On Sunday morning a group of Marines from the Twentynine Palms base in Southern California came down to San Diego to serve breakfast to homeless veterans and other residents at the St. Vincent de Paul Village in the city's downtown area.

The Marines were in San Diego to attend the Padres-Cubs later that afternoon where they would take part in a Memorial Day salute, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Herschel Fagan, who served four years in the Army before serving another four as a Marine, is one of the 900 residents taking refuge at the shelter. Out of the 900 living in the shelter, 167 are veterans.

"I think it'll boost the morale of a lot of the former military guys to see these Marines," Fagan told the Times. "And it's good for the active-duty guys too. It's good for them to see that some of the things they've heard about the homeless are not true. We're not all alcoholics, drug-users, irresponsible."

St. Vincent de Paul serves as transitional housing for the city's homeless or individuals who are at risk of being homeless. Addiction treatment, healthcare, job training and education and parenting courses are also offered at the facility.

The Department of Veterans Affairs found that San Diego has almost 1,500 homeless veterans, which makes up roughly 17 percent of the city's homeless population. In 2012, there were 15 percent more homeless veterans living in city.

Transitional housing funds have gotten a boost from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has been helpful to the decline of the city's homeless rate. The VA has also helped by improving its outreach program

Veterans Village of San Diego, a nonprofit group that sponsors the annual "Stand Down" event that instructs homeless veterans how to gain access to their military benefits while also receiving a variety of other services, has worked hard to reduce San Diego's homeless population.

However, city officials said they fear that the city's homeless veteran rate could bounce back up as a result of military downsizing while the national economy is in recovery. San Diego already has one of the highest homeless veteran rates in the nation, according to the Times.