San Luis Obispo - Caltrans - State of California

SAN LUIS OBISPO REGION
COORDINATED HUMAN SERVICES-PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION PLAN
San Luis Obispo Dept. of Social Services Interview, San Luis Obispo offices
So Higuera/Prado Rd
April 13, 2007
Participants included eleven (11) case managers and supervisors from across the county.
Consumers served include adults and elderly homeless and low income individuals.
Providing services under five programs: Cal Works, Medi Cal, Food Stamps, General
Assistance and Foster care.
Needs and Issues
• San Luis Obispo -- The Creekside Career Center, One Stop Facility (Off South Broad
Street-south of Tank Farm Road), is at the south end of town, with the Daytime Prado
Center (near South Higuera and Highway 101) at the other end (different bus routes).
The overnight shelter south of downtown (Orcutt Street) is not easy to get to via local
transit from the Prado Day Center. Have to transfer on buses in the downtown to get
between them. One child recently walked with his parent, with mittens on his feet for
shoes, because they didn’t have bus fares.
• Shelter can house 120 nightly. About 120 to 130 at Orcutt/Broad which closes at 4:30
PM with the evening meal at 5:30 PM. Lots of families. Need to develop more effective
way to get consumers from overnight shelter to day program.
• Nipomo – there is a homeless daytime shelter used by families. Many transportation
requests/needs come in at the end of the day on Fridays to the DSS office at Tefft
Street.
• Nipomo Mesa – no way to get between communities.
• South county has no shelter (overnight) but working on it.
• Atascadero transit stops at 6 p.m.; can’t get to shelter in Atascadero – Traffic Way at
Baptist Church closes at 7 p.m.
• Paso Robles to Atascadero to the Traffic Way facility difficult.
• Consumers on general assistance for “employables” get $32 a week.
• Atascadero medical trips into El Camino Real – bus doesn’t go down Morro Road; a bus
route needs to be added to serve Morro Road; possibly the North County Shuttle can be
re-routed to go by the medical buildings.
• Paso Robles – no bus service to Villa Paseo housing (County area), a Section 8 lowincome
housing unit. This is across the 101 freeway from Target store and some
homeless individuals are not moving into this facility because they have no independent
means of transportation.
• San Miguel – need for medical transportation; Ride-On providing some.
• Need Rt. 10 (and other routes) to start earlier than 8 a.m. to help in getting consumers to
service jobs that start considerably earlier.
• Some report by consumers that they have been marked as “no shows” when the vehicle
arrived early and they were not ready (don’t know if Ride-On or Run About).
• Times of travel for workers in services industry: retail, restaurants with 10 p.m. end-ofshift;
motels (done in late afternoon), hospitality industry with early and late shifts.
Supervisor commented that 60% of the issues that the case managers she supervises deal with
are transportation and transportation-related. What a boon it would be if these could be
addressed and resolved.
170
OCTOBER 2007