A long discussion at Paso Robles city council last night about a request from ECHO for 440 thousand dollars in funding for the homeless shelter at Motel 6.
Matt Macia spoke for neighbors of the homeless shelter at Motel 6. He said their main concern is that matters not get worse. Council member Maria Elena Garcia tells the council about her concerns related to accountability. Mayor Steve Martin reminded the council of the intent of the agreement with ECHO. He said it was to get people out of the Salinas riverbed. The police chief told the council there are still many people living in the riverbed.
Ultimately, councilman John Hamon made the motion to approve the funding with some restrictions. First, the 440,000 will be paid over two years, with the other half to be raised locally from service clubs. After lengthy discussion and fine tuning, that motion was passed unanimously.
Staff will develop a resolution and bring it back to the council for final approval in June.
