It’s refreshing to see a county leader putting on the YIMBY hat and walking the talk. That’s “yes in my backyard,” as opposed to the more popular naysayers’ NIMBY acronym.
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino has been wearing his thinking cap since last January’s proposal to accept state money and turn a Motel 6 in Santa Maria into temporary homeless housing. He and the rest of the supervisors voted to get something on paper by their Jan. 31 deadline and receive Project Homekey funds. It was needed money for a needed project, but a lot of feathers got ruffled.
“There’s no golden choice, it’s not one [location] is better than the other, but I can’t live with the status quo,” Lavagnino told us in February.
Santa Maria City Council officials and community members raised such a loud outcry that the county heard it, scuttled that project location, and has now found another location—this one on the county’s own property.
Lavagnino and fellow North County Supe Bob Nelson recently proposed a spot on a county-owned piece of vacant land near the Board of Supervisors’ Santa Maria office. If all goes well, Dignity Moves would open a 90-unit temporary housing facility where people could get adequate medical and mental health attention, and help finding permanent housing.
“The reason we came up with the idea is because everybody said, ‘Oh I don’t want it around me.’ So I said, ‘Put it next to us.’”
This project and its location sound pretty darn good—good enough, at least. We can’t afford to wait for perfect. Plus, the supes have a successful Dignity Moves project in Santa Barbara to point to. Those 35 tiny homes have already made a “visible difference” in that neighborhood, according to Elizabeth Funk, Dignity Moves CEO.
But there’s a long road ahead, filled with the necessary and good opportunities for study and input—the exact kind of input that Santa Maria leaders and residents didn’t get to share about the Motel 6 project ahead of time.
Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino has already toured the Santa Barbara tiny homes and had positive things to say.
“I think this will be an improvement because I think people will be in a contained environment, and they will have services to transition to permanent housing. If that’s the objective, I think it’s a great idea.”
However, the county must gather community input.
“We’ll be having more conversations, and it should be collaborative definitely,” the mayor said. “I think there should be open forums and public outreach so the public gets a chance to speak.”
Hear that, community? Now’s your chance. Get some info. Do some research. Take a look around and recognize that there is a very real need for a very real solution.
“It’s going to save money in the long run. It’s well run, it’s dignified,” Dignity Moves’ CEO Funk said. “It’s just explaining [the goal] because people’s knee-jerk reaction is ‘no shelter in my neighborhood,’ when you do want this in your neighborhood badly.”
The Canary is a NIMBY, nest in my backyard. Send feathers to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 22-29, 2022.
