Can Cities Ease Homelessness With Storage Units?

Back in the fall of 2009, some three-dozen San Diegans were taking in a Sunday church service when they lost everything. These people were homeless, so while they enjoyed food and worship inside the church, they parked their belongings outside. That's where agents from the city's Environmental Services Department rounded up these possessions—heirlooms, clothing, sleeping bags, medication—and then crushed them in the back of a garbage truck.

A class-action lawsuit followed, and as a result, the city agreed to provide funding for a better answer to the complaints that follow the homeless wherever they go. Borrowing a page from Los Angeles, San Diego launched its Transitional Storage Center, a secure facility where the homeless can store their possessions as they go about their days.