County code enforcement officers inspect Sunny Acres sober-living facility outside SLO
San Luis Obispo County code enforcement officers and sheriff’s deputies entered the Sunny Acres sober-living facility property Wednesday morning armed with a civil inspection warrant to investigate alleged health and safety violations.
Property owner Dan DeVaul is out of town and had asked for a two-week extension on June 9 after the county warned May 25 it would obtain the warrant if DeVaul did not allow officers on the property June 17.
According to a letter from the county to DeVaul, a preliminary county investigation revealed people on the property are suspected to be living in unpermitted structures, as well as conducting unpermitted dumping and grading activity near wetlands and Laguna Lake.
It appears the county found multiple offenses Wednesday.
A misty cloud cover blanketed the sprawling 72-acre ranch off of Los Osos Valley Road as about 10 marked and unmarked sheriff’s and county vehicles arrived a few minutes before 8:30 a.m. on the southern end of the property that houses the barn and office buildings, which block a junk yard filled with antique vehicles from the view of the nearby road.
Residents of Sunny Acres went about their work chopping wood and toiling on other tasks as more than 15 armed deputies and code enforcement officers, as well as civilian representatives from the Planning and Building Department and the Regional Water Quality Control Board, traversed the property on foot, checking the dozens of RVs, trailers and structures for compliance.
Jon Ansolabehere, chief deputy county counsel, told a reporter while walking the property Wednesday morning that officials would take an inventory of all noted violations and be in contact with DeVaul and ranch management about what the county prioritized as in need of immediate action.
Several unarmed people in civilian clothes holding clipboards declined to identify themselves to a Tribune photographer as they stood atop a recent grading site just beyond the junk yard and near the wetlands on the eastern edge of the property.
On the northern side of the property that houses several residential buildings, an office and the sober living center’s main courtyard, officials also walked through about a dozen tiny home structures.
Asked if they had found any violations or unpermitted structures, Ansolabehere looked around and said simply, “Yes.”
“It’s pretty obvious,” he told a reporter, pointing toward the tiny homes. “None of this stuff is permitted.”
Conditions are worse than in 2013, county says
Sunny Acres provides sober housing and other services to dozens of low-income clients with barriers to success such as homelessness and sexual offender requirements.
Residents who take advantage of the services pay fees, and many perform work on the property.
The ranch has had a contentious history with its neighbors, county code enforcement and various state agencies over its operation.
In a letter to DeVaul, county supervising code enforcement officer Jill Coomer wrote in a May 25 letter that under the terms of the 2013 agreement, DeVaul is prohibited from allowing people to live in unpermitted structures, sheds and RVs, and must keep the property free from land-use, building, and health and safety violations.
He is also required to maintain the stucco barn on the property in an agriculture-exempt condition, and is limited from increasing the amount of storage on the property.
Coomer wrote that despite the construction of the sober-living facility’s main residential building in 2015, Sunny Acres still cannot be certified by the state due to poor water quality. The facility has been unable to obtain the necessary permits from county Environmental Health.
She noted that the county has received additional complaints about storage being trucked onto the property and dirt dumped in excess of the allowable 2,000 cubic yards.
The enforcement action comes eight years after DeVaul and the county entered into a stipulated agreement at the end of a lengthy San Luis Obispo Superior Court civil case in 2013 requiring that the nonprofit comply with various regulations to continue its operation.
Coomer told DeVaul that it appears conditions on the property have worsened, not improved, since that agreement.
Program director makes plea to board of supervisors
Johnny Rodriguez, program director of Sunny Acres, spoke during the public comment period of Tuesday’s county Board of Supervisors meeting, informing the board and public of the upcoming inspection.
He said that at the property, they help people “who have no other means of support.”
“They would otherwise be in the streets, under the bridges, in the creeks, in the parks or in jail,” Rodriguez said. “We want to make the public aware that this therapeutic safe haven is in jeopardy, and that 48 people, many of them elderly, infirmed, mentally ill, and in various stages of recovery could be out on the streets.”
Rodriguez noted that there’s “no history of violence or chaos” at Sunny Acres, so it was “mind-boggling” to the residents why they could be on the streets “soon.”
He recounted his own arrival at the ranch six years ago, when he was a “broken, sick, addicted man with very little hope” in his life.
“I was able to rebuild myself with the help of Sunny Acres and Dan DeVaul,” he told the board. “I now stand before you as the face of Sunny Acres and the director of a very special and unique kind of program ... which is in desperate need of your help.”
Enforcement causes unease for Sunny Acres residents
Sitting in the courtyard on the property’s residential side after county officers had left Wednesday, David Dieter, Sunny Acres’ construction manager, said that the commotion has made the 48 residents currently on the property uneasy.
Though the sight of armed deputies and probation officers on the property are nothing new given its resident population, Dieter said many do not understand why armed officers were walking the property Wednesday or the lengthy history between the county and Sunny Acres.
Many fear the county action will result in them being shuffled off the property with nowhere to go, threatening the routines that support their sobriety, he said.
“They’ve put a lot of sweat equity into this place,” Dieter said. “This is burdensome for them, and that’s what’s troubling for me.”
Dieter, 59, has lived on site for six years after a lifetime of alcoholism drove him to seek a new start at the only place that was an option for him, he said.
He and Rodriguez met while taking advantage of the nonprofit’s services, and have taken over supervision of the residential operations as DeVaul has gotten older.
He showed a Tribune reporter all the various construction improvements the residents have made over the past four years, including to the main residential building and a new bathroom and shower facility.
However, Dieter admitted that he lives illegally in a trailer on the property.
“Without Dan, we wouldn’t be here today. We wouldn’t have all this,” Dieter said. “I know there are things we need to work on over here.”
But he said the benefits to the community that Sunny Acres provides in housing a population that’s at a high-risk for addiction and running afoul of the law is immeasurable, and he said he hopes that any problems can be worked out.
“For me, this is a peer-ruled, peer-run program. We’re giving you a place to do work on yourself,” he said. “It’s not for everybody, but for the people who take advantage of it, it’s wonderful.”
DeVaul could not immediately be reached Wednesday. He said Monday he’s followed to the best of his ability the terms of the legal settlement and invested in consultants to ensure the facility is in compliance with its various projects.
“If I have to readjust what I’m doing, I’m willing to do that,” he said Monday.
