Diamond Seeds
There's a silver strand of DNA in San Diego that nobody talks about. Diamond seeds scattered across the county. Incredible people who become champions of their crowd. The kinds of people who you meet and think, "They're awesome. I want them to win. I want to help them win." They garner human capital. They get paid to solve hard problems. They deliver results within their domains, and people jump at the chance to work with them. There's a lot of them. Maybe you know some of them. Maybe you are one of them.
Unfortunately, most don't know each other. Seeds in isolated pots. This story is about those magnanimous few, who live in San Diego, and what it's like for them to live in a society where... integrity, finesse, and mastery is no longer visible by the low-trust eyes we all have.
Also I'm going to tell you how the government here works.
ACT I: When It Worked
For a while, individual excellence was enough.
2021: The Mid-Coast Trolley extension opens. Eleven stops connecting UTC to downtown, $2.17 billion, nine years in the making. The SANDAG analyst who pushed it through navigated federal grants, local politics, and jurisdictional turf wars. People said it couldn't be done. He delivered anyway.
Same year: A county behavioral health director expands mental health capacity during budget crises. Sacramento raids local coffers, other counties cut beds. She protects them. Reorganizes billing codes, redirects Medi-Cal reimbursements, finds money in budget lines nobody else knew existed. Psychiatric beds stay open. Lives saved through spreadsheet mastery.
2022: A city planning director rezones neighborhoods for mixed-use development. Unlocks thousands of housing units despite NIMBY opposition. Shows up to seventy-three community meetings. Learns every objection. Addresses every concern that can be addressed, ignores every concern that's really about something else. The Planning Commission votes 6-1. Construction starts six months later.
This was the sacred belief in action: if you're excellent at what you do, you can navigate any system and deliver results.
The diamond seeds delivered. Projects got built. Services expanded. Politicians took credit. The system seemed to work.
But here's what nobody noticed: every win happened in isolation. The trolley analyst didn't coordinate with county health. The health director didn't loop in city planning. The planning director didn't integrate with SANDAG's transit access.
Each operated perfectly within their lane. None of them knew the others existed.
The problems they couldn't solve alone just... stayed unsolved.
ACT II: When the Math Stopped Working
The visible homeless population doubles between 2015 and 2024. Everyone has a plan. None of them connect.
The county's behavioral health director maps what's needed: 1,200 mental health beds across six facilities. Acute psychiatric care, residential treatment, transitional housing with wraparound services. Capital costs, operating budget, all calculated. Medi-Cal reimbursements cover most of it. State Behavioral Health grants cover more. The gap is manageable.
The city's housing planner knows exactly where those facilities should go. Three sites already zoned correctly. Three more needing variances the Planning Commission would approve. He's negotiated with neighborhoods, secured community support through legitimate engagement, not performative bullshit. Eighteen months from groundbreaking to occupancy if they move now.
The SANDAG analyst knows how to finance the whole thing. Federal Affordable Housing grants. Dollars from Sacramento. TransNet allocations for supportive housing near transit. The funding matrix is straightforward if you know where to look.
Three people. Eighteen months. 1,200 beds. The numbers work.
They don't know each other.
The county director can't call the city without admitting the county failed to coordinate earlier. If she shares the plan and the city takes credit, her supervisor gets blamed for not leading. If she commits county resources first, the city might redirect state housing grants elsewhere.
The city planner can't call SANDAG without exposing that city zoning created this problem. If he shares site locations and SANDAG funds facilities the city should have approved years ago, the Mayor loses political leverage. If he commits to zoning changes and the county doesn't fund operations, he owns vacant buildings and a council that blames him for wasting money.
The SANDAG analyst can't call either without revealing SANDAG knows the regional housing numbers are fiction. If he allocates TransNet dollars and either jurisdiction fails to execute, he's wasted regional funds. If they succeed and build something that works, every city council member will demand identical deals for their districts.
Classic prisoner's dilemma. If all three coordinate, they solve this. But if one defects—takes credit, redirects resources, backs different politicians—the others get screwed.
So they work alone.
The county expands mental health capacity by 80 beds using 100% county-controlled money. The city gets 240 supportive housing units approved using pure city funds and state grants that don't require coordination. SANDAG allocates TransNet to transit projects with zero housing integration.
Total regional capacity: 320 units. They needed 1,200.
The visible homeless population keeps growing.
The mayor blames the county. The county blames the state. SANDAG blames both. The Regional Task Force on Homelessness—a nonprofit with no operational power—gets eviscerated in the media for "failing to coordinate."
Everyone's responsible. So nobody is.
Six weeks later, SANDAG sends meeting invitations for a Regional Homelessness Solutions Summit. Required attendance for all department heads with housing or health authority.
The county health director accepts. The city housing planner accepts. The SANDAG analyst who sent the invite already knows they'll all be there.
He's been trying to set this up for two years.
ACT III: The Meeting
Conference Room 4B, SANDAG headquarters, Tuesday 2:00 PM.
Seventeen people around the table. County, city, state reps, nonprofits, consultants. The SANDAG analyst at the head with a 47-slide deck titled "Coordinated Regional Response Framework."
The county health director sits across from the city housing planner. They've never been introduced. They're three feet apart.
Slide 12: Proposed facility locations. The city planner recognizes two of the sites—they're the ones he already zoned. The county director recognizes the service model—it's what she's been trying to fund for three years. The SANDAG analyst watches both of them lean forward slightly.
Someone from the state interjects: "This is great, but have we confirmed these sites are actually available?"
The city planner opens his mouth. Closes it. If he says yes, he's committing the city before the Mayor signs off. If the county doesn't fund operations, he owns vacant buildings and a council that blames him for wasting money.
The county director's phone buzzes. Her supervisor texts: "Don't commit county $ to anything without board approval." The board meets in six weeks. By then the state grants will be allocated elsewhere.
The SANDAG analyst sees both of them check their phones. He knows what the texts say without reading them. He's done this seventeen times before.
Slide 15: Proposed timeline. Slide 16: Funding matrix. Slide 17: Governance structure requiring sign-off from all three jurisdictions before any action.
The city planner asks: "Who's the lead agency?"
Everyone looks at everyone else. Silence.
The consultant hired to facilitate says: "Well, that's exactly why we're here today—to establish clear roles and responsibilities so we can move forward together."
An hour later the meeting ends with agreement to form a working group. The working group will meet monthly. They'll develop a memorandum of understanding. Target date for finalized MOU: nine months. Everyone thanks everyone for their time and commitment to regional collaboration.
The county health director and the city housing planner ride the same elevator down. Neither speaks. They both know the other was three feet away from solving this.
The SANDAG analyst watches from his office window. The health director heads north to the county building. The planner heads south to City Hall.
He updates the spreadsheet. Meeting #48. Outcome: working group formation. Estimated implementation: never.
He knows their emails. He knows their cell numbers. He could loop them both in right now. Three people. Eighteen months. 1,200 beds.
But his boss needs wins the Board can take credit for. The county needs wins the Supervisors can take credit for. The city needs wins the Mayor can campaign on. A three-way project that works means nobody gets sole credit.
Which means politically, it's the same as failure.
The homeless count will come out in six weeks. The number will be higher. The mayor will hold a press conference announcing new initiatives. The board will approve more funding for county programs. SANDAG will allocate TransNet to supportive housing near transit.
All separate. All defensible. All insufficient.
He closes his laptop. On his desk sits a photo of his daughter's soccer team. Eleven kids who somehow figured out how to pass to each other.
He wonders what they know that seventeen government professionals don't.