SLO Solutions Sees Success with City of SLO, Cal Poly & Cuesta

Bridging Town and Gown Issues Together

Creative Mediation at Wilshire Community Services has had a collaborative program with the City of San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly and Cuesta to provide conflict coaching and mediation to residents and students. This program, called SLO Solutions, offers dispute resolution as a way to support the community in town and gown issues that often create conflict. Local residents continue to see positive results from these collaborative efforts to reduce neighborhood issues near campus and within the City of San Luis Obispo.

Recently, Cal Poly released a press release discussing all the measures the university has taken over the last decade to address some of these town and gown issues related to noise complaints and citations. In their press release, they shared, “Over the past 10 years, the city has experienced a steady decline of noise complaints, which have dropped by 52 percent from 2,584 complaints in 2009, to a low of 1,228 in 2019. Noise citations also dropped within that same time span, from a high of 263 in 2010, to 149 in 2019.”

Of the measures discussed in their report, SLO Solutions was named as a program that has helped contribute to the positive results the community has seen. Director of Creative Mediation, Samantha Watkins shares why, “People call us with all different types of conflicts including disputes between neighbors, issues between roommates and landlord & tenant disagreements. Whether it’s providing free conflict coaching to an individual over the phone, or free mediation for people to work through their conflict using a neutral mediator, SLO Solutions provides support for people to navigate conflict in our community. It truly has been an effective and successful partnership.”

Learn more by visiting our SLO Solutions Page