Santa Maria city leaders say it’s time for San Luis Obispo County to pay up for its share of homeless encampment monitoring and enforcement on land in the Santa Maria Riverbed.
A large portion of the riverbed land falls within San Luis Obispo County, but the proximity to Santa Maria homes and businesses led the city and Santa Barbara County to spearhead cleanup efforts.
As the closest jurisdiction, the city’s rangers regularly patrol the area at various times each day, but jurisdictional issues limit efforts to crack down on such issues as wayward shopping carts, City Council members learned.
After hearing an update on the population boom in the riverbed east of Highway 101, Mayor Alice Patino asked whether staff could direct a letter to the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors requesting financial and other help.
“We obviously need cooperation from San Luis Obispo County,” Patino said, adding that Santa Barbara County approved funding to help cover the city’s costs of patrolling the area.
Several weeks ago, Santa Barbara County agreed to provide $42,864 toward patrols, but the neighboring county has yet to help.
“I personally will go to the Board of Supervisors and request help and money from them,” Patino said. “I have no problem going to the Board of Supervisors again and saying, ‘We really need your help. This is not just for Santa Maria to do.’”
She recalled a conversation with Jimmy Paulding, a member of the SLO County Board of Supervisors whose district includes the southern area, months ago when the elected official seemingly supported helping the effort.
“I also want to note that the city is also spending from our budget dollars to contribute to this,” Santa Maria Councilwoman Maribel Aguilera-Hernandez said.
The mayor also expressed appreciation for the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on providing funding to help cover the costs.
“I think it’s had a great impact because I have people that live along there that they felt it was unsafe to even go walking along the levee,” Patino said.
A memorandum of understanding, initially meant to include all three jurisdictions, so far has involved only Santa Barbara County and the city.
“The MOU essentially has our rangers monitoring the riverbed with the county contributing half the cost,” Assistant City Manager Chuen Wu said.
In summer 2024, a multiagency effort led to the removal of encampments west of Highway 101, and that area continues to look pretty good, according to the update from city staff.
However, a growing number of encampments — estimated at 27, according to a report Tuesday night — since have popped up in areas east of Highway 101.
“The challenge that we do have in those areas is it’s San Luis Obispo County, so we can’t enforce the Municipal Code or we can’t even make an arrest or issue a citation due to jurisdictional boundaries,” city ranger Ruben Ramirez said.
Rangers who contact the homeless residents offer various resources and services in hopes of helping to improve their living conditions, but many reject the assistance.
Some encampments, shrouded by the brush in the dry riverbed, involve large structures, Ramirez said. They’ve also learned that some of the homeless residents profited by taking water from a nearby city park and selling it to others.
“To get a cleanup crew, it’s very hard because it’s not the city of Santa Maria’s property or it’s not even the County of Santa Barbara,” Ramirez said.
Santa Maria police officers help out in urgent situations, but enforcement remains problematic because of the jurisdictional issue.
“What we do need is we need the help from the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office to assist us with the enforcement portion,” Ramirez added. “If we could get that assistance, then I think we’d have a pretty good hold on the riverbed and it would be a lot better.”