ECHO Family Shelter

Making a Shelter More of a Home

Precision transformed the living quarters of 13 homeless families in San Luis Obispo County.

When People’s Self-Help Housing, a nonprofit on California’s Central Coast, hired Precision to remodel its ECHO family shelter, seven families were living together in a single large room, separated only by flimsy curtains. The floors were industrial concrete, and there was almost no privacy or sense of individual living spaces.

Precision completed an extensive renovation that built new drywall partitions to enclose each family’s living quarters, updated electrical systems and ductwork, created a new common area with a television and other amenities, and added ADA accessibility modifications. Self-performed work included framing, insulation, ductwork, door and frame installation, and restroom accessories. Institutional finishes were also upgraded to feel more homelike, with independently controlled lighting fixtures, giving families a space that will feel more like their own.

A second phase of the project, which was funded by the State of California’s Homeless Emergency Aid Program, renovated four additional family rooms, a laundry room, and staircase, and brought two bathrooms up to current ADA standards.

Both phases were completed within three months, to allow residents to quickly move from temporary housing trailers outside ECHO’s facility. Said Wendy Lewis, the president and CEO of ECHO: “The renovations now give ECHO the ability to provide an even better and empowering environment which will serve the unhoused community for years to come.”