SLO County’s new ‘safe parking’ lot is a start. But would you want to live there?

San Luis Obispo County has finally added a safe parking program to its list of homeless services. That gives people living out of their cars, RVs and vans another place where they can legally spend the night.

That’s the good news.

Unfortunately, the chosen location — a barren lot at the county compound on Kansas Avenue where the Sheriff’s Office, the County Jail and Animal Services are located — is far from ideal.

At a meeting of the county Board of Supervisors last month, speakers described it as “in the middle of nowhere,” “very unattractive,” “dusty,” and “an excuse rather than a solution.” One speaker compared staying there to being a caged monkey in a zoo, and several predicted no one would use the facility.

Still, when Tribune reporter Lindsey Holden visited the site in late August, she found around a dozen vehicles parked there, including a large red bus that’s home to a couple with five children. The family had been moving from site to site; the Kansas Avenue lot provides them with some stability.

In other words, for some people, a dusty lot in an out-of-the-way location is better than nothing — and that’s something.

But homeless people and their advocates fear that, with the program now up and running, the county will force everyone living out of their cars to move to the Kansas Avenue site, even if it’s far away from their home communities.

Palisades Avenue

That’s especially worrisome to people who have been parking on Palisades Avenue in Los Osos; several of them spoke to the Board of Supervisors at its Aug. 10 meeting to oppose any forced move. So did some local residents who have been volunteering to help them.

“We don’t want to be homeless,” one woman said. “We need the community’s helping hand to be unhomeless.”

Eric Greening — a government observer who has earned the nickname “the sixth supervisor” — suggested a way to judge whether a site is adequate: “Spend some time there. Take a good look at it in all kinds of weather and ask yourself, ‘Would you like to live there?’”

Forcing people to leave their communities is wrong, especially in the middle of a pandemic when people are struggling enough as it is.

The best short-term solution is for the county — or a nonprofit agency — to open a safe parking lot in the Los Osos area, ideally near shops and services.

The same goes for other parts of the county.

The Board of Supervisors has authorized opening up to three safe parking sites as a pilot program. That’s in addition to programs run by other agencies, such as the safe parking program at the 40 Prado homeless services center.

Still, that’s not nearly enough.

San Luis Obispo County needs to think bigger; it’s lagging behind other areas that have been offering far more services.

Santa Barbara program

Santa Barbara, for example, began a safe parking program in 2004 that now includes 154 spaces in 26 lots on the South Coast. The maximum number of vehicles per lot is 15. The program provides parking lot managers, as well as case managers for participants.

Many of the sites are in church parking lots; New Beginnings, the nonprofit that runs the program, enters into agreements with private property owners willing to host safe parking sites. Among other stipulations, the owners are indemnified against liability.

That’s something San Luis Obispo County could explore, since it doesn’t seem to have enough county-owned sites that fill the bill, especially since some locations have been declared off-limits.

El Chorro Regional Park is one.

There are multiple hurdles with that location. For one, the park land was deeded to the county by the federal government, and there are restrictions on how the property can be used. And even if it were possible to allow unhoused people to park or pitch tents there, some supervisors are reluctant to do so, in part because it could cut into camping fees used to pay for major improvements made at the park.

10-year plan

So here’s where we stand: Three years after the county’s “Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness” expired, there are possibly more unhoused people living on our streets than ever before, and we’re struggling to provide even the most rudimentary forms of emergency housing.

Because let’s face it, safe parking is no substitute for a home.

A home has a functioning restroom with a flush toilet and a shower. A home is a place where you can prepare and store food. And, most important of all, a home is in a fixed location — complete with an address where you can get mail delivered, register children for school and list when you fill out applications.

Still, safe parking is a low-cost, quick way to provide shelter, at least for unhoused people who own working vehicles.

But one site — or even three — is not enough of a start. This is a big county with several distinct communities; six or seven sites is more realistic.

To avoid having more people car camping on the streets — without access to restrooms or showers — the county should expand the safe parking program to more appropriate locations now, not months from now.

And if county officials are wondering if a site is satisfactory, they can apply Eric Greening’s test: Would they want to live there?