On Tuesday, the Morro Bay City Council will consider a couple of ordinances aimed at addressing homelessness in the community.
City and law enforcement officials say they are trying to find a way to address health and safety issues while balancing the needs of the community and the unhoused.
The two ordinances before the city council on Tuesday involve camping on public property and vehicle habitation overnight on private property.
“Just make smaller campsites, make them cleaner and limit the spread of them as well,” said Morro Bay Fire Chief Dan McCrain.
After hearing numerous concerns from residents, the city created a Homeless Working Group in 2022 to discuss health and safety issues related to the homeless encampments in Morro Bay.
The new ordinances aim to address some of those issues, but some advocates are concerned about the effect they'll have on the homeless.
“The homeless population is being taken care of by getting rid of them," said Kiernan Cottle, Morro Bay resident.
Cottle has been living in Morro Bay for 10 years and is passionate about housing the homeless.
“It is a pretty blatant attempt to remove unwanted members of the community, individuals that are not recognized as being true members of the community,” Cottle said.
However, Chief McCrain says the ordinance is not a camping ban.
“This does not ban camping on public property. It does allow for them a method to do that which balances their need to sleep for the night and have shelter but also the public's need to have access to that space as well,” McCrain said.
The public property camping ordinance is being introduced both as a regular ordinance and an urgency ordinance.
“Because of the prediction of the heavy rainfall this winter one of the areas a major encampment is in is in a watershed area that is a storm runoff and last year, the homeless encampments contributed to blockage of storm drains and there's some damage in that area if we get heavy rainfall,” McCrain explained.
Tuesday's city council meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Hall located at 209 Surf Street.
For more information on the ordinances, visit this link.
