Grover Beach declares homeless shelter crisis

Grover Beach — which has long struggled with one of the largest and most visible homeless populations in the South County — has declared a homeless shelter crisis in the city, though the move was mostly symbolic because city officials didn’t follow up by designating a municipal building to use as an emergency shelter.

The Grover Beach City Council unanimously voted Monday to declare the shelter crisis, ignoring a staff recommendation not to take that step.

“I probably thought, as most everyone did, that we would go with the staff recommendation,” Mayor John Shoals said Tuesday of the decision. “But once we got to the meeting, there were some really persuasive speakers who said some really interesting things about that population and about their needs, which made me vote the way I did. It was really the process in action.”

There were at least 158 homeless individuals living in Grover Beach in January 2015, according to the Homeless Services Oversight Council’s Homeless Point-In-Time Census and Survey, which is conducted every two years and measures how many homeless individuals are in San Luis Obispo County on a given day. Of those 158 people in Grover Beach, 140 were “unsheltered” or living on the street, in abandoned buildings, encampments and in vehicles. Grover Beach had the highest number of homeless individuals of the incorporated cities in the South County.

Exacerbating the problem is a lack of permanent and temporary shelter options in the South County.

There are no permanent homeless shelters in the South County; the nearest are in San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria. Several temporary overnight warming shelters open across the county during inclement weather, such as the storms that came through the area over the weekend. Those temporary warming centers include the El Camino Homeless Organization shelter in Atascadero, Paso Cares in Paso Robles and the Prado Day Center in San Luis Obispo, among others.

This year, the Five Cities area has a warming shelter operated by the 5 Cities Homeless Coalition at the county Department of Social Services office at 1086 E. Grand Ave. in Arroyo Grande. That center services homeless individuals in Grover Beach, as well, with a designated bus pickup and dropoff from the Amtrak train station on Grand Avenue.

Declaring a shelter crisis essentially makes it easier to use government-owned property — in this case, facilities owned by the city of Grover Beach — as emergency shelters in the event of rain or cold weather. Grover Beach has only two properties that would qualify, interim City Manager Jim Copsey told the council Monday night: Ramona Garden Park Center and the Community Center on Trouville Avenue. Both of those properties are being used and are often rented out for other activities.

Because there are no open facilities the city could use, and because funding and staffing would be needed to operate a shelter if a facility were found, Copsey and city staff recommended against declaring a shelter crisis.

However, the council decided to declare a crisis to demonstrate a good-faith effort in working with Grover Beach’s highly visible homeless population to try to find solutions, Shoals said.

“I think this really shows that we want to be proactive here,” Shoals said. “Should we get in a situation where a place opens up, and a facility could be used, this speeds up the process. It also shows that the council is compassionate about this issue and this population.”

The council also directed staff to look into what city buildings could be used in the future as overnight warming shelters, and decided against a “sunset clause” that would terminate the crisis after a set period of time. (The county Board of Supervisors declared a crisis for unincorporated areas of the county on Feb. 2, to end April 15.)

“What this does is it allows us and the staff to have that portion of the process already completed,” Copsey said Tuesday following the decision. “It just makes it easier in the future to bring options back to the board and get them quickly passed through. It doesn’t do a lot at this one moment.”

The move pleased local homeless advocates, who have long been lobbying the city to provide more aid to its homeless residents.

“I think it’s a great start that I’m hoping will facilitate further discussions around housing and much-needed services as the crisis in Grover is growing,” said SLO Housing Connection volunteer Dee Torres.

Torres has been closely involved in helping find living situations for the homeless individuals who were evicted from a Grover Beach train station encampment in January, and who have since been living at a Pismo Beach campground.

Grover Beach’s decision follows recommendations from the Homeless Services Oversight Council, an advisory panel to the county, and the Board of Supervisors to set aside money for warming centers and shelters. The Board of Supervisors declared a crisis Feb. 2, with Morro Bay and Paso Robles following suit on Feb. 9 and Feb. 17, respectively.

Arroyo Grande, however, voted Feb. 23 to not declare a shelter crisis, citing that it didn’t have the open facilities to make such a declaration feasible, and adding that it already operates a warming center through the 5 Cities Homeless Coalition.

This story was originally published March 8, 2016 at 8:39 PM with the headline "Grover Beach declares homeless shelter crisis."