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Paso Robles details homelessness strategy, launches North County stakeholder group
Summary
Homeless services manager Ashley Hernandez updated the council on a 2024 strategic plan implementation, partnerships with ECHO and county behavioral health, plans for a North County stakeholder group, and upcoming data and volunteer efforts.
Ashley Hernandez, the city's homeless services manager, told the Paso Robles City Council on July 15 that the city is moving from planning to early implementation of a homelessness strategy adopted in 2024.
Hernandez said the plan, developed with 38 cross-sector partners, is organized around six focus areas: programs and services; behavioral health; education, training and outreach; the housing continuum; funding and resources; and policies and procedures. "Listen first. I did not come with all the answers," Hernandez said, describing eight months of outreach and a 90-day emphasis on building relationships and mapping services.
The update outlined several near-term actions: finalizing an amended memorandum of understanding with ECHO to track quality improvements and neighborhood impacts; strengthening coordination with county behavioral health for mental-health and substance-use services; expanding the Community Action Team with a third officer embedded with behavioral health; and forming a North County stakeholder group this fall to set shared priorities.
Hernandez also described housing demand and development activity, saying waiting lists at some multifamily and senior projects range from roughly 600 to 1,400 families per site. The multifamily accelerator program is identifying sites, zoning refinements and grant opportunities; the city is working with the Paso Robles Housing Authority and People's Self-Help Housing on specific projects.
Hernandez said the city will begin producing data reports in fall 2025 with the county's homeless management information system and that the next point-in-time count will be January 2026. She asked council support for volunteer recruitment for that count and said the next quarterly council update will be in November 2025.
In public comment, resident Linda George raised concerns that ECHO does not fully serve people living in the riverbed and asked that the issue be addressed in implementation. Hernandez said the city's approach is to work with partners and people with lived experience to reduce confusion around coordinated entry and to create a resource guide in partnership with ECHO and the county.
Hernandez closed with a personal anecdote about a person who said outreach workers had helped her rebuild her life: "My job is to sow seeds and to see what happens," she told the council.
