San Diego

The Coalition for the Homeless presented the City Council with a petition Tuesday urging that buildings in the old Navy Hospital complex in Balboa Park be used as a temporary shelter for the homeless.

Interrupting a council meeting to present the 5,000-signature petition to City Clerk Charles Abdelnour, the group said the city, with an estimated 850 beds for the homeless, does not have nearly enough space for the estimated 3,000 people who live on the streets downtown.

City officials said the use of the buildings is legally impossible because a public vote supporting the swap of land in Florida Canyon for the old hospital site off Park Boulevard prohibits any other use of the structures. The council voted in 1987 to demolish those buildings in the complex. The Navy used the Florida Canyon land to build a new hospital.

The Regional Task Force on the Homeless is also against the proposal, said Frank Landerville, the task force’s project director.

But Norma Rossi, a spokeswoman for the homeless coalition, said the council must take more action to help those without shelter.

“I am still trying to get them to maybe reconsider, or come up with another viable solution,” she said. “Something has to be done, and it has to be done now.”