Last week, the County Board of Supervisors decided to buy a ranch in Vista.
The supervisors voted unanimously to negotiate for 110 acres of a property called Green Oak Ranch to be used as a mental health and substance abuse treatment center.
At an April 30, Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Jim Desmond, who introduced the idea, called the property an oasis, saying it feels private and secluded, but it’s close to major infrastructure.
But the county isn’t the only one with their eye on Green Oak Ranch.
Nonprofit service provider Solutions for Change has been in negotiations with the real estate trust that owns 110 of the 138 acres at Green Oak Ranch for about 10 months, Chris Megison, CEO of Solutions for Change, told Voice of San Diego.
Solutions for Change is a nonprofit in Vista that provides behavioral health and other support services to underserved residents and homeless people in the community. It offers free or low-cost counseling and crisis intervention services, as well as temporary and permanent housing, childcare, workshops and more. The nonprofit also runs Solutions Academy, a 700-day vocational program.
Green Oak Ranch would create an opportunity to significantly expand their work, Megison said.
“We want to move a large portion of our operations there, which includes our academy and our workforce training center,” Megison said. “That’s our strength is getting people jobs and helping people get good employment and also helping people deal with a lot of the causative factors of their homelessness.”
At their current location, which sits on about four acres of land, Solutions for Change helps about 200 people per day, Megison said. The Green Oak Ranch property would allow the nonprofit to at least double that number. And the nonprofit would continue to serve clients from their original location, as well, he said.
Green Oak Ranch also holds a special memory for Megison.
“When I got out of the Marine Corps in 1992, my first assignment was running a homeless program at Green Oak Ranch,” he said. “So, it’s a really fascinating kind of thing for me personally. I literally started my career helping the homeless at this place that we are now trying to buy.”
Megison told Voice he was surprised to see county supervisors pursue the property because Solutions for Change has been working on a deal for several months.
He has a signed letter of intent, and the final contract is very close to being signed by both parties, he told Voice. A letter of intent outlines the terms of a deal and serves as a preliminary commitment between two parties. They typically aren’t legally binding.
Megison said he’s hopeful and excited for the kind of approach Solutions for Change would bring to the community, which he believes is distinctly different from a government-funded program.
“Ours is a private effort that works with the community and is based on what the community needs and wants versus what the county is trying to do, which is all top-down government driven,” he said.
Solutions for Change is known for giving up hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding several years ago because its leaders chose not to subscribe to the Housing First approach.
Housing First contends that a stable home is the first step to helping people recover from life on the streets and drug and mental health crises. It requires programs to offer voluntary supportive services with no requirements of sobriety and treatment.
Solutions for Change, on the other hand, requires sobriety for those participating in its support services.
Oftentimes, federal and state homeless dollars are specifically tied to Housing First, so those who do not opt in, don’t get that funding.
That means Solutions for Change would be privately funding the purchase of this property without any state or federal dollars. Megison did not want to disclose how much they are offering for the property.
At last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, supervisors revealed the county would put $300,000 down on an estimated purchase price of $12 million for the ranch.
Desmond, whose district covers much of North County, told Voice that any decisions involving such large purchases must go before the Board of Supervisors and the public. He is not aware of the status of other negotiations, but he’s hopeful the county will be able to secure the deal, he said.
“Theirs is a private deal, ours is public, so I have no idea how far along anybody else might be,” Desmond told Voice. “It’s a big property, and I’m not surprised if there are other organizations potentially looking at it.”
He said at this time, there are no other properties county leaders are considering for this type of facility if they don’t reach a deal with the owners of Green Oak Ranch.
Green Oak Ranch, located one mile south of State Route 78, was formerly owned by real estate developer Arie de Jong, who died in April 2023. The de Jong family is well known in North County for establishing Hollandia Diary in San Marcos.
The property is now being sold by a real estate trust. Rick Gittings, one of the land’s trustees, told the Union-Tribune that de Jong wanted the property to be go to “either governmental agencies or private nonprofits that are in the business of transforming lives.”
The ranch has housed a Christian drug and alcohol recovery program for men on the property since the late 1990s operated by Green Oak Ministries. That work will continue on the 28-acre portion of the property that is not for sale, the U-T reported.
A representative from the ranch could not be reached for comment.
Successful nonprofit wants to buy land to open a recovery center. Old timer politician wants the government to buy the land and run their own program. Are you even a republican Jim?
Big Homelessness… the industrialization of the homeless crisis in CA is real. If the solution is completely privatized there is NO incentive to eliminate homelessness.