San Diego opened its first Safe Sleeping site at 20th and B streets, providing 136 tent spaces on city property for people experiencing homelessness.
The managed outdoor program offered restrooms, meals, security, storage and connections to services. A second and larger site later opened at the O Lot in Balboa Park with room for as many as 400 tents.
The sites became a central part of the city's homelessness strategy and a point of continuing debate over shelter standards, neighborhood impacts and whether interim placements lead to permanent housing.