SLO property owner tries to evict homeless residents from Prado Road site. ‘It’s dangerous’
A man who has owned a property in San Luis Obispo since the mid-2000s says that people have been illegally trespassing, and he wants them gone — but it’s a complicated case.
Bill Sievers, 70, owns 2.2 acres next to the 40 Prado Homeless Services Center that covers multiple addresses, including 46, 48 and 50 Prado Road.
Sievers, who collects recycled materials with the goal of repurposing them, said he has allowed unsheltered people on his property who are hoping to “improve their lives and have goals” for their futures.
In recent months and years, however, an increasing number of unwelcome squatters occupy the property, he said.
“I want everyone gone eventually, but there are two factions here, and one of the factions is preventing people from ripping off some of my things,” Sievers said. “There are some who are thieves and liars and drug addicts, and some who are trying to pull their lives together.”
An estimated 15 people live on site — which is cluttered with piles of used bikes, old appliances, car and machine parts, as well as recreational vehicles and two housing units; an estimated 30 unhoused people come and go during the week, according to the owner and his friends, who are helping him try to evict all of the people on site.
Sievers said he has been supportive of those who are trying to better their lives, but wants the group causing problems gone.
A resident who is currently living in a home owned by Sievers on the property said that he too feels the situation is dangerous.
“We’ve heard guns fired around here,” said Jay Calkins, a renter who has lived there since 2001. “There are people screaming, people with schizophrenia, and I called the police one night because there were several shots fired back here.”
Another tenant in the same home, Scott Sherwood, said he’s been living on the property since 1993.
“Should I pay to be in an insane asylum?” Sherwood said. “There are people here shooting guns. It’s dangerous.”
Prado property strewn with junk, hoarded materials
On Friday, Sievers and a group of friends visited the site, speaking with some of the unhoused people there and handing out notices.
“Written consent is needed to be on this campus from (the owner),” the notice read. “If you don’t have that, you can be charged and arrested for trespassing ... vehicles/trailers and other transport devices can be towed without further notice as the signs communicate.”
The property is strewn with junk to the point where a trail of sorts weaves through the heaps of discarded items just so people can walk through to get to their RVs and places of dwelling.
Sievers has been cited for city code violations for property maintenance (he admits he brought on most of the junk on site) and habitation issues.
Even some of Sievers’ own tenants, like Calkins, acknowledged that the property has been overrun.
“The landlord’s got a problem with junk,” Calkins said. “He just collects junk ... and it makes the situation more dangerous around here.”
The nonprofit homeless advocacy group Hope’s Village of SLO is working with Sievers to raise the money to clear out the hoarded materials. Joshua Maez, owner of The Maez Junk Removal & Hauling company, was in attendance on Friday as well to perform a cost assessment of the site.
Sievers said his original goal — going back years — was to work on recycled products at the property and sell them or improve them for reuse.
And years ago, he allowed unsheltered people to come on his property to help. But now, Sievers said he’s older and tired and not able to keep up with the management of the site like he used to.
One of the residents on site argued that he should be able to stay because of work he has done to improve the property and protect Sievers from theft.
Sievers, who lives on a different property across town, said he just wants to get his Prado property back.
“I need assistance to put that property into a better state of existence,” he said.
‘A fluid and very complicated situation’
Sievers said he has unsuccessfully tried to go through a court process to remove unpermitted people living on his site after hiring a nonprofit law firm locally.
“I don’t have any money for a private lawyer,” Sievers said. “I’m broke.”
According to San Luis Obispo City Attorney Christine Dietrick, a property owner wishing to evict someone who has established occupancy on the property would have to “seek private, civil legal advice to evaluate the nature and legality of the residence on the property.”
That lawyer could help determine whether the occupancy is a simple trespass, which could be handled by the police, or if the property owner needed to get a removal order from the court, she added.
“(It’s) obviously a fluid and very complicated situation with a number of human variables that don’t lend themselves to easy answers, which will no doubt require coordinated civil and criminal intervention to address, both on the property owner and city fronts,” Dietrick wrote in an email to The Tribune regarding the property.
Additionally, Community Development Director Michael Codron said the site has been issued code violations for property maintenance and habitation issues, including people living in unpermitted structures.
“Our first step is to work with the property owner and gain cooperation and facilitate the steps to gain compliance,” Codron said. “If it’s outside the scope and resources of what a property owner can accomplish, that’s where we can engage in others ways.”
Codron said that the city is still reviewing some of the possibilities for the property, but that an active code violation case is pending.
This story was originally published March 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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