San Luis Obispo County is extending its shelter crisis declaration through the end of 2026—a move that allows the county to keep emergency shelters open and make it easier to build new ones.
The Board of Supervisors approved the extension Tuesday. The declaration allows the county to temporarily relax some building and zoning requirements for emergency shelters located on public property. It helps speed up new projects and keep existing ones operating under the relaxed permitting rules.
One of those sites is Cabins for Change in Grover Beach—a 20 unit temporary housing project that offers three to five month stays to help people transition into permanent housing.
Katlynn Beatty, the county’s encampment response program manager, said the extension is critical to keeping programs like that open.
“Basically if this extension doesn’t happen, the Cabins for Change wouldn’t be able to stay open for long,” Beatty said. “They were built under this declaration and so it needs to be extended for them to stay open.”
Beatty says Cabins for Change currently has a waitlist of about 600 people for about 20 cabins.
San Luis Obispo County’s latest Point-In-Time Count found about 1,175 people experiencing homelessness in the county, and roughly 800 people are living unsheltered.
SLO County first declared a shelter crisis in 2018 and has renewed the designation annually since then. The latest ordinance will remain in effect until December, unless the Board of Supervisors votes to extend it again.
