The Welcome Home Village project is set to break ground at the end of the month. It's a 54-unit site designed to offer both temporary and permanent housing for the homeless, specifically for those with encampments near the Bob Jones Trail area.
"There are 14 units of interim housing, which is like a temporary shelter there where clients would stay for up to a year," said Kirsten Cahoon, the director of homeless services for the Good Samaritan Shelter, a nonprofit providing homeless support services in the Santa Maria Valley and other areas of the Central Coast. "And the rest of the units are permanent supportive housing."
In order to improve the project and help community members in the surrounding neighborhoods feel more comfortable, four community meetings are scheduled to gain feedback. The second of which was held Tuesday night at the San Luis Obispo Library.
"I want this to be a transparent process, I want people to feel heard," said Margaret Shepard-Moore, the Welcome Home Village program manager. "And I really do believe in the quality of this village that we are creating."
The meeting began with a presentation from Good Samaritan Shelter, which will be overseeing the site once it becomes operational in December.
"Good Samaritan has a long history of these types of projects and has been very successful in these types of projects," Cahoon said. "They really work to help our unsheltered individuals seek shelter and stability in their lives, and we have a long history of making that happen."
At the meeting, people shared two main concerns: parking and fire hazards.
During the question-and-answer portion of the meeting, neighbors living near this project raised concerns about having enough parking in the area.
Shepard-Moore responded by saying that they have leased 50 parking spots at the neighboring Renovate Church and would have a few on-site spots, too.
As for fire concerns, they told people at the meeting that people living in the village would be well informed on fire prevention.
"We know that the community will see quickly that we are a really good neighbor," Cahoon said.
There are two more meetings scheduled that you can attend and give input.
The next input meeting will be September 30 from 6-7:30 p.m. at the San Luis Obispo Library. The final meeting will be a site tour in December, but a date has not yet been set.
