Well beyond San Diego’s borders, the city is getting a lot of positive attention for one of its homelessness policies: providing outdoor safe sleeping sites for unhoused people. At home, the city is facing a potentially dire situation that isn’t discussed much outside the city limits: More than 700 shelter beds will disappear by the beginning of next year. City Hall has been struggling to figure out how to replace them, in addition to trying to find even more shelter space because there’s already a shortage. There may be insight into what direction the city will take during a City Council hearing scheduled for Sept. 24, when municipal agencies are expected to present options on how to move forward. A backdrop to these developments is growing tension between Mayor Todd Gloria, who has authority over the Homeless Strategies and Solutions Department, and the council, which oversees the San Diego Housing Commission. The commission also carries out homeless policies. San Diego’s two safe sleeping campsites for hundreds of people at Balboa Park have drawn notice from other cities. During a recent visit, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan came away impressed and saw the concept as a partial solution for his city to try to move about 1,000 people out of encampments along waterways. Mahan has proposed nine smaller sleeping sites for San Jose. Mahan has been spreading the word about San Diego’s authorized homeless campgrounds in the Northern California media and more recently on a popular public affairs program in Los Angeles. “In San Diego, they’ve been quite successful in getting people out of very unsafe, unmanaged encampments along freeways, in neighborhoods and into a managed site that has security, sanitation and case management,” Mahan told Elex Michaelson, host of “The Issue Is” on Fox 11 in Los Angeles. “That stability allows people to engage in drug treatment, in job training and reconnecting with family.” Not everyone in San Diego is enamored with safe sleeping sites as part of a temporary solution. One of them is Coleen Cusack, an attorney and homeless advocate who is running against City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn in the central San Diego District 3, which includes Balboa Park. “To pass this off as anything other than hiding homeless individuals away is disingenuous,” Cusack told San Francisco-based KRON. Beyond some well-reported problems with mold and pests at the sites, there are far-reaching questions about whether they’re more economical than other modes of shelter and if enough people are moving out of them into permanent housing — which is the ultimate goal in homeless policy. Gloria, Mahan and others stress that the tent sites are not a permanent solution. But the San Jose mayor said cities need to “triage the situation” of growing homelessness until more actual housing can be obtained, which takes a long time. Gloria is planning on expanding outdoor safe sleeping sites. The Housing Commission staff has put out a request for property owners interested in leasing or selling their property for shelters, and a handful of buildings have been identified. It’s important to note that the safe sleeping sites are only one component of San Diego’s shelter system, which includes brick and mortar facilities, large barracks-like tents and safe parking lots where people can sleep in their cars. It’s just a coincidence, but the San Diego approach of a couple of large shelter sites and San Jose’s proposal for many smaller ones mirrors an ongoing debate at City Hall. The Gloria administration is focused on two potentially large operations: a 1,000-bed shelter at an empty warehouse at Kettner Boulevard and Vine Street near the east end of San Diego International Airport, and a parking site and possibly tent structures for several hundred people at the old Navy H Barracks site near the west end of the airport. Some council members instead are advocating many more, smaller shelters in locations spread throughout the city and, perhaps politically significant, in all nine council districts. How any of this would be funded is not clear. Large or small, shelter proposals almost always run into staunch opposition from nearby communities and businesses. A lawsuit was recently filed to block the shelter at H Barracks, according to Blake Nelson of The San Diego Union-Tribune. It probably comes as no surprise that two branches of government that have different ideas on sheltering homeless people — and have separate authority over agencies that deal with the problem — have a heightened potential for conflict. On homelessness and other matters, some council members have been seeking more authority vis-à-vis Gloria. Council President Sean Elo-Rivera in particular has been outspoken on this. With that context, it might seem odd that Elo-Rivera proposed giving the mayor more emergency powers over homelessness. But that appears largely targeted at getting past bureaucratic hurdles to expedite permits and other things needed to get shelters and homelessness services in place more quickly. Action on that proposal was postponed last week. Gloria has pushed most of his chips toward the Kettner and Vine plan, but council concerns over the length, cost and scope of the lease have grown. Even if Kettner and Vine does get the green light, it likely won’t be ready when current temporary shelters with hundreds of beds close, so other options are needed. “We need these beds,” Gloria said in an interview last month about the warehouse proposal. “We have a willing property owner with a great location. I think the council should support a final deal… That said, obviously there’s a risk that it doesn’t happen. “That’s plan A. I’ve got plans B through Z. I think the challenges with B through Z are some of those locations may be of more concern for folks.” The preferences of Gloria and the council members must emerge soon, and they’ll need to set a course shortly thereafter. It’s tough to find locations for a dozen shelter beds, let alone hundreds. If the city replaces those 700-plus beds in time there will be a big sigh of relief. Maybe it will be viewed as a considerable achievement in some quarters. But the reality is dodging that bullet will keep the city where it is right now on homelessness — hanging on by its fingernails. What they said Geraldo Rivera on NewsNation. “(Trump) wouldn’t have even made the debate team at a junior high.”