SLO County to apply for grant to address Paso's Salinas Riverbed encampment 

The Salinas River in Paso Robles has a nagging problem: The homeless population that has lived in the river for years has produced waste that continues to increase.

Despite the best efforts of the city to keep the river clean, officials with the city and SLO County are concerned that it's no longer an issue that can be solved solely with river cleanups.

"You just can't have people forgotten about living in the riverbed producing waste like that," SLO County's Joe Dzvonik told New Times. "It's a public safety issue, it's an environmental issue, and above all else, it's a humanitarian issue,"

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• File Photo Courtesy Of The City Of Paso Robles
• NAGGING PROBLEM SLO County is applying for a grant to build 20 transitional homes in Paso Robles, which it hopes will help solve a years-old encampment problem in the Salinas Riverbed.

Dzvonik, division manager of the county's Homeless Services Department, and others believe a new state grant could help address the issue.

On April 4, the Paso Robles City Council unanimously voted to authorize a letter of support for the county's grant application and set the path for planning out a program that could make use of the potential grant funds, which, if awarded, would be at the county's disposal until 2026.

The $6.5 million would be used to create a campus of 20 transitional-living houses designed similarly to the Cabins For Change Program that Grover Beach implemented last December. People from the Salinas River encampment would be screened by social workers and spend up to 90 days in the temporary housing and get access to behavioral health and job assistance programs.

Paso Community Services Department Director Angelica Fortin told New Times that by using a similar program to the one in Grover Beach, she hopes Paso Robles will be able to foster a healing environment.

"By giving them access to behavioral health and homes, they can ideally build up to more permanent housing and life outside of the encampment," Fortin said.

While the grant funds would be limited to building and running the campus, Fortin said that the Salinas River's ecosystem would benefit indirectly, as removing people from the encampment would also mean less overall waste in the riverbed.

"The riverbed is home to a variety of endangered species so it makes them an indirect beneficiary of this grant when we use these funds to help remove the source of waste," she said.

Removing waste could also lower the potential for wildfires, according to the Paso Robles Fire Department. Deputy Chief Randy Harris said that with the recent winter storms and subsequent floods, large amounts of debris and waste have piled up at the head of the river, making it a prime source of fuel for any stray fires that may start up at the encampment.

"The thing we want to ensure is that those fuel piles don't become the start of fires that could really do some damage—not just to the embankment—but to the overall community," he said.

Dzvonik said that Paso city staff's dedication to the overall community is what makes him feel confident that funding from the grant would be able to give many living in the riverbed an opportunity to live healthier, more stable lives and in turn, improve their overall health and the stability of the city.

"It's a matter of giving these people an opportunity to grow and move past their habits—or in some cases helping those who are one paycheck away from being able to move into more permanent housing," he said. "Whatever we can do to get them back on their feet and try to fight this homelessness crisis head-on." Δ