County parking site plagued by poor management, 'safety, security, and sanitation' issues, grand jury says 

A recently released grand jury report looking at San Luis Obispo County's "safe parking village" on Oklahoma Avenue found a haphazardly set up operation that lacked order and leadership and continues to pose health and safety risks to its residents, especially children.

The report—titled "Safe parking? Oklahoma is not OK!"—explored the origins of the county's unhoused parking program near the county jail and detailed what, in the grand jury's view, plagued the site over 18 months.

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• File Photo By Bulbul Rajagopal
• UNDER THE MICROSCOPE A recently published SLO County grand jury report found a plethora of health and safety concerns at the Oklahoma Avenue Parking Village. Jurors criticized the county's management of the site, and concluded it was established haphazardly without proper foresight or planning.

A lack of foresight and planning, clear policies and enforcement of rules, participant screening, security and fire safety, sanitation and utilities, social services, and general county leadership coalesced to make for an unsafe environment and unsuccessful program, according to the report.

"The grand jury found a number of major deficiencies in the planning and operation of the site and serious issues related to existing site conditions including safety, security, and sanitation," the report read. "It became clear early on that the county had put minimal thought or planning into what was needed to establish a successful safe parking program."

Though the village is slated for closure and is not currently admitting new residents (as of June 14, it had 65 to 75 participants), the grand jury still recommended the county take immediate action to address some of the ongoing safety concerns, including directing Child Welfare Services to remove any minors still living at the site.

"Exposing minor children to the rampant substance abuse and drugs present at the Oklahoma Avenue Parking Village clearly places them in a situation in which they are endangered," the grand jury report read. "If there are still children living on-site during this closure period, they should immediately be moved to a safe environment."

In a statement about the report, SLO County Homeless Services Division Manager Joe Dzvonik said that the county was "grateful for the thorough review of the grand jury" and added that its focus is on "providing a compassionate exit plan for all the current guests at the site." He noted that the county had already implemented some of the grand jury's recommendations, like continuing to provide 24/7 security at the site.

Initiated last year by the deaths of two parking village residents (one killed in an RV fire and another by a fentanyl overdose) and numerous complaints, the grand jury investigation involved site visits, interviews, a review of public meetings and reports, and specific requests to the county for data and information, according to the report.

In general, the grand jury said, SLO County does have a need for safe parking: About 25 percent of the county's documented homeless population lives in their vehicles. But the report concluded that the parking village was hastily set up and lacked critical services to ensure a safe operation: It had no overnight security, no food or cooking facilities, only the most basic hygiene amenities, no screening for residents, no case management, and no mental health and substance abuse services.

"While many of these issues were addressed over time by the county and local nonprofits, other issues remain unresolved," the report said. "Overall, the safe parking site and associated programs appear to have been (and continue to be) operated largely in a reactive mode by the county, rather than proactively managed through foresight and planning."

The report also found that that the county failed to enforce its own rules at the site, and a lack of structure and accountability led to underwhelming results in terms of rehousing. While a 2021 study by USC researchers found that the median rehousing rate among 43 nationwide safe parking programs was 40 percent, the Oklahoma Avenue Parking Village had just a 14 percent successful transition rate, according to the report.

"While the transition out of homelessness was life-changing for these individuals and families, the low number of successful outcomes over an extended period of time is concerning," the grand jury said.

Two SLO County supervisors who spoke to New Times about the parking site and the report said they accepted and respected the grand jury's findings. Both 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson and 3rd District Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said that the county will learn from the experience.

"I don't have a bad thing to say about them looking into it and the report they produced," Gibson said. "My position on this has always been that Oklahoma Avenue was set up to address a worsening situation in the county. It was mobilized fairly quickly. You can certainly criticize that more planning should have been done. It wasn't an abject failure or an unqualified success, it fell somewhere in between."

Gibson, who advocated for establishing the parking site in 2021 in response to a growing population of vehicles and RVs along Palisades Avenue in Los Osos, said that that while "hindsight is 20/20," he still believes the attempt was worthwhile.

"I don't regret that we tried. I wish that we had unqualified success, but we didn't. But I remain committed to all the efforts we need to embrace," he said.

Ortiz-Legg added that the grand jury report only underscores the need for the county to invest more into homelessness, noting that the Board of Supervisors made it a top budget priority for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

"It continues to demonstrate why this board has made homelessness a priority, where we're investing a lot," Ortiz-Legg said. "We are making changes, and we're finally taking the steps. It's never enough at this point, but we're doing a lot."

Dzvonik, the county Homeless Services manager, told New Times that the county is currently working with local service providers to come up with transition plans for the remaining Oklahoma Avenue residents. In reference to the grand jury's recommendation about removing children from the site, he said there's one 17-year-old who stays part-time with a family member at the site.

"We got together as a community of service providers and decided that case conferencing would probably be the best way to expedite helping folks move to the next stage of their lives," he said. "Right now, on any given day, you'll see Five Cities Homeless Coalition, CAPSLO, [and others] coordinating directly with them. That's how we're approaching it." Δ