El Cajon to fund street medical team, National City shelter

By Gary Warth

June 9, 2026

El Cajon will introduce a medical outreach team for homeless people and provide funding for an existing shelter under agreements approved by the City Council on June 9.

As part of the two-year contracts authorized by the council, Family Health Centers of San Diego will receive $500,000 for outreach services and the San Diego Rescue Mission will receive $210,262 for the South County Lighthouse, a navigation center and 162-bed shelter in National City.

“I think the great thing about this program is that this is the first time a health provider has been part of the social service outreach,” Councilmember Steve Goble said. “So suddenly when they come across people out in the field, they have the whole health system behind them to address underlying conditions. And I think that’s a game-changer in this particular instance.”

Council members unanimously approved the allocation with little discussion after a presentation from Housing Manager Jose Dorado.

The nonprofit Family Health Centers of San Diego operates more than 90 sites throughout the county, and last year its Mobile Street Medical Team treated 600 new patients and had more than 3,000 encounters with unsheltered homeless people.

Those encounters included several in Lemon Grove during an Encampment Resolution Fund project that was coordinated by RTFH and housed more than 30 people who had been living alongside a street.

The San Diego Rescue Mission has been looking for a shelter site in El Cajon but so far has not found a location. Instead, outreach teams in the city will send people to the South County Lighthouse under the new agreement.

The new El Cajon contracts will be funded by the city’s Permanent Local Housing Allocation received from the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

The City Council adopted a resolution in September to allocate the funds, and in February the city issued a Notice of Funding Availability to seek applications for the money.

An ad-hoc committee that included Council Members Michelle Metschel and Phil

Ortiz evaluated the applications and recommended the Rescue Mission and Family Health Centers of San Diego.

The contracts will go into effect July 1 and will run for two years.