Jewish Family Service is featured in this list of volunteer opportunities in San Diego. Volunteer opportunities range from delivering meals, keeping older adults company, helping refugees feel at home, and supporting youth and families. If you have a couple hours during the week, we invite you to find an opportunity that speaks to you.

Eleven women will serve on the city of San Diego’s newly revived Commission on the Status of Women, a panel focused on helping women overcome inequities and barriers to success. Two panel members have a Jewish Family Service of San Diego connection. U.S. Rep. Susan Davis, a Kensington resident, served in the U.S. Congress from 2003 to 2021 and the state Assembly from 1994 to 2000 and is currently a member of the Jewish Family Service Board of Directors. Dana Toppel is Jewish Family Service’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) and serves on the California Commission on Aging.

The City of San Diego is hoping to ease the burden of homeless individuals living in their cars. The safe parking lot in Mission Valley operated by Jewish Family Service is now open 24 hours.

“It’s a godsend,” says resident Thomas Cummings. “If it wasn’t for this program, I don’t know where we’d be. The city council approved the expansion of the safe parking program. It is expected to run until at least June 2023.

Homelessness continues to be a growing issue in San Diego following the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mayor Gloria’s efforts to combat the problem have included the designation of large parking lots across San Diego for those living in their cars to park overnight. Today, the Jewish Family Service lot in Mission Valley extended their hours to be open 24/7.

Mayor Todd Gloria marked the expansion of one of the city’s “Safe Parking” lots to 24 hours a day Tuesday as part of his continued efforts to address homelessness and break down barriers standing in the way of unsheltered San Diegans accessing services. Jewish Family Service of San Diego operates three “Safe Parking” lots under contract with the City of San Diego.

California has become the epicenter of the movement. The Los Angeles program, funded primarily by the city, benefits 3,200 people who have at least one child, as well as an annual income below the federal poverty level. Several cities have moved ahead with efforts using private money: Oakland pledged to give 600 low-income families $500 for 18 months, and in San Diego, some families with young children will get $500 a month for two years.

Unlike the more widely known universal basic income proposal, the guaranteed income program being tested here offers no-strings-attached cash transfers to families based on trust. Households can spend the money on whatever they want rather than abide by strict and often invasive rules. “Guaranteed income programs are happening now and they’re fast and helping people in need … by filling in gaps with existing social safety net programs,” said Chris Olsen, chief of staff at Jewish Family Service. “The one doesn’t negate the need for the other.”

U.S. Senator Alex Padilla visited the San Diego border region Wednesday to learn how the federal government can support the humanitarian efforts of local advocates. During a meeting with members of the San Diego Rapid Response Network, advocates asked Padilla to help them restore the asylum system, stop the militarization of the border, expand access to Friendship Park and adopt a more welcoming approach to new migrants. “The border is much more than a headline, it’s people’s lives that are impacted every single day on both sides of the border,” said Kate Clark, director of immigrant services at Jewish Family Service.

Immigrant rights advocates met with Democratic Senator Alex Padilla at the San Diego Rapid Response Network Migrant Shelter Services operated by Jewish Family Service of San Diego on Wednesday to give him a sense of what’s happening on the ground at the U.S.-Mexico border.
They’re applauding the end of the so-called Remain in Mexico policy, but say migrants are still in danger because they’re not being processed fast enough.

In this Visual Storytelling feature, we meet Omer Khan who narrowly fled Afghanistan as the Taliban took over one year ago. Now he’s creating a new body of work in San Diego, but can’t shake the images from his home. Jewish Family Service helped him find an apartment and access services.

San Diego’s first guaranteed income program is a few months in, and it is already making a difference in many lives. One hundred and fifty families are receiving $500 a month with no strings attached. The families chosen for the guaranteed income program come from four specific neighborhoods: Encanto, Paradise Hills, San Ysidro and National City. All the families have a child under the age of 12 in the home. San Diego’s guaranteed income project began distributing payments in March and is being administered by the local non-profit, Jewish Family Service.

A Salvadoran mother was separated from her children at the border earlier this year in a case that legal advocates say illustrates the way border policies continue to cause trauma under the Biden administration. Lucy, who is not being fully identified because of family members still in danger, said that a Border Patrol agent attacked her when she was apprehended in the Imperial Valley desert. But the agent instead claimed she had assaulted him, and he pushed for a felony prosecution. Because she was being charged with a crime, she was separated from her children. Though the prosecutor later dropped the charges against her, it was too late for Lucy and her family — they had already been split apart.

One to three people per day are being removed from Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP which required asylum seekers to wait in Tijuana for their U.S. immigration court cases. The MPP enrollees cross the border and end up at the San Diego Rapid Response Network Migrant Shelter operated by Jewish Family Service of San Diego, where they are tested for COVID-19 before getting help traveling to their final destinations around the country.

Each year, thousands of migrants cross the border to Mexico each year in hopes of crossing. The U.S. courts have maintained the majority of Trump’s intensified border policies since March 2020. Contrary to Biden’s campaign promises, little has changed since his inauguration in January 2021, and some anti-immigration programs have been expanded under his watch. And despite a June 30 ruling by the Supreme Court in favor of reversing one of these policies forcing migrants awaiting asylum hearings to stay in Mexico, the White House’s ongoing implementation of others means the court’s decision is, for the time being, little more than symbolic. Border towns like Matamoros, Reynosa, and Ciudad Juárez — which are overrun by ubiquitous and particularly ruthless gangs — can be perilous places for anyone, let alone those who have fled their homelands carrying little more than a backpack. This is particularly true for pregnant women.

The San Diego City Council last week unanimously agreed to fund 24-hour operations at an 86-space parking lot in Mission Valley operated by Jewish Family Service for homeless people living in vehicles. San Diego City Council members heard highlights of a two-year study on the three lots conducted by UC San Diego’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Stacey Livingstone, a UC San Diego doctoral candidate in sociology who worked on the study, told council members that 180 people were interviewed in the study, and it was resoundingly clear that a 24-hour safe parking lot was desired.

Migrants apprehended by Border Patrol are much more likely to be children than they were roughly a decade ago. In late 2018, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing the increasing arrival of families, stopped assisting with travel plans for families released from immigration custody after being apprehended. That change led to the establishment of the San Diego Rapid Response Migrant Shelter on the San Diego side of the border.Kate Clark, senior director of immigration services with Jewish Family Service, a nonprofit that runs the shelter, said the fact that so many of the border arrivals are children should push the federal government to move away from detaining asylum seekers while they’re processed.

In her latest opinion piece for The San Diego Union-Tribune Community Voices Project, Dana Toppel, Chief Operating Officer for Jewish Family Service, addresses true essence of being American as we approach July 4th. She writes, “To be an American is to recognize that our differences, not our similarities, make us strong and beautiful.”

San Diego leaders will vote on expanding a safe parking program for unsheltered residents to stay in. NBC 7’s Audra Stafford shares more in this video.

“I have seen firsthand how impactful the Safe Parking Program is in addressing the needs of our unsheltered individuals and families, and I am proud that one of these lots is in Mission Valley, District 7,” said City Councilman Raul Campillo. “Expansion of this program to 24 hours a day, seven days a week will allow San Diegans living out of their cars to have greater access to a safe environment with essential resources.”
Since the program began in 2018, it has served nearly 2,200 households — 650 of which have been connected directly from the program to permanent housing, shelter or family reunification.

The San Diego City Council Monday voted to continue the city’s Safe Parking Program through June 2023 and expand hours of housing, shelter and services for San Diegans experiencing homelessness at a Mission Valley parking lot to 24 hours a day.

The program, operated under contract by Jewish Family Service of San Diego, includes the Mission Valley site and two additional locations in Kearny Mesa. The two latter lots are open from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day. Mayor Todd Gloria proposed the council approve around $1.43 million to continue the program through June 30, 2023, with $440,000 going toward extending hours at the Mission Valley site.

The San Diego City Council Monday voted to continue the city’s Safe Parking Program through June 2023 and expand hours of housing, shelter and services for San Diegans experiencing homelessness at a Mission Valley parking lot to 24 hours a day. The program, operated under contract by Jewish Family Service of San Diego, includes the Mission Valley site and two additional locations in Kearny Mesa.

For San Diegans experiencing homelessness, Mayor Todd Gloria announced Friday he has identified the necessary funding to extend access at one of the city’s “safe parking” lots to 24 hours a day. “This is yet another example of the city taking steps to lower barriers so that more people experiencing homelessness come off the streets,” Gloria said. “Creating 24-hour access to safe parking will help folks whose work and family schedules aren’t well-aligned with the current hours of operation, enabling them to not only park in a safe place but also access supportive services and get on a path to housing.”

The city’s Safe Parking Program, operated under contract by Jewish Family Service of San Diego, includes three facilities — two in Kearny Mesa and one in Mission Valley. Currently, the lots are open from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily.

The Encinitas City Council on Wednesday unanimously granted a three-year extension of the Safe Parking Program at the city’s Community and Senior Center. The program, a homeless parking lot operated by Jewish Family Service (JFS), will run through June 30, 2025, at its current location along Oakcrest Park Drive.
The Safe Parking Program allows qualified persons to stay overnight in the designated area without being removed or ticketed by law enforcement. Individuals in the program are vetted and must agree to strict rules and guidelines to remain in the program, such as rules prohibiting the use of drugs or alcohol while staying in the lot.

Most people who park in the lot have jobs and are homeless for the first time. Mayor Catherine Blakespear tweeted saying, she’s “proud” of the support from the council for this program, adding it’s helped 154 people in two plus years. Residents I spoke with say this is a positive step in the right direction. The Safe Parking Program will continue through June of 2025.