Del Mar Times |

Montgomery Steppe sworn in as supervisor; county OKs new aid for migrants, homelessness

Monica Montgomery Steppe officially became San Diego County’s newest supervisor Tuesday and immediately joined her four colleagues in voting on key policies during their last meeting of the year — including a contentious debate on funding for migrant services.

With her hand placed on a Bible held by her husband, Montgomery Steppe was sworn in as the county’s first Black woman supervisor by her father-in-law, longtime civic leader Cecil H. Steppe.

Noting the county’s struggles with homelessness, housing affordability, equity and other issues, Montgomery Steppe said “we cannot interpret these challenges as obstacles only. They’re opportunities to affect meaningful change.”

Montgomery Steppe is the first Black person elected supervisor in San Diego County in over four decades, since Leon Williams became the first in 1982. On Tuesday, in front of crowds that packed both board chambers and an overflow room, she said she stands on his and countless others’ shoulders.

“But there’s a long road ahead of us in challenging the status quo,” she said. “Together, we will write a new chapter that celebrates inclusivity and embraces diversity, a chapter for improving the services and quality of life for the millions of people who live in our county.”

Soon after, the board took up a slew of controversial proposals, including one to spend another $3 million to support asylum-seeking migrants arriving in the county and another to spend $8 million to support a program to house unsheltered people being treated for substance-use disorder. Funding for both would come from the “evergreen” portion of the county’s remaining federal pandemic relief funds.

Supervisors voted 4-1 to allocate more of those funds to local nonprofits providing resources to migrants arriving in the county after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and being processed by Border Patrol. The board approved $3 million in funding for them in October.

The federal agency has released nearly 46,000 asylum seekers into the region since mid-September, the vast majority of whom need only temporary help before leaving San Diego for other parts of the U.S., according to the county.

SBCS, a nonprofit formerly known as South Bay Community Services, was placed in charge of the migrant funding in October and has since used the money to relocate a temporary migrant welcome center from the parking lot of the Iris Transit Station in Otay Mesa to a new, undisclosed location in central San Diego.

But other local aid groups — including Al Otro Lado, Immigrant Defenders Law Center and others — have raised concerns over how the money has been spent, outlining them in a letter sent to supervisors Monday.

Many of those nonprofits’ leaders spoke Tuesday in opposition to spending more on migrant services without more transparency and accountability for SBCS.

Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder and executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, was one of them. “We have raised concerns about the negligence of wasting public funds on an ill-conceived and ill-equipped welcome center while people die in open-air detention sites,” she said.

“The county’s investment must support a human-centered, sustainable solution which adds to the capacity of the existing welcoming infrastructure that our community of advocates and grassroots organizations have built, which has been held up nationally as a model,” added Kate Clark, senior director of immigration services for Jewish Family Service of San Diego, which operates San Diego Rapid Response Network Migrant Shelter Services.

SBCS spokesperson Margie Newman Tsay said the nonprofits’ criticisms are unfounded.

“It’s sad that a handful of groups have been so vocal about their mistrust of SBCS. None of it has any basis, there are no proof points of anything,” Newman Tsay told The San Diego Union-Tribune ahead of Tuesday’s meeting. “They’re just really disgruntled, and half have never even been to the (welcome center) site.”

The county’s acting chief administrative officer, Helen Robbins-Meyer, defended SBCS’ integrity and transparency Tuesday. “I talk to SBCS multiple times a day, and I get regular reports of exactly what’s happening, how many migrants are being dropped off … how much we spent that day. We’re making collective decisions.”

She also said that more nonprofits can be involved if they pass security checks and adhere to an ethics agreement.

The nonprofit groups called for greater spending transparency as well as for some of the new funds to go toward humanitarian aid at open-air camps along the border, where migrants wait to be picked up by Border Patrol and taken to processing facilities after crossing the border.

Migrants wait at the camps for hours, sometimes days. Aid groups have called the camps inhumane, since Border Patrol doesn’t provide food or shelter but detains migrants who try to leave.

Supervisors ultimately chose to allocate funds without changing the parameters.

But they also reiterated their calls for more state and federal support.

Board Chair Nora Vargas said a lack of sufficient federal funding was helping to cause the frustration and unnecessary tension between aid groups. And Supervisor Jim Desmond, who cast the lone no vote, argued the federal government, not the county, should pay for it. “How long is this going to continue until we draw the line?” he asked.

“We are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” added Montgomery Steppe. “But this is something that’s going to meet us at our front door regardless, so I’m supportive of the item.”

The $3 million approved in October was intended to last through the end of the year, and the new funding is expected to last through March.

The board also voted unanimously to allocate $8 million from the same pot of federal relief funds to house more than 900 people living on local streets while being treated for substance use disorder.

Supervisors voted unanimously last month to create a pilot program to find housing for people enrolled in county-funded outpatient treatment, focusing initially on North County. The money approved Tuesday will fund housing through the program for up to two years, said Desmond, who authored the motion.

He argued that if the county could reallocate pandemic funding to migrant services, it should do the same for homeless people.

“Homelessness is the most pressing issue in our county, and we need to take action today to house these vulnerable members of our community — particularly those who are already volunteering to be in recovery programs,” he said.

A total of $77.6 million was left in the evergreen fund as of Tuesday, according to the county. The money must be spent by the end of 2026.

Supervisors also rejected a proposal that would have barred people charged with certain crimes from participating in a county program that offers immigrants facing deportation free legal defense.

Supervisor Joel Anderson proposed the changes after a September report found that of the nearly 800 migrants it served in its first 15 months, 34 migrants — or 5 percent — faced deportation at least in part because of criminal charges of some kind.

Both he and Desmond had voted against creating the program last year. The board declined to consider Anderson’s new proposal in October.