Morro Bay wants to address Highway 1 homeless encampment 

Individuals living at a homeless encampment in Morro Bay along Quintana Road and Highway 1 may soon be the potential benefactors of a housing program.

At its May 23 meeting, the Morro Bay City Council expressed its support for SLO County to apply for a $5 million grant from the California Encampment Resolution Funding Program, with the intent to build transitional housing to move individuals out of the encampment and into permanent housing.

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• File Photo By Steve E. Miller
• STILL HERE Residents of the homeless encampment along Quintana Road and Highway 1(pictured in 2012) have historically and recently felt the impact of winter storms—seeing their camps cause debris to build as rainwater sweeps through the drainage area they live in.

Morro Bay interim City Manager Greg Carpenter wrote a letter to county officials highlighting the safety issues that the encampment posed—especially with the significant rainfall that occurred in January and February of this year.

"The encampment is located in a drainage area adjacent to commercial uses and poses environmental, safety, and neighborhood impacts," Carpenter wrote. "The accumulation of trash and debris, resulting from the encampment, has caused a significant increase in service calls to both Morro Bay Police and Public Works departments."

A staff report said that, should the grant be approved, the county would work with the city to build temporary housing.

"The county is seeking to apply for the grant with the intent of establishing a temporary supportive housing campus modeled after the Grover Beach Cabins-for-Change program," the staff report said.

Staff also noted that, while the county would be in charge of addressing and coordinating the use of the funds, the city would still work in conjunction with the county to appoint an official to manage the project and ensure the property where the campus would be built was available.

"The county is looking at the development of 10 to 20 units on this location and has been in negotiations with property owner Habib Tabrizi to secure the property," the report said.

The Morro Bay encampment is one of the many across SLO County that qualify for funding, with cities like Paso Robles also recently expressing support for grant applications to similarly address an encampment in the Salinas Riverbed. Morro Bay is hopeful that county collaboration will lead to long-term success in addressing the matter of people living in drainage ditches and also helping them move on to more sustainable housing.

"The city is supportive of the proposal to do outreach to the persons living at the encampment, with a goal of helping them transition to permanent housing," Carpenter wrote in the letter to the county. "The grant would make a significant difference in enabling the development of shelter units and addressing many of the challenges posed by this encampment." Δ