Homeless SLO County residents still told to ‘move along’ during shelter-at-home order
As most San Luis Obispo County residents stay home to slow the spread of coronavirus, that’s not an option for the hundreds who can’t afford permanent shelter and are also among the most at risk.
Homeless residents often have existing health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus that causes COVID-19, and some lack access to basic sanitary services — a problem made worse when the shelter-at-home order closed the gyms where many people access sinks and showers.
Maintaining social distancing is nearly impossible at regional shelters. Still, staff and volunteers regularly check clients for symptoms and encourage hand-washing to prevent spread.
Outside shelters, people are able to maintain distance by sleeping in tents, cars or motor homes. But even under the shelter-at-home order, they’re facing an extra challenge: being cited and fined for parking violations or regularly being told to “move along.”
That means poor people trying to abide by the order have the added expense of either parking citations or buying gas to keep moving between locations.
The county designated two safes lot for overnight parking and showers, but the program hasn’t yet grown to meet demand and inaccessible to residents in other areas of the county.
SLO couple living in motor home ‘just want to survive’
“I don’t want to get sick,” said Christina Malmen, who lives in a motor home with her significant other, Jason Coleman, in San Luis Obispo.
They’ve been together 30 years. He’s from Brooklyn, she’s from Guam. They met in the middle at a nightclub in San Luis Obispo.
Malmen and Colemen worked in food service until they were in a serious automobile accident that left them injured and unable to afford rent.
Right now, life feels pretty normal, they said. They’re focused on self-quarantine, taking vitamins, eating healthy and staying as clean as possible, but “doing laundry is hard,” Malmen said.
The pair parks their mobile home around Broad Street at night, then wake up at 5 a.m. to move to public parking at Laguna Lake for the day. The parking problem, Coleman said, is “really bad. Even during the virus the cops say ‘You still can’t park here.’”
“We don’t want any problems. We just want to survive,” Coleman told The Tribune.
A few days before San Luis Obispo County’s shelter-at-home ordinance went into effect, Coleman said, several car campers were issued citations of $100 each.
San Luis Obispo police officers have since been directed to not issue citations for illegal camping or sleeping in cars, and to instead give a warning or ask people to move along, police Lt. John Bledsoe told The Tribune.
“We don’t want them to think we’re tolerant,” he said. “We’ll ask them to move along, usually to any public place. After hours, we get complaints when people are sleeping in parks. We’ll ask them to move along.”
When asked to where those people should move along to, Bledsoe said he didn’t have an answer.
“We understand they’re in a predicament don’t have a place to go. They don’t have funding or availability to go anywhere else,” he said, adding, that the police department is trying to show “more understanding and more compassion with the current situation.”
Coleman and Malmen said police tell them to go to the outskirts of town, where they’re then contacted by deputies with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office.
SLO County provides safe parking during virus crisis
The Tribune asked county emergency services director Wade Horton if law enforcement officers countywide could be directed to stop issuing citations during the shelter-in-home order.
“I did talk to city managers last night,” Horton said Wednesday. “We are looking at reducing level of ticketing in their respective cities.”
In addition, the county is looking to identify more locations for safe parking sites, where multiple cars and motor homes could park and people could have access to showers and bathrooms.
Two locations are now open to safe parking.
The parking lot of the Los Osos Library is open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., providing 15 camping spots for people to sleep over night, and includes access to bathrooms and hot showers.
Beginning March 27, Coastal Dunes RV Park & Campground is also open 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. for safe parking, and includes access to bathrooms and hot showers.
“The parking lots will be used in this capacity nightly thereafter, until further notice,” says the county website, ReadySLO.org.
“The county is piloting safe parking throughout the county to help homeless people or families in need of access to safe and clean places to park and sleep,” Horton said.
San Luis Obispo County’s program is a fraction of the size of what’s offered in Santa Barbara County, where more than 100 spaces have been available for years.
In 2014, the city of San Luis Obispo also piloted a safe parking program, but it never grew.
On Tuesday, Michael Levesque and his dog, Gracy, slept in a makeshift tent on a sidewalk along Madonna Road. They huddled below a tarp stretched across grocery carts to shelter from the rain.
Levesque became homeless after he was kicked out of his rental property in Cambria after his landlord died, he told The Tribune.
His ex-girlfriend told him about the public health emergency caused by coronavirus. He said it hasn’t affected him that much; He stays to himself anyway to “keep out of trouble.”
The only thing he said he wanted is to “get a roof over our heads.”
“I’m just waiting for a check right now to get a hotel for a few days,” he said. “Get some rest, get us out of this, get a shower.”
This story was updated March 30 to add a second location available for safe parking.
This story was originally published March 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
