Plans to turn the former Oakmoore Golf Course in Stockton into a “safe camping” site for the unhoused have hit a snag that is preventing the project from going forward.
While San Joaquin County now owns the 62-acre site on Wilson Way, the conversion is being waylaid by a California residential code. The provision bars establishing tent camps if temperatures can fall below 50 degrees. The average monthly low in Stockton dips into the 40s starting in November.
Board of Supervisors Chair Paul Canepa, who has championed the project as a cost-effective and common sense alternative to allowing homeless camps to fester, is confident that a solution can be found.
“We’ll get there because we need to provide a place for safety, and that’s the ultimate goal,” he told Stocktonia. “We’re still making progress,” he added.
Canepa said the county is working with architects on the camp, but he said that shifting to an alternative to tents — such as tiny houses — could present its own legal complications.
The “safe camping” experiment is considered worthy because it solves some of the issues that have dissuaded some unhoused people from continuing to live on the streets or marshland. Some refuse to live in close proximity to others in shelters or without their pets. Some just like living outdoors.
The idea is to give unhoused people an experience more akin to what they had in their own camps — but with security and sanitation. They also would have access to so-called “wraparound services,” such as mental health counselors and drug-addiction treatment. The camping idea is based on programs in other counties.
Supervisor Mario Gardea, speaking at a San Joaquin County Civic Alliance forum event at Delta College last week, said he saw a similar program in Placer County and was impressed. Supervisor Sonny Dhaliwal, also speaking at the event, noted how the 50-degree temperature rule is holding up the safe-camping initiative here.
“They are now trying to figure out some alternative,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to address the homeless situation.”
The county bought the former golf course and adjacent property for $9.6 million earlier this year. Besides the camp site, the county plans to use the site for warehouses, vehicles services and other purposes.
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