Just off Sycamore Avenue, not far from a busy shopping center, you’ll find Green Oak Ranch.
It's billed as a retreat, but it’s more than that.
"We operate a camp and retreat center, an RV park for low income residents of Vista, and a drug and alcohol recovery program," said Hannah Gailey, the executive director of Green Oak Ranch Ministries.
The organization has been leasing the ranch for the last 74 years, at a cost of $1 a year. But a large part of the property is now up for sale — 110 acres out of its 140 acres.
The section for sale includes the RV park, which is home to about 30 families, including Karin Allison's.
"We've lived here for eight years, my husband and I, with our three children," she said. "We came here as a solution out of homelessness. We were staying at Operation Hope in Vista, and they were closing at the time for the season, they weren't a year-round shelter yet. And so we had to figure something out."
Green Oaks Ranch Ministries offered Allison and her family a FEMA trailer for rent. That rental agreement turned into a rent-to-own opportunity. "And so now we own the trailer," Allison said. "We don't have a vehicle strong enough to pull it, but it's ours, technically."
She said it was the safe haven her family needed coming out of homelessness.
"The first thing that we cherished, moving into a trailer — even though it's still really not big enough housing for a family of five — was the privacy," Allison said. "Anybody who's ever had to spend some time in a homeless shelter knows, that that's not really one of the things that you're afforded there."
She said many of the families living in the RV park come from similar situations, and the affordable rent is a big help.
"We now pay a $1,000 site fee. We are in the fortunate position of having paid off our trailer," Allison said. "A lot of our neighbors still have to make payments on their trailer. Some are actually living in borrowed rigs that a church or a friend allows them to use. Some of our neighbors are refugees from different countries."
But with the future of the land in question, so are the community's living situations. Allison said even notice of a year or two doesn't leave them with many options.
"I know in that time, we won't suddenly make double of what we're earning right now. And now I don't know where we would go," she said.
Other impacted programs
Next to the RV community is the land used for recreational retreats and camps, managed by Green Oak Ranch Ministries.
"We can host up to 400 people at a time. We serve foster kids, Girl Scouts, church groups. We have thousands of kids that come through here each year, and that is a majority of our income," Gailey said, adding that the income from the camps and retreats helps keep prices affordable for the RV park tenants.
It also means affordable prices for the ministry's men's recovery program on site. It's a nine month, faith-based program, costing $500 per month. After the men graduate from the program, they are offered a six month transitional living program where they can work offsite and live on the ranch for $500 per month.
"We have had a good amount of success with that. Of the guys who stay 30 days or more, 40% graduate," Gailey said.
The men's program is on 28 acres of ranch land that are not for sale and owned by Gailey and her husband. But she said the potential sale and loss of the other land jeopardizes the program's model, which includes a work therapy program.
"Our men work the ranch. They take care of animals here. They clean cabins after camps. They provide all of the food for our camps, and they maintain the 140 acres," she said. "In exchange, we are able to offer our program at $500 a month, which is well below the cost of having people here. Without our 110 acres, we have to change the model of what we do."
The sale is happening because the ranch’s owner died. A real estate trust now oversees the property.
Several bids for the land have already been submitted, some with proposals for supportive services for mental health and people who are unhoused.
Karin Allison sees a contradiction in the plans.
"It's ironic to come in and say, 'We want to use the ranch and expand the vision of serving the homeless population. And as part of that, these people have to go and lose their home.' We would be made homeless over this," she said.
The offers
There are three potential buyers for Green Oak Ranch. The first is San Diego County.
On April 30, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to enter negotiations to buy the 110 acres, and Supervisor Jim Desmond outlined the land's potential future.
"What I envision for this property is sober living, 24-7 staff and services, 24-7 security monitoring who comes and goes — for both the neighborhood and the program participants’ safety. Longer term care, not a revolving door. No walk-ins, only referrals. And all residents to be in programs," Desmond said.
He introduced the idea of a "campus of healing" that would bring much needed service to North County, and San Diego as a whole.
"North County is a board and care desert. This location would be a great opportunity to significantly expand our regional board and care facilities," Desmond said. "North County is in desperate need for board and care."
While the supervisors are considering paying $12 million for the property, it could cost the county over $300 million to bring the campus of healing to life.
The second potential buyer is Solutions for Change, a nonprofit organization in Vista helping people get out of homelessness.
Chris Megison, the organization's CEO said they’ve been in negotiations with the Green Oaks Ranch land board to purchase the property for a year.
"We went through so many different vetting activities with them, multiple meetings. They came here. We went there. Many different visits for them to vet us," Megison said. "And then in December of last year, we were notified that we were selected as the entity that they wanted to sell it to."
He said they got as far as executing a purchase agreement. "They have our signed purchase and sales agreement in their office right now, today," he said. "And we've been told that it's imminent any day now. They will sign it and get it back to us. But in all that, all of a sudden, the County of San Diego comes in out of nowhere."
Solutions for Change would like to expand the program they’ve run for almost three decades.
"The vision really includes what we do now, but bigger. We would have a workforce development center there. We would need the city of Vista's approval to do that. And we'd also have on-campus housing," Megison said.
Megison said Solutions for Change has also offered to partner with the city of Vista by giving the city 50 acres that he said they can’t develop.
"There's creeks, and there's a lot of brush. We'd be happy to gift that to the city. That saves them 12 million plus in taxpayer funds, and we would be happy to do that," Megison said.
But Vista is already the third contender for the property.
Vista City Council member Dan O’Donnell says the Solutions for Change offer is intriguing, but he’s got concerns, including whether the organization can even make that offer in the first place.
In the meantime, the city is doing its own appraisal of the ranch, and O’Donnell sees opportunities.
"You can put ballparks here; you can put different park activities, community centers, other things that will benefit the city, but also benefit Green Oak at the end of the day. So I would love for the city to be able to have an opportunity to activate this space in a way that's going to benefit the entirety of Vista, as well as keep Green Oak able to operate their ministry that they do here," he said.
O'Donnell said Vista is in need of more green space and the City shouldn’t miss this opportunity, and he said losing Green Oak Ranch to the county could mean losing local control of what they decide to do with it.
"When we don't have access or the ability to work through what programs they want to bring here, you don't know how many people they can actually help. And what vision they have now may change .... in five or 10 years," O'Donnell said. "I think that's a huge concern for the residents."
O'Donnell would also like to see Green Oak Ranch Ministries continue their work.
A group of Vista residents have also expressed their concerns over the sale of the land, forming the Save Green Oak Ranch Community Action Group with a mission "to unite community members in opposition to the development of a behavioral health campus at Green Oak Ranch."
The final decision on the future of Green Oaks Ranch lies with the land board overseeing the property. KPBS reached out multiple times for comment or a timeline, but did not hear back.
The final resolution could be years away, and Gailey says all plans jeopardize more than the program they've ran for decades.
"It is a loss for the community. There are not a lot of camp and retreat centers of this size in the area anymore," Gailey said. "And so it really has a huge impact on our community camp-wise, on our program, especially funding-wise. It is difficult to sleep at night not knowing where all of the residents in the RV park will end up."
County Supervisor Jim Desmond and the city of Vista are hosting a town hall about the future of Green Oak Ranch on June 30 from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Vista City Hall.
