Paso Robles has a plan to move homeless from Salinas Riverbed into housing
Paso Robles took a first step toward securing more than $12 million in state grant money aimed at moving homeless individuals living in the Salinas Riverbed into housing.
On Wednesday, the City Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution authorizing the community services director to submit an Encampment Resolution Fund grant request for $12 million of the $93 million included in the ERF’s fifth round.
City homeless services manager Ashlee Hernandez said if approved, the grant would be used to create a Housing Navigation Center at the El Camino Homeless Organization’s 1134 Black Oak Drive campus. The center would provide centralized outreach, housing navigation, case management, benefits enrollment, behavioral health coordination and interim housing resources to support individuals transitioning from unsheltered homelessness to permanent housing.
Hernandez said the grant would reinforce the city’s four-step housing continuum, in which ECHO and city social services workers engage with every individual in the riverbed, enroll them in the Coordinated Entry System through ECHO’s 90-day beds, place them into housing through systems like Homekey or HASLO’s vouchers, and eventually close the riverbed entirely with the help of the Paso Robles Police Department, monitoring the area to prevent reestablishment of encampments.
She said the city hopes to have offered housing navigation services to a minimum of 75 people in the riverbed by December 2029.
ECHO CEO Wendy Lewis said the grant would enable her organization to add a prefabricated housing navigation center to the Paso Robles shelter’s courtyard, offering enhanced programming, indoor meals and a commercial kitchen.
“We are literally out of every bit of space,” Lewis said. “If you’ve come out for a tour, you can see that every space is utilized, but we know there’s more to do, especially targeting this particular encampment and bringing solutions to encampments in the Salinas Riverbed.”
Paso Robles hopes to use grant to bolster housing pipeline
Since 2021, the Encampment Resolution Fund has allocated roughly $900 million to cities looking to resolve long-standing encampments, with the peak funding of $300 million coming in the 2022-23 fiscal year.
Locally, the city of San Luis Obispo is the only municipality to receive an ERF grant so far, receiving $13.4 million in 2023 to fund the creation of the Welcome Home Village, which opened earlier this month.
Paso Robles is requesting between $12 million and 14 million to tackle long-term homelessness in the Salinas Riverbed, all of which would need to be fully expended by the 2029 fiscal year, according to the staff report.
The application has the backing of the Housing Authority of San Luis Obispo, ECHO, Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol, San Luis Obispo County and Paso Robles’ own Community Action Team, which will help the application’s overall score compared to competing jurisdictions, Hernandez said.
The grant’s target area — which lies in a Caltrans right-of-way near the intersection of Highways 101 and 46 — will also boost the application’s chances, as 50% of the fifth round of ERF grants are set aside for encampments in state right-of-ways, Hernandez said.
While a share of the grant would back ECHO’s outreach efforts and prefabricated expansion, around 70% of the grant would go to HASLO, which would use the money to support new permanent supportive housing in Paso Robles, HASLO executive director Michelle Pedigo said.
The funding would support housing vouchers for individuals exiting from HASLO’s existing Homekey units at ECHO into more permanent situations including but not limited to Moose Apartments, a complex with 4,000 square feet of commercial space and 26 residential units in two buildings at 2548 Spring St. that’s been in the works for several years.
Pedigo said some Homekey residents can struggle to make the jump from the “middle ground” into market housing, which can cause a bottleneck in the pipeline.
“The intent is for residents who are currently living successfully at Paso Homekey and who have demonstrated housing stability for a year or more to transition into the Moose Apartments,” Pedigo said. "By creating that next step in the housing continuum, we free up units at Paso Homekey for individuals who are currently unsheltered, including those transitioning from the riverbed.”
Grant window closes this month
While the grant has the backing of a wide range of homeless service providers, that doesn’t guarantee the city’s request will be accepted after the application window closes on June 30.
Several community members who have donated their time to ECHO and other homeless response efforts in the riverbed said the funding would be a boon to the programs that homeless individuals interact with most often.
During public comment, Linda Stewart, a volunteer with ECHO’s meal program, said adding a kitchen to the campus would go a long way toward boosting the number of people who can get free meals.
As is, meal prep teams at ECHO have to “get creative” to meet the demand, wrapping warm food in towels and insulated bags and using a limited number of outlets to prepare the meals, Stewart said.
“It’s really hard to find volunteers who want to come out and serve meals when it’s 108 degrees outside, so having that dining room and having that indoor kitchen and the additional meeting space would really mean a lot to the volunteers who come out 365 days a year to serve dinner,” Stewart said. “Dinner by ECHO is not just about food. It’s about providing a safe and welcoming environment.”
Another resident who previously stayed at ECHO for two years with her son said the funding would go to an "amazing program” that put a roof over her head.
She now volunteers at ECHO in her free time, preparing meals for others going through the shelter’s programs.
“We got into the 90-day program, worked hard, got the job that I’m still at today, and I got into housing,” she said. "With the housing and everything, it’s been amazing — I’ve been in my own place for two years already, and I’m grateful and thankful for that.”
