PHOENIX _ The Human Services Campus, tucked along an arm of the Southern Pacific railway near downtown's warehouse district, seems dreary and unapproachable in name only.
The biggest shelter and assessment tool for homeless in Arizona, a $24 million public-private life raft for those adrift amid a snarl of mental illness, substance abuse and economic wreckage, steadfastly refuses to follow a yellowed, failing script.
It's welcoming. There's new paint and signs of painstaking upkeep. Walls anchor stately portraits linked to the success stories of a chef, a nurse and a man named Clarence _ jailed at 16, a crack addict for two decades, who now works inside the fences that equipped him for his escape from the streets.
In a makeshift park in the middle of the 13-acre facility, a woman curls up with a book while another strums a guitar. A colorful basketball court, partly born from the support of late boxing legend Muhammad Ali and dedicated as Italian opera star Andrea Bocelli belted out "Ave Maria," sits just to the east.
Quietly and thoughtfully, Peter Seidler scanned it all.
The managing partner of the Padres and founder of the investment firm Seidler Equity Partners eyeballed a kind, common-sense world with an on-site dentist, job training service, I.D. processing office and even a "homeless court" manned by city judges who mop up misdemeanor offenses.
The scene furnished a visual roadmap to Seidler, along with proof of what's possible when a societal problem tests human decency and threatens to choke a system. All that warmth and life-altering will, sprinkled among some discarded cigarette butts, within the distance of a healthy throw on a baseball field.
"I've banned, in my conversations anyway, calling this a complex or overwhelming problem," Seidler said. "It's a big problem, but the scientists at research institutions trying to break the genomic code, that's a complex problem. This just has a lot of components to it. It takes diligence and focus and execution."
Seidler scanned the campus and considered his home of San Diego, where the number of unsheltered has skyrocketed 58 percent in the last decade and includes a burgeoning sidewalk encampment just blocks east of Petco Park.
Things tugging at Seidler's time _ a blur of baseball, business and a young family _ leave few chances to tackle anything else. But in a place where homeless deaths have more than doubled since 2014, standing idly on the sidelines seems unfathomable.
Some will assign motives, saying the 56-year-old simply wants to clean up the Padres neighborhood under the convenient cloak of noble purpose. They don't know, though, about the midnight walks and conversations so routine with homeless that he addresses a late-night clerk at a local 7-11 by name.
They don't know about the weekly, under-the-radar, no-excuses-to-miss meeting he scheduled on his calendar into eternity to harness the brains and get-it-done brawn of regional power brokers.
They don't know, well, Seidler. And with due respect, he isn't all that interested in what anyone thinks _ as long as a new push births meaningful results. He's informed. He's engaged. He's unintimidated and undeterred.
Most importantly, he's not going away.
"I really doubt that anybody who takes a careful look at this will think I'm doing it for selfish reasons," Seidler said. "And I could(n't) care less if that's the case. The homeless situation in San Diego has gotten to the point where we're behind other cities.
"We're finding people, 'I've always wanted to help, but nobody's asked.' People want to jump in. We've pivoted to, now is the time to act. I get more optimistic with every day."
