No more vacancy: SLO County attempts to right past wrongs at its safe parking site, won't admit any new participants 

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Bungled public notice joined the list of confused and stilted services provided at San Luis Obispo County's safe parking site on Oklahoma Avenue.

"The messaging was not as clear as it should have been. ... It was garbled, frankly," 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson said. "We don't just close [Oklahoma] Avenue—that site provides a safe place for people to park and gives them the ability to access permanent housing."

In late February interviews with The Tribune and KSBY, county Administrative Officer Wade Horton and Homeless Services Division Manager Joe Dzvonik said that the site is slated to shutter and admitted that the program failed to meet its goal of being a temporary solution for its unhoused participants. Dzvonik and Gibson told New Times that the parking site isn't actually closing but is stopping new intakes of homeless people. County officials say they will now focus more on providing the existing participants with service.

"Many press reports have called it a failure. I don't see it as a failure, but it's not a complete solution," Gibson said.

Gibson, the supervisor representing Los Osos, pushed to clear unused county-owned land to set up the parking site as a pilot project in August 2021. It was a response to increasing unrest from some disgruntled Los Osos residents who complained about the homeless community on Palisades Avenue.

Nearly 18 months ago, Gibson told New Times that the Oklahoma Avenue site was a "learning curve" for the county—a statement that still holds true this March, while the program prepares for a reboot of services.

"[Oklahoma] Avenue was initially planned to have physical parking spaces established first and then services," Gibson said. "We need to do it at the same time. This is a learning curve."

Old and new dilemmas

Gibson acknowledged that the physical location of Oklahoma Avenue cuts residents off from resources like grocery stores and medical facilities and pinpointed gaps in on-site food provision and trash management—all of which homeless advocates said they were concerned about when the parking site was established.

Previous New Times reporting found that several unhoused residents were dissatisfied with the level of mental health care and case management they received from groups like Community Action Partnership of SLO (CAPSLO) and Transitions-Mental Health Association (TMHA). A handful of participants felt so sidelined that they started a homeless union to advocate for themselves.

County officials and CAPSLO met concerns about overcrowding by spacing out the parked RVs in January 2022. But tragedy struck the site soon after when a fire broke out and killed a woman who was parked and sleeping there.

When participants complained about a lack of robust safety protocols, then site manager Jeff Al-Mashat oversaw a contract last September with Good Guard Security Inc. to hire three round-the-clock security guards. Since then, site leadership has changed hands, with Dzvonik replacing Al-Mashat.

Service cracks

Now, the site isn't taking in any new participants, according to Dzvonik, and is capping capacity at the existing 65 to 75 people. He told New Times that while CAPSLO used to be the primary service provider, the new iteration of the site will include other groups like the 5 Cities Homeless Coalition, El Camino Homeless Organization (ECHO), and TMHA.

"Nobody is going to be evicted. It's not a closure; we're just starting to draw down," Dzvonik said. "We did an honest assessment, and it was a difficult decision. I would be disingenuous if I didn't say that what we're doing out there isn't working."

He echoed Supervisor Gibson's issue with the program not having local resource groups working in tandem with the county from the beginning.

"We just started it ourselves, and then we expected service providers to show up and start running it," Dzvonik said.

To 5 Cities Homeless Coalition Executive Director Janna Nichols, supportive services at the site were an "afterthought." She told New Times that she applied the lessons she learned from observing the county's process to the Cabins for Change initiative in Grover Beach.

"People have very different ideas of what 'safe parking' is and should be," she said. "When I was told about safe parking, I envisioned people coming in, parking at night, and leaving. That isn't what was created, whether intentionally or unintentionally."

Ensuring the program has a clear intent is a top priority, according to Nichols. She added that service providers can be more effective at leveraging each other's services for site participants. Nichols hasn't had in-depth conversations with the county or with the unhoused participants yet, but she wants to start with a list of client names to figure out unique rehousing plans for each of them.

"You work each name, and we all do it together, ... including the clients," Nichols said.

Jack Lahey, CAPSLO's homeless services director, told New Times that the Oklahoma Avenue program doesn't fit the phrase "safe parking site."

"It's closer to a sanctioned encampment, and there's no sanctioned encampment that I know of that's [got] vehicles," he said.

For him, the biggest stumbling block to providing services to parking site participants was a lack of enforcement of site rules, including the contract participants sign stating that it's a 90-day program. People stay parked well past that deadline.

"There's no pressure for someone to engage with service providers on a housing plan, and there's no emphasis that this is a temporary site," Lahey said.

Looking ahead

CAPSLO's data shows that they've established case management for 97 households since the parking site opened. But a petition signed by 33 participants on Feb. 1 detailed that some of them weren't happy with the nonprofit. It alleged that there was no proactive case management, and CAPSLO employees were "insulting and hostile."

Lahey said that more than half the people currently on-site still want to work with CAPSLO.

"After talking with the participants, we found out that some didn't know they were signing a petition," he said. "Some thought they were signing up for food."

Presented to the Board of Supervisors, the petition also demanded not renewing the contract with CAPSLO as the primary service provider. With $350,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds in its pot, CAPSLO will engage in deeper talks with county officials, but service management from them is off the table now, Lahey said.

At the Feb. 28 Board of Supervisors meeting, homelessness was ranked first on the 2023-24 budget priority list—something Gibson pushed for.

As the 1st Vice President of the California State Association of Counties, he has been working with a homelessness policy solution group and elected supervisors to devise a network at the state level that can address the issue of homelessness in a way that's unique to each of California's 58 counties.

In SLO County, Gibson is waiting for budget proposals as the county faces a future deficit. He said he's preparing to potentially trim funding from other departments as he advocates to fund homeless services.

"Everyone says the system [of homelessness] needs to be reformed, but we don't have a system in the first place," he said. "We need to set it up." Δ

Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at [email protected].