A new homeless housing facility is coming to the City of Grover Beach.
It's part of an effort to address homelessness and the high cost of living on the Central Coast.
"The homeless encampments we're seeing in our communities are a direct relation to a lack of shelter for housing units and in south county, we have no shelter space currently available," said Grover Beach City Manager Matthew Bronson.
A year-round shelter is set to be built on a vacant lot located at 955 South 4th Street.
At Monday night's meeting, the Grover Beach City Council voted to acquire the 0.4-acre lot.
"Adding shelter capacity is vital to making a real difference in addressing homelessness," said Bronson. "San Luis Obispo County has one of the largest percentages of unsheltered homeless individuals in the country."
The project is a partnership between the City of Grover Beach and the 5Cities Homeless Coalition which will run the site.
"We have been working with the city for several years in trying to identify different locations that were available," said Janna Nichols, Executive Director for the 5Cities Homeless Coalition. "This one came up on the market and we were very grateful that the seller was willing to work with us, given that this is grant funding coming from the city."
The next step is securing funding to build the site and figuring out what it will look like.
"We are definitely looking at it being non-congregate and an ability to provide private space to people and at the same time have them involved in intensive case management and supportive services to move them from homelessness into housing," said Nichols.
The 5Cities Homeless Coalition will run the site under the city's ownership.
The city acquired the land with $425,000 in funding from the American Rescue Plan.
The 5Cities Homeless Coalition still needs to get funding to actually build the facility.
