By Neil Farrell ~ 

San Luis Obispo County’s Department of Social Services is officially announcing the opening of a new, permanent office in Morro Bay.

Office co-manager, Robert Dyer, told The Bay News that they opened to the public in June, after the County did an extensive remodeling on the building, which is located at 600 Quintana Rd., at the corner of Kennedy Way.

[pullquote align=”full” cite=”Robert Dyer” link=”” color=”#00CC66″ class=”” size=””]“We had a lot of customers right away,” Dyer said. “Every person who comes in says they are so glad we’re here. Now they don’t have to make the trip into San Luis.”[/pullquote]

That building has been a Security Pacific Bank, a furniture store, an antiques store, a childcare center, and most recently was the temporary home for Lemos Ranch Pet Supply, when that company was constructing a new building on Main Street.

The County basically took a building that was one large open room and framed in walls for private interview rooms and restrooms, transforming it into an office building with lots of cubicles.

Dyer said the office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays and closed on federal holidays. It is intended to serve the North Coast — from Los Osos to San Simeon — and will take the place of a satellite office on Morro Bay Boulevard that was only open one day a week in the County Public Health Department Office across the street from City Park.

“We administer three basic programs here,” he explained, “CalWORKS, CalFresh and Medi-Cal and Covered California, which is part of the Affordable Care Act.”

According to the State Government website: “CalWORKs is a welfare program that gives cash aid and services to eligible needy California families. The program serves all 58 counties in the state and is operated locally by county welfare departments. If a family has little or no cash and needs housing, food, utilities, clothing or medical care; they may be eligible to receive immediate short-term help. Families that apply and qualify for ongoing assistance receive money each month to help pay for housing, food and other necessary expenses.”

CalFresh is the State’s old food stamps program just renamed. “CalFresh was established to improve the nutrition of people in low-income households. It does that by increasing their food-buying power, so they are able to purchase the amount of food their household needs.” CalFresh benefits are issued via an electronic benefit transfer card or EBT, working similar to a debit card from a bank.

And according to Wikipedia, “The California Medical Assistance Program (Medi-Cal or MediCal) is the name of the welfare program serving low-income individuals, including but not limited to: families, seniors, persons with disabilities, children in foster care, pregnant women, and childless adults with incomes below 138% of federal poverty level. Approximately 12.5 million citizens were enrolled in Medi-Cal as of May 2015, or about 32.4% of California’s population.”

Most of their clients are in Medi-Cal, Covered California or the Cal Fresh programs, Dyer said.

Though there are numerous insurance firms that will sign people for Obamacare for free and people can sign themselves up online, Dyer said it pays to go to Social Services for assistance. “We encourage people to apply here,” he said. “There’s less opportunity for things to go wrong.”

He explained that the county’s operating system is the same as Covered California’s and can communicate to a State computer system and network that informs doctors of a patient’s benefits.

Asking for help from the government to sign up for a government program is easier. “Historically,” he said, “applicants using outside resources have had a more difficult path. I’m not discouraging people from using outside resources, but it works smoother when you use a social services office.”

Dyer said they had a “soft-opening” at noon June 3, and while there wasn’t exactly a line out the door, it didn’t take long for clients to find them. Much of that spread through word of mouth, he said, as well as clients at the main office in SLO being referred to the new Morro Bay office.

“We had a lot of customers right away,” Dyer said. “Every person who comes in says they are so glad we’re here. Now they don’t have to make the trip into San Luis.”

As for the chance of the County’s offerings being expanded in Morro Bay, Dyer doesn’t think so, at least not in this same building. “We’re pretty maxed out here,” he said. “We have 15 people here and there’s not much room for anything else at this time.”