Flooding forces hundreds out of a homeless shelter near downtown San Diego. Again.

Hundreds of people were again forced to flee a homeless shelter near downtown San Diego as floodwaters rushed through the front door this week, leaving many residents with few belongings and the city facing unexpected cleaning costs.

Officials evacuated Alpha Project’s Bridge Shelter, a massive gray tent near 16th Street and Newton Avenue on the edge of Barrio Logan, early New Year’s Day. About 325 men and women are now sleeping in the Municipal Gym in Balboa Park.

It’s at least the third time that shelter has flooded.

“We all lost a lot of stuff,” said Dante Broughton, a 23-year-old evacuee standing outside the tent on Friday afternoon.

More than 2 inches of rain fell on San Diego County on New Year’s, breaking local records and causing multiple water rescues. The shelter, which also had to be evacuated in 2018 and 2024, was one of the first casualties.

Rain began pooling inside around sunrise, according to Bob McElroy, Alpha Project’s CEO. The water rose to at least 2 feet near the bunk beds, he said. Outside, it reached chest high. People had to leave so quickly that clothes, bedding and other belongings were left behind, and many items are now likely ruined.

“Not a great start to the new year,” McElroy said.

More rain is expected in the coming days, and McElroy added that residents were especially in need of socks, underwear and warmer clothes.

The tent has long been considered a stopgap, since that property is slated to one day become a housing project. Regardless, the loss of the facility, even if it’s temporary, is a blow to San Diego’s strained shelter system, which has nowhere near enough beds for everybody asking.

Some of the damage remained visible Friday. Near the shelter’s entrance, seven portable toilets could be seen lying on their sides. Pizza boxes spilled out of an overturned trash bin. A half-dozen empty wheelchairs, their armrests smeared with dirt and grass, dried out in the sun. On the ground nearby was a single purple toothbrush.

No one appears to have been seriously injured.

A few miles away, a small crowd of exhausted-looking people sat outside the Balboa Park gym. A side door stood open, revealing row after row of cots. Some had sheets. Others did not.

A woman in a gray sweatshirt patrolled the area. “If you need pillows, we will provide them,” she shouted, before ushering people inside to distribute more bedding.

At one point, she told shelter residents who were outside that they were not allowed to talk to a Union-Tribune reporter. Reached by phone shortly afterward, McElroy, the CEO, said there was no such rule and that anyone sleeping in the gym had permission to speak with the media.

It’s not clear how long the facility will remain unusable. After the January 2024 flood, people were displaced for more than three months, while fixing and sanitizing the structure cost the city an estimated $788,000.

“The City is assessing the Newton site to determine necessary repairs,” spokesperson José Ysea wrote in an email Friday.

Other homelessness programs do not appear to have been similarly affected. Although one of San Diego’s designated camping areas was previously flooded during heavy rain, a spokesperson said neither of the city’s safe sleeping sites were evacuated this time.