El Camino Homeless Organization (ECHO) in North San Luis Obispo County say they’ve ramped up their efforts to support unhoused residents hit hard by last month’s storm.
It’s been about 2 years since they expanded their services from Atascadero to their second location in Paso Robles.
Austin Solheim is their Community Engagement Manager. He said during the storm, many unhoused residents showed up at their Paso Robles location looking for shelter.
“When you're soaking wet, you're in that storm situation, everything's coming down... To have even just a dry pair of socks to change into, in a safe place to warm up, I mean, we really saw the effects of people just being so grateful that they had a place,” Solheim said.
Solheim said instead of assigning two people a room, during the storm they had to assign three people a room to provide showers and fresh clothes for as many people as possible.
The storm caused many unhoused residents to lose a lot, including personal documentation that helps them get a job.
“A lot of individuals lost everything from their IDs, their socials, their birth certificates, all of their clothing, everything," Solheim said.
"If you're applying for a job and you don't have those, you're not going to be able to get it, right? You're not gonna be able to set that forward.”
Since ECHO’s biggest goal is to help their residents find permanent housing and income, they’re connecting unhoused people with case managers to help them get their things back.
He said people across the Central Coast come to their shelters, but about 85% of the people they’ve helped are from north county. According to SLO County’s Point-In Time Count, about 1500 people across the county are experiencing homelessness.
Anyone experiencing damage from the winter storms can visit their closest disaster recovery center, but their closing soon.
SLO County’s recovery center is set to close next Tuesday, Feb 14, and Santa Barbara’s south county center will be closing Wednesday, Feb 15. For more information on storm damage recovery visit disasterassistance.org.
