The Overnight Safe Parking Program created by CAPSLO is set to open in September.
"Right now, the only safe parking program that's available is at 40 Prado," said Jack Lahey, the CAPSLO Homeless Services Director. "And we have 12 spots operational each night. People are enrolled in our program. They are assigned a case manager, and we work on housing goals, with them while they're in the program to get back into housing. This would add an additional 12 spots."
The site will rotate monthly between:
- Calle Joaquin Park and Ride
- City Corporation Yard
- Damon-Garcia Sports Complex parking lot
- Journey Christian Fellowship
- Renovate Church
- Congregation of Beth David
"It's dispersed pretty evenly throughout SLO, so there's not one neighborhood or area that's getting overly impacted," said Lahey.
"There's some trepidation about, you know, safety and just, what might happen," said Ty Smalling, a neighbor to the Renovate Church location.
"I think they should put it, you know, commit a few resources to at least monitoring the, the program and the people that do it and make sure that, they're not bringing any kind of, bad situation, dangerous situation to this neighborhood," said Mike Hogan, who lives a few blocks from the Renovate Church Location.
Lahey says that quarterly feedback opportunities will be available for neighbors of the sites, and a thorough vetting process is done for all participants.
"They have to already have been enrolled in our safe parking for up to 30 days, have their driver's license, secured insurance, secured registration, [and a] secured vehicle [that] needs to be operational, and they have to be complying with our case management, and then we would refer them to community safe parking," he added.
This program has funding for three years from the city of San Luis Obispo's general fund and the county, and Lahey says he hopes to secure funding to keep the program going for longer.
