center in San Marcos to support survivors of domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, human trafficking and violence.
- The Health and Human Services Agency added a new Live Well Mobile Office, a bus that delivers a wide range of County services into communities.
- The County initiated a two-year pilot program that could give aspiring chefs an economic hand-up by allowing them to turn their homes or apartments into mini-restaurants. Micro Enterprise Home Kitchens, or MEHKOs, can serve up to 30 in-person, take-out or delivery meals a day, up to 60 meals a week.
- The County opened its second and third North County Crisis Stabilization Units in Vista and Oceanside. The units give people who are experiencing mental health episodes a calming place to get help 24 hours a day, seven days a week – rather than being sent to jails or emergency rooms.
- The County made $10 million available to the county’s 18 cities to build shelters and places to stay for people experiencing homelessness. One recent partnership with the Lucky Duck Foundation and City of San Diego created the 150-bed Rosecrans Bridge emergency shelter this summer.
- The County completed fire station upgrades at Palomar Mountain and Sunshine Summit, built a new station on Laguna, and plans to build a new fire station in Jacumba.
- The County became the first coastal county in the nation to start using a rapid, DNA-based ocean-water testing technology that produces faster results and earlier warnings to help beachgoers make informed decisions about when bacteria levels reach unhealthy levels in the ocean.
For more information, go to the County’s Annual Report webpage.
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