San Luis Obispo County’s ambitions to open a tiny-house village recently received a monetary kick-start from the Board of Supervisors, but the Sept. 27 financial flush came at the expense of another group.
Called the Oklahoma Avenue tiny village project, the Department of Social Services’ plan to alleviate homelessness received a reallocation of $582,696 that was previously promised to the Salvation Army for rapid rehousing assistance. The funding came from the California Emergency Solutions Grant—COVID Round 2.
“It took a very long time to get the contracts from the state for that grant. They were approved back in 2020, and so it seemed they’d [Salvation Army] be getting that funding relatively quickly,” Laurel Weir, the county coordinator for homeless services, told New Times. “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], in some cases, took a long time to get the contracts out to certainly our community.”
For the Salvation Army, a delayed contract arrival also meant less time to spend those funds, hire staff, and start engagement before people could receive housing. According to HUD and the California Department of Housing and Community Development, 75 percent of the allocation has to be spent by Jan. 31, 2023, and it must be fully used up by Sept. 30 next year.
“We did have a conversation with them [Salvation Army]. There were some expenditure deadlines with this grant and they determined that they wouldn’t be able to expend it within the deadline,” Weir said. “So they offered to return it to the county so they could apply it to another project and not lose the money.”
Now, the Department of Social Services is working on a feasibility study for the tiny village project, which would be located next to the Oklahoma Avenue Safe Parking Site. Local nonprofit Hope’s Village also has plans for tiny houses, but Weir said the county doesn’t have plans to partner with them or anyone else yet.
“The first stage of this will be to do an assessment, have engineers come in and determine capabilities with regard to sewer and electricity,” Weir said. “It’s really an assessment of what to put there and how much to put there.”
Once the study is done, the county will issue requests for proposals for organizations to offer services there. Weir hopes the study will be completed soon, not only because of the grant expenditure deadline but because the tiny-house project is tied into the time-sensitive Five Year Plan to Reduce Homelessness by 50 percent.
“One of the goals for the plan was to bring in more noncongregate sheltering units,” she said. “This is part of that effort, and it’s an intent to try to achieve our year one goals with that.” Δ
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 9, 2022.
Study after study after study. This has been coming for years. Do you REALLY need another study? How about making a decision based upon emergency need and get this DONE for the sake of the people who are in immediate need? Haven’t you talked enough?
$580,000 ????? County council Rita Neal makes that in a month !!!!! You really couldn’t “give” any more money than that but your “contracted consultants” and “report” after “study” after “analyses” get millions ????? PRIORITIES !!!!!
We don’t care anymore who builds tiny house villages on the central coast as long as they get built – they will help many chronically homeless folks who have little to no income get off the streets and out of the dirt – not everyone belongs on welfare.
They will be a win/win when folks come together and volunteer to help build villages if and when the city/county allows Hope’s Village to help.
Becky Jorgeson