City of Atascadero looks to address homelessness
Clean-up efforts seek to get unhoused people into transitional housing
– Over the past several weeks, the City of Atascadero, the Atascadero Police Department (APD), Caltrans, and the California Highway Patrol has worked together to clean up and remove encampments at Highway 101 and Morro Road on- and off-ramps due to public safety concerns. As a result of the assertive clean-up process, two unhoused individuals previously living in the now-cleared encampment accepted transitional housing.
In response to the ever-evolving landscape of homelessness, APD has developed two teams that work in concert to provide both assistance and services to the unhoused population: the CAT, Community Action Team and OUR Team, Outreach for Underrepresented Residents. The primary goal of the CAT/OUR Teams is to reduce homelessness within the City of Atascadero and respond to and ultimately lower the need for the number of service calls regarding the unhoused population. Each team consists of a uniformed officer, a licensed psychiatric technician (employed by County Behavioral Health) assigned to the CAT, and a social worker for the OUR Team. As part of OUR Team, the APD contracts with ECHO, the El Camino Homeless Organization, to provide homeless outreach services, case management, and programs within the city in direct coordination and partnership with APD.
Encampments will continue to be cleaned up and moved away from the central business districts and any residential neighborhood. The City will continue to find long-term solutions that include seeking permanent housing for our homeless population. To that end, the first draft of a new camping ordinance will be introduced to Atascadero City Council in September. A camping ordinance is an important tool for the city to continue lawfully addressing encampments, and the ordinance will largely address the time, manner, and place by which individuals may sleep or camp on public property to curtail activity such as setting up camp in city parks, which are closed in the evenings.
