Cabin village proposed on Johnson Avenue gets mixed reaction from SLO neighbors

The plan for a cabin shelter project in San Luis Obispo was previewed for neighbors at a Wednesday community meeting, where residents appeared split on whether the proposal was a good fit for the area.

At the meeting, a panel of several city and county officials including Supervisor Jimmy Paulding and the project’s service providers explained the project and its goals in detail and took questions from the audience.

The Welcome Home Village — a planned 80-unit village of non-congregate cabins that would provide early steps to housing for residents of homeless encampments on the Bob Jones Trail — is the product of a roughly $13.4 million state Encampment Resolution Fund grant, initially gaining the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors’ approval in July 2023.

Originally proposed on the county Department of Social Services lot at the corner of South Higuera Street and Prado Road in March 2024, the project was delayed and eventually relocated due to an issue with city building codes that led to a new site at Johnson Avenue and Bishop Street being brought forward in late April.

“We have a limited inventory of county and city land that will work with this project,” Paulding said. “While this was not the first site that we identified for this project, it was identified in the process, and we do think it will be beneficial to have all of the county services directly adjacent.”

New developer, site manager have background in cabin shelters

The community meeting was one of the first opportunities for residents to meet incoming site developer Dignity Moves and site manager Good Samaritan Shelter , both of which are based outside of San Luis Obispo County.

Good Samaritan homeless services director Kirsten Cahoon said her organization currently maintains around 500 supportive housing units in Santa Barbara County, and has had success moving people out of established encampments into some form of permanent housing through the use of Dignity Moves’ non-congregate cabin projects.

Cahoon said a 20-unit Good Samaritan-managed Dignity Moves cabin project located in a parking lot near Ansiq’Oyo Park in Isla Vista installed in late 2020 was able to relocate all the residents from an encampment that grew i n the park during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“All of a sudden, we realized that this model was really the key to getting folks that had a really long-term homeless stay into shelters,” Cahoon said. They never wanted to come into the congregate shelters, but the minute they were given an opportunity to have their own place and be able to lock their doors knowing that it was going to be safe, their whole mindset about sheltering changed.”

Dignity Moves already has a project active in San Luis Obispo County through two partnerships with the 5Cities Homeless Coalition in Grover Beach — the existing 26-unit Cabins for Change program installed in late 2022 and a second 30-unit project opening May 2.

The organization currently operates seven communities in California, including three in Santa Barbara County, according to county homeless services division communications manager Suzie Freeman.

Freeman said the county’s 2021 assessment of homeless needs indicated a shortage of around 300 more interim shelter beds to reach a capacity of 525, and said there are only 245 such beds in the county when counting for all Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo, El Camino Homeless Organization and 5CHC beds.

Both the state and county view encampment resolution as one of the most important goals of the interim housing process, with the state awarding 89 Encampment Resolution Fund grants across California — including the village in SLO County and another 11 in the three neighboring counties, Freeman said.

“There are several other grants working to create similar pathways to safe and stable housing, both within our county and throughout the state,” Freeman said. “The big takeaway here is that no one is going to be crossing county lines to seek the Welcome Home Village specifically because there’ll be another solution closer to them.”

Residents voice concerns about safety, parking

Several residents who asked questions at the Q&A said that while the goals and approaches of the project were understandable, they took issue with the proposed location and asked why another spot away from residential neighborhoods wasn’t considered.

Lori Bickel, a resident of a neighborhood bordering the project, said she felt “very favorable” about the project but said there were unanswered questions about impacts on parking. She said there wasn’t as much clarity as she’d have liked on how the city would ensure enough parking space with 90 potential additional vehicles in the area.

“Questions I have haven’t been answered yet, but I feel like we need this project to happen,” Bickel told The Tribune. “I hope they can get answered satisfactorily so everybody can benefit.”

Not all residents were as receptive to the idea of a project in their neighborhood and took issue with the proposed location on a lot bordered on three sides by residential neighborhoods.

“I want to know what you anticipated the concerns that the people in this area would (be) when you chose this site, because it could have been your first choice, but you tried a lot of other options first, so you’re going to have particular challenges with it here,” a resident asked. “I was wondering, in transparency, if you could tell us what you knew you’d be facing from this community?”

County deputy director of homeless services Linda Belch said the location was largely dictated by the limitations of the grant, which requires the project be near an encampment.

The county also needed to work within the financial constraints of the grant, Belch said. Another site was considered but was $3 million to $5 million more to build than the planned location.

The current location is also well connected to the San Luis Obispo County Health Campus and has nearby access to bus stops and a bike transit lane, making it a good fit for people who may not own vehicles, Belch said.

San Luis Obispo Police Chief Rick Scott fielded several questions about how the safety and security of nearby neighborhoods would be maintained.

Adding projects such as the Welcome Home Village are all about making sure that when people are removed from an encampment, they go into a transitional program rather than back into another encampment, Scott said.

Scott said he was initially leery of the project and reached out to his counterpart in the Santa Barbara Police Department, Chief Kelly Gordon, to get an honest assessment of the three Dignity Moves projects’ impact on nearby neighborhoods.

“She was very kind in her response and said, ‘Our calls have dropped significantly in that area, and it has addressed issues — our calls didn’t do up because the project came here,’” Scott said. “That’s really good to hear from a law enforcement perspective.”

What’s next for the Welcome Home Village?

Residents will get another chance to express their feelings on the Welcome Home Village at two more meetings this month.

The Welcome Home Village is next headed to the San Luis Obispo Planning Commission, which will vote May 8 on the project’s conformity with the city’s General Plan, followed by a final vote of approval before the county Board of Supervisors on May 21.