The El Camino Homeless Organization wants to provide more food and beds to Atascadero residents in need.
The City Council approved the nonprofit’s services expansion as a consent item at the Dec. 10 council meeting, amending the zoning code for the emergency shelter located at 6370 Atascadero Ave. to allow 30 more beds and 20 more meals, and to modify shower operation hours.
During the Nov. 12 City Council meeting, the El Camino Homeless Organization (ECHO) presented its proposal to the council. ECHO Director of Development and Operations Austin Solheim told the council that there are currently 50 households on ECHO’s waitlist for housing, totaling about 165 people.
But for the organization to grow in an effective and efficient way, it needs to increase its beds from 60 to 90, which would include the construction of a 7,600-square-foot, two-story building in the front yard of the existing facility, according to the Nov. 12 staff report.
While Solheim told the council that no one has necessarily been against the organization’s growth, the public has been most concerned about the meal programs, which ECHO wanted to increase from 80 to 100.
“What we don’t want to do is ever have to turn anyone from our community away from that meal program. We want to fulfill that need because what we don’t ever want is that person to feel like the community has left them behind,” he said.
According to Solheim, about 40 percent of those who use the meal program are residents of the facility. About 40 percent are unhoused, and the other 20 percent are housed but face food insecurity.
Charles Bourbeau, a council member at the time who was elected as mayor in November, asked if those participating in the meal program were actually using ECHO’s resources or just receiving free meals, in some cases for years at a time.
Solheim said that ECHO is not supposed to be the one solution for homelessness but a hub for resources to find each person the help they need. He added that the organization has helped each meal program participant in some way, whether it was registering them for food stamps or getting them a cellphone.
“Each one of those is a success, each one of those is a step to getting into stable housing, but it starts with something simple,” Solheim said.
Multiple residents who spoke at the Nov. 12 meeting expressed concerns about the meal program and frustration about who it attracts to their neighborhoods.
One neighbor said they support the build, but not the location of the meal program. Throughout the years, he said, he and other neighbors have spent “countless dollars” on security systems as they witnessed drug deals and campers on their streets.
“I don’t think that’s fair, and that’s something I would have never thought of doing before ECHO moved in,” he said.
Another resident requested that the city develop a plan of support for ECHO’s neighbors and asked it to table the meal expansion until a more meaningful plan could be developed with residents.
“If you do not drive home tonight and look in your bushes on your property for somebody living there, or you haven’t cleaned up human feces and waste, or you have not had to call the police because of an unhoused person’s behavior, then it hasn’t been your personal problem,” she said.
Speaking in support of the meal program, one resident said that ECHO’s program had allowed her to develop a more secure life after experiencing homelessness.
“I can say the meal program is very, very important. I can say that firsthand,” she said, adding that around the meal tables she experienced people developing trust and finding resources together.
After some deliberation on Nov. 12, the City Council unanimously approved the expansion under the conditions that the meal program would not be expanded to 100 until the completion of the new building and that ECHO holds at least one annual neighborhood meeting for facility updates. Δ
This article appears in Dec 19-29, 2024.