Daily Business Report: Monday, December 15, 2025
San Diego’s Homelessness Math Problem Narrows
By Lisa Halverstadt | Voice of San Diego
The past few years, the number of San Diegans becoming homeless for the first time has eclipsed the number moving into homes. New data from the Regional Task Force on Homelessness shows the math problem central to the crisis narrowed significantly over the last year.
From October 2024 through September, the Task Force reported that 13,622 people sought homeless services for the first time and 13,410 moved into housing, meaning the ranks of newly homeless people outpaced the latter by just 212 people.
That’s the equivalent of 10 people accessing services for the first time for every 10 formerly homeless residents who were housed during this period.
How Catholic Charities San Diego Transformed into a $80M Refugee Powerhouse on a Tide of Federal Dollars
By Megan Barth | California Globe
Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego, once a modest diocesan outpost serving the homeless and hungry, ballooned into a near $80 million juggernaut through an avalanche of government grants.
From 2019 to 2023, the organization’s revenue more than sextupled (6x), rocketing from $11.5 million to nearly $80 million—a surge fueled almost entirely by Uncle Sam’s checkbook, paid for by the American taxpayer.
At the epicenter of the surge?
California unemployment agency paid $4.6 million in monthly fees for unused cellphones
By Peter Grant | CalMatters
California’s unemployment agency kept paying cellphone bills for four and a half years without checking whether its workers were actually using the devices.
That’s how it racked up $4.6 million in fees for mobile devices its workers were not using, according to a new state audit detailing wasteful spending at several government agencies.
The Employment Development Department’s excessive cellphone bills date to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it shifted call center employees to remote work and faced pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly unemployed Californians.
