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City updates ECHO shelter program: council approved 90‑day model; county to fund winter warming beds
Summary
Community services staff explained the council’s recent shift from a nightly‑bed model to a 90‑day program for ECHO Paso Robles and said the county will fund a weather‑triggered 10‑bed warming shelter this winter; one emergency bed remains available for police or fire placement.
Angelica Fortin, the city’s community services director, told the council that at a prior meeting the city approved an amendment with ECHO Paso Robles to transition from providing five nightly shelter beds to a 90‑day program aimed at improving exits to permanent housing. “The 90‑day program has proven to be a more successful path to permanent housing,” Fortin said.
Fortin also said the county provided funding for winter warming services and that ECHO will operate 10 nightly warming beds, available on a weather‑ and rain‑triggered basis starting in November; Fortin said she did not have an exact opening date at the meeting. “They will be weather based beds, so those beds will be available based on the temperature and, whether or not there will be rain predicted,” she said. Fortin added that the city retains a single emergency bed that Paso Robles police or fire can assign to a person in urgent need.
Public comment asked whether human‑caused fires in the river corridor were being started by people experiencing homelessness and whether homeless individuals might be engaged in vegetation clearing or grazing programs; city staff and the fire chief said recorded ignitions were human caused but could not be reliably tied to a specific population without direct evidence.
No council vote on new funding for ECHO was taken at the Oct. 7 meeting; the update described an earlier council amendment to the ECHO agreement and new county funding for warming beds. Staff said they will provide the council with an exact warming‑shelter start date when it is set.
