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SLO parking ordinance to restrict helping the homeless

June 7, 2013
Dee Torres

Dee Torres

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

A proposed San Luis Obispo ordinance that would allow select homeless individuals to sleep in their vehicles at night contains provisions barring most charitable organizations from providing overnight parking and directs homeless vehicle owners instead to the services of the Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo (CAPSLO).

San Luis Obispo is in the process of drafting and adopting an ordinance to establish a permanent safe parking program.

On Tuesday, the Human Relations Commission voted unanimously to approve the ordinance which requires homeless individuals who wish to sleep in their vehicles at night to participate in Transitions Mental Health or CAPSLO’s case management programs. None of the commissioners expressed any concerns over the amount of money CAPSLO demands from case management clients.

CAPSLO, which has supported aggressive ticketing of homeless in the past, oversees the nightly parking program at the day center and requires participants to enroll in its case management services, with a stated goal of helping homeless individuals achieve self-sufficiency and housing.

However, a CalCoastNews investigation has revealed that case management is very costly for clients and few achieve housing because of the program.

CAPSLO requires case management clients to turn over the majority of their income to the agency or sign over all of their money to Family ties, a nonprofit operated by San Luis Obispo County’s chief deputy public guardian Lisa Niesen. Family Ties has violated federal laws by keeping too much Social Security Disability income of a former CAPSLO case management client, according to Social Security Administration documents.

CAPSLO Director of Homeless Services Dee Torres contends homeless individuals need to be managed by an agency already providing services to the homeless.

“I think it’s important to have a service provider that has experience with the population,” Torres said Tuesday.

City Housing Programs Manager Tyler Corey agreed. Corey said the proposed ordinance limits organizational participation in the safe parking program to ensure that the agencies have “experience and the credentials” to transition the homeless into housing.

San Luis Obispo attorney Stew Jenkins, however, said the city should allow organizations that wish to help the homeless to do so.

“This ordinance says that our church or your church or your business can’t go to the city directly and say we’re responsible people. We have bathrooms. We want to set up a parking program for the poor,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins, who successfully sued the city over its ticketing of the homeless last year, said the proposed ordinance “essentially gives a monopoly to the one or two” organizations that meet the restrictive criteria used to define a social service provider. He warned that the ordinance violates the first and fifth amendments to the United States Constitution on freedom of religion and property rights grounds.

“My suggestion to you to prevent the city from facing further problems later on and to allow our citizens to exercise their rights to be charitable individuals to the folks that they want to provide for is this needs to be reworked entirely,” Jenkins said.

Prior to suing the city on behalf of the homeless in 2012, Jenkins also warned the council about unconstitutional language in its ordinance prohibiting overnight parking.

An existing ordinance prohibits people from sleeping in vehicles within the San Luis Obispo city limits between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Amid complaints about police ticketing homeless for sleeping in their vehicles, the San Luis Obispo City Council created a pilot safe parking program last year. The safe parking program allows five individuals or families to park their cars at night in the Prado Day Center parking lot.

The proposed ordinance, which must still gain planning commission and city council approval to become law, establishes guidelines for expanding the safe parking program.

The ordinance requires that an organization receive approval from the Community Development Director and obtain a planning commission approved use permit in order to manage a safe parking site.

In order to do so, in accordance with the proposed ordinance, an organization must prove its status as a social service provider registered with the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), a Housing and Urban Development database.

When asked by the Human Relations Commission Tuesday how many local organizations participate in the HMIS, Torres said only three do. Of those three organizations, only CAPSLO and Transitions Mental Health provide case management, which the proposed ordinance also requires.

The city has already planned to budget $10,000 for CAPSLO to operate the parking program in the fiscal year that begins next month.

 


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GO BLOW SLO…


Churches are PRIVATE PROPERTY and if they allow someone to sleep in a vehicle on THEIR PROPERTY it is NONE OF THE CITY’S BUSINESS!


Next thing you know they will pass an ordinance that trash cans can’t be in plain site on your own property.


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If churches are private property they should NOT be exempt from taxes and the regulations others

have to adhere to. Churches are not inherently ordained by any superior force.


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ironyman2000,


They most certainly are ordained by their respective superior forces! The Jewish synagogue is ordained by Yahweh, the Hebrew God of the Old Testament, the Islam mosque is ordained by Allah, the God of the Quran, and the Christian church is ordained by Yeshua, the Christian God, or Jesus as God incarnate in the triune.


You are correct in the fact that as an example, the Christian church should pay taxes as the bible substantiates!


“Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.” (Romans 13:5-7)


Even Jesus accepted the fact that He too had to pay taxes in the narrative within Matthew 17:24-27! So, the Christian churches in town shouldn’t get a pass by not paying their fare share of taxes towards the services that they receive in San Luis Obispo!


It is ungodly that they don’t pay their own way!


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Your citations are not superior forces. They are simply words made up by a bunch of guys.


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Go ahead, then. Go sleep in a private property parking lot. No one is saying you can’t, if the church wants you there.

SLO is trying to provide more places for people to go, where they won’t have to worry about having to move their cars every few minutes. And they are helping find ways to eventually get them out of their cars and into homes of their own.

No one is saying YOU have to go there. But there are people who want to find a parking lot to park in and all you are doing is making it more difficult for them!

If you have something you want to say, any suggestions, or something constructive, do so, but when you complain about the city, it sounds like you DON’T WANT the homeless to have a home.


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The above statement was a reply to ShootTheMessenger’s comment.


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Outrageous! The homeless weren’t willing to park in the Prado parking lot due to the onerous rules and draconian extortion of most of their meager funds for the “privilege” . Simple solution, the City makes it mandatory for these folks to use CAPSLO! What part of mismanagement does the City not understand?


It seems like the City sees that CAPSLO has been exposed for its heavy handed treatment of the homeless and so the City sets policies in place to require homeless to use CAPSLO. That policy perpetuates CAPSLO’s monopoly on services to the homeless and goes so far as to prevent others such as churches and charitable individuals from providing FREE parking to those in need.


Since when is it against the law to freely help out people in need? I hope Stew Jenkins sues the City on behalf of the rights of the homeless and those who offer them help. It’s time that CAPSLO has some competition from churches and other charities that have humanity rather than greed as their motivation..


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What is amazing to me is that Torres and Tyler can stand in front of the public and stoically bold face lie or maybe they just believe that if they say it you should believe it. The facts are simple, the controversy surrounding CAPSLO is growing, numerous organizations are investigating CAPSLO and yet our infinite community leaders (Litchig, Irons, Dietrick, Marx, Ashbaugh, Carpenter) and idiot department heads and staff keep walking us and our money down the preverbal black abyss. Go back a few years ago and all the signs were there about Hurst Financial, Kelly Gearheart, Bernie Madoff, Corey Pierce, Bob Nicholson, Christine Wallace, Al Moriarity and others yet our leaders kept telling us, don’t worry you don’t understand, these are things above your thought processes and look at where we are today. Hurst in prison, Gearheart on his way to prison, Madoff in prison, Pierce on his way to prison, Moriarity on his way to prison. Point being, we keep allowing this to happen despite all the signs. We are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our fearless leaders, over and over again. I would say it is a three ring circus, but it is really a three card monty shuffle.


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Just for the record Jay Hurst Miller, “Hurst”, is not in prison. He keeps getting sentencing pushed up. That has been going on way to long, IMHO.


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Hey, this isn’t Hijinks! Just to be clear.


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The elephant in the room is the Chamber of Commerce and the people it represents. Who do you all think has stirred up the fuss and caused the city to take such an obnoxious stance towards the homeless? The city falls all over itself to do whatever the business people want, and that’s why this is happening. That’s why they’re after the homeless.


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Bottom line problem with all of this: Dee Torres is an egotistical, patronizing liar who is in her position

simply because she took a horizontal position with a dubious county supervisor who was voted in by

an inattentive constituency.

Torres should go and CAPSLO needs to be disbanded with a new, more accountable entity put in

place.


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So let’s get this right. The City is writing an ordinance to restrict homeless parking. City goes to CAPSLO to get advice of how this should work. City takes advice of CAPSLO and writes an ordinance that rewards CAPSLO for working with the City and requires that NO ONE is the City of SLO except CAPSLO and Transitions is allowed to run the parking program. In turn, all clients of the parking program must participate in Case Management which everyone now knows is corrupt, ill managed, and unaccountable and does not serve the clients who must pay a fee for this thievery service. I because CAPSLO is so good at what they do, the City is going to give them a $10,000 annual bonus in addition to the $250,000 they already give CAPSLO.


What am I missing here, this does not sound or smell right, oh yea, it’s SLO Government hard at work. I cannot wait until comes asking us for a carryover of that damn 1/2 cent sales tax increase. Weekly they continue to throw are tax dollars away on cronyism. This City Council is nuts, all of them!


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By the way, guess who runs Transitions case management program, go ahead, guess, say it, say it, on it is so painful to spit out…


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If a church wants to open its parking lot to the homeless, they should be able to do that. Churches are traditionally places of refuge. I parked overnight in a few church lots when traveling years ago.


It also makes sense, though, to get the homeless involved in case management. They obviously need help and it is available.


Maybe churches and others who provide overnight parking can ask for a case number. If the person doesn’t have one, they can sign them up and/or tell them they will need a case number to park there in the future. Just an idea, trying to get way from this “good guy/bad guy” approach to the issue.


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Unanimously? Well that makes it easy for us to clean house! Stay tuned… The investigation is about to begin!


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This is so crazy it is almost impossible to write a response/comment. Really? This is the same ole song and dance of re-victimizing the victim … over and over and over. It smells and tastes as if the City of SLO is pushing their agenda of “no homeless in our city.” Shame on those who make these selfish decisions.


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Out of the frying pan, into the fire.


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