Frequently
asked
questions

We See You San Diego is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization made up of individuals and families from every corner of San Diego & beyond uniting for a common purpose to see lives transformed among those living on the streets of San Diego. Our mission is to serve our neighbors experiencing homelessness in order to restore dignity & identity; to see people break free from addiction, homelessness, and life on the street.

We See You partners with local and national companies, businesses, organizations, recovery & treatment centers who are committed to offering long-term solutions to those living on the streets. We See You is proud to have a diverse, multi-generational team of people who represent over 25 churches of different denominations and backgrounds in addition to those who don’t have a personal faith tradition.

We are so grateful to our faithful team of families and individuals who come to serve from Ramona, Escondido, Rancho Bernardo, Poway, Alpine, Carlsbad, Solana Beach, Del Mar, Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, Bay Park, Clairemont, Sera Mesa, Mission Valley, Spring Valley, Lemon Grove, La Mesa, Chula Vista, Linda Vista, Mission Valley, & Downtown San Diego.

To serve our neighbors experiencing homelessness in order to restore dignity & identity; to see people break free from addiction, homelessness, and life on the street.

Hope for ALL

Hospitality at the Highest Level

Hand up vs Hand outs

Healing & Wholeness

We offer our guests the very best we have to give which means we always serve a home-cooked dinner; one that we would eat at home. The atmosphere is set by our incredibly fun & talented We See You House Band which is made up of professional musicians who serve by giving our dinner guests a weekly concert of hits from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and today.

We See You’s guests are treated as VIPs to our signature restaurant-style dinner & beverage service, personal hygiene supply bags handcrafted for each guest based on his or her requests, a gourmet coffee bar experience, dessert cart indulgence, and each guest receives personal shopping assistance for his or her clothing needs. Individuals’ birthdays are celebrated each week and the party always ends with raffle prizes.

Weekly dinner parties are hosted in the parking lot of King’s Cross Church, located at 4747 Soledad Mountain Road, San Diego, CA 92109.

Since June of 2017, weekly dinner parties have taken place every single Tuesday evening. We have never missed a Tuesday and don’t plan to!

We See You’s dinner party is open to anyone in need. Our main demographic however are men, women, including veterans, who live in the Riverbed of central San Diego. We serve people who are chained to severe drug addictions, those with criminal backgrounds, many of whom have not transitioned well back into society and thus have lost hope.

Others in our community of guests are those who live in local recovery centers, section 8 housing, bridge housing, safe-parking, & families living in shelters. All are welcome to come enjoy our Tuesday evening dinner party.

We believe that homelessness is in part, an identity problem; people don’t believe they are worthy of a better life. So every week we pour a sense of value into our guests. We want them to know that they are worthy of a second chance, that their hopes and dreams still matter, that their worst mistakes don’t define them, and we are here to help.

At our Tuesday dinner parties, relationships are formed, trust is built and over time the wall that naturally exists between “us and them” comes down.

Every week we extend the invitation to our guests to leave the streets and addiction behind. We offer boutique services based on an individual’s needs. We go over a range of recovery, treatment, & detox programs in San Diego (and beyond) for our guests to consider. If someone is interested in going to a treatment center that has a monthly fee, we offer sponsorships so that cost is not something that stands in the way of a person getting the help they need.

Most people think that the way to solve homelessness is by providing a person with a place to live. We believe that lavish dinner parties, boutique customer service experiences, and relationships are the starting point of helping people leave drug addiction and the streets behind.

Our plan for reducing the number of people living on the streets in San Diego is to get to know those whose drug addictions are keeping them on the streets, offer recovery & treatment based pathways off the streets that meet the individualized needs of those we are helping.

We also believe community is vital for people leaving addiction & homelessness. One of the many reasons people remain on the streets is because of the attachments and the community they have on the streets. We are committed to supporting and walking alongside individuals while they are in treatment and assist them in the process of getting back into society once the program is completed. Those friends are then welcome to come be a part of our team and encouraged to use their story of victory to give hope to others who are still on the streets.

Roughly 85%

When we first began serving dinner to those living on the streets of San Diego in 2017, the main ‘drug of choice’ was methamphetamine. Today the number one drug we see people chained to is fentanyl.

Over the years we have hosted many memorial services for those whose lives have been lost to fentanyl. We also see many people battling heroin, opioid, meth, and alcohol addictions.

$1,000/ party on average

June 2017 - today

How many people would accept life-altering help from a person they did not know and did not trust? Our solution to homelessness is a relationship-based model. We host a dinner party to create an environment where relationships can be cultivated so we can then be the friend who extends a hand to offer hope and help.

Over the years we have listened to many stories of those living on the streets. Many are stories of abuse that began in childhood. Other common themes are exploitation, abandonment, rejection, trauma, generational addiction, and tragedy. Drugs are in many cases used to numb the pain of the life people have lived.

We See You’s goal is to interrupt the cycle of homelessness, not enable it. For this reason we offer men and women a path off of the street every single week. We have multiple recovery & treatment program partners, two that will even accept guests the very evening they decide that they are ready to leave drugs and the streets.

The majority of the demographic that we serve would not qualify for this program. Based on our experience, men and women who are living in tents, using drugs, digging through trash cans for their next meal, stealing, and committing other crimes would benefit from recovery & treatment programs for 6 - 12 months and then sober living prior to housing.

We See You partners with in patient treatment & recovery centers such as Green Oak Ranch, East County Transitional Living Center, Restoration Ranch in Ramona, In His Steps, Veterans Village, San Diego Rescue Mission, The LA Dream Center, Teen Challenge, and many more depending on an individual’s specific needs.

$300/ day for an average of 10 days if someone is detoxing from fentanyl or alcohol.

Please see this page for further info on this.

When We See You sponsors a person’s treatment & recovery program, our team is committed to being present for the individual along the way. In addition to financial sponsorships (when applicable), We See You provides care packages, in-person visits, phone calls, letters, and more for those we walk alongside. Having a support system is a vital aspect of recovery and We See You is intentional about being a consistent presence as a person walks into their new life of sobriety.

Because of the relationships that are built with men and women prior to entering treatment and during their time in recovery, We See You is there to assist in providing ‘next steps’ for those transitioning out of treatment. We offer sober living options, assistance looking for jobs, acquiring necessary legal documents, community support, and the opportunity to join our team and use their story of transformation to help encourage others that a different future is possible for them as well.