Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness

The SLO County Board of Supervisors approved a “10 Year Plan to End Homelessness” to begin in January 2008, “aimed at ending homelessness in ten years.”

Homelessness having not ended by 2018, the County approved another five-year plan (“The San Luis Obispo Countywide Plan to Address Homelessness”) in 2022. As the title suggests, this plan is more modest in its aspirations: “to reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness to 50% of the current level within five years”.^1:p5

Shelters

There is one day center and a handful of overnight emergency shelter options in San Luis Obispo County. These represent enough beds for 20–30% of those who are known to be homeless on any particular night.^1:p5 In part because of this shortage of shelter, San Luis Obispo county has the third highest percentage of unsheltered homelessness in the United States.^1:p6

Point-in-Time counts

San Luis Obispo County is coextensive with the CA-614 “Continuum of Care” (CoC) district, which is used by the federal government in various programs concerning homelessness. One of these is the semi-annual "point-in-time" census, in which field workers attempt to count and gather information about people experiencing homelessness in these various regions every other January. Each CoC must periodically conduct such a census in order to qualify for federal funding. The point-in-time counts have methodological shortcomings that make them at best imperfect undercounts of the number of people experiencing homelessness, but, for what it's worth, these are the numbers for SLO county since 2007:

The latest (2022) point-in-time survey was supervised by Applied Survey Research. Among the other findings from that survey (as found in 2022 San Luis Obispo County Homeless Count and Survey Comprehensive Report):

• 92% of the homeless people surveyed had been residents of San Luis Obispo County at the time they became homeless.
• Ages:

  Under 18	18–24	25–30	31–40	41–50	51–60	61+
  0%	2%	7%	18%	29%	26%	18%

• Genders:

  Male	Female	Other
  58%	41%	1%

• Races:

  White	American Indian or Alaskan Native	Black or African American	Asian	Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
  71%	6%	4%	2%	2%
  + 34% identified as Latino

• Duration of homelessness:

  1–30 days	1–11 months	a year or more
  1%	16%	83%

• Where they slept that night:

  Emergency shelter	Transitional housing	Building	Car	Outdoors	RV	Tent	Van
  258 (18%)	34 (2%)	5 (<1%)	133 (9%)	187 (13%)	185 (13%)	594 (41%)	52 (4%)

• Location:

  unincorporated areas of the county		San Luis Obispo		Paso Robles		Atascadero		Grover Beach		Morro Bay		Arroyo Grande		Pismo Beach
  497		385		234		93		90		79		50		20
  unsheltered	sheltered	unsheltered	sheltered	unsheltered	sheltered	unsheltered	sheltered	unsheltered	sheltered	unsheltered	sheltered	unsheltered	sheltered	unsheltered	sheltered
  492	5	248	137	174	60	51	42	56	34	76	3	39	11	20	0

• 32% said that they were experiencing homelessness for the first time
• 19% met the definition of “chronically homeless” (one definition of which is that “they have a long-standing disability that significantly impedes their ability to live independently and have been unhoused for a consecutive year or on at least four occasions within a three-year period.”). Of those, 85% were unsheltered.
• 16 were military veterans
• Among the homeless surveyed were 121 families with children; in total representing 428 (or 30%) of those surveyed. In addition there were seven “unaccompanied children”.
• 30% of those surveyed reported having at least one disabling condition (defined as “a developmental disability, HIV/AIDS, or a long-term physical or mental impairment that impacts a person’s ability to live independently but could be improved with stable housing.”). 46% had post-traumatic stress disorder. 23% had experienced traumatic brain injury. 11% were developmentally disabled.

See also:

• Food Not Bombs — giving away meals to anyone who'd like one, without asking permission
• Little Free Pantries — sidewalk boxes of food and other essentials, free for those in need
• People’s Kitchen — for more than 20 years has provided a noon meal to the hungry
• 5 Cities Homeless Coalition — channeling community resources, volunteers, and donor assets to meet the needs of the homeless population through existing and new programs
• 70 Now — provides homes and crucial services for chronically homeless people
• ECHO — El Camino Homeless Organization, a shelter located in Atascadero, with associated services
• Grassroots II — helps San Luis Obispo residents in need
• Homeless Services Oversight Council — ensure that everyone has access to appropriate and affordable housing
• Los Osos Cares — food, health, housing, and transportation help for people in the Estero Bay community
• Prado Day Center — the only day center serving the homeless population in the region
• Shower the People — brings mobile shower trailers to homeless people to serve them where they live
• Hope’s Village — hopes to provide sustainable community living for local unhoused adults in a tiny house village
• People's Self-Help Housing — provides affordable housing, home-ownership opportunities, and housing counseling services
• Prado Day Center — the only day center serving the homeless population in the region
• RVs for Veterans — links donors of campers and other such inhabitable recreational vehicles with homeless veterans who need a place to live
• Salvation Army
• SLO Housing Connection — aids people who are homeless and have exhausted standard available resources

Notes

1. The San Luis Obispo Countywide Plan to Address Homelessness 2022–2027