Aggressive panhandlers at Vons at 1040 Coast Village Road. 2 WMA over 6 feet tall one with an aggressive dog throwing things at passer-bys.
Aggressive Panhandlers in Montecito
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20 Years ago I heard of people getting a hundred and hour at that Von’s on the average.
If any of the professional panhandlers read EDHAT, I know you’re probably not real familiar with the area, so… State St is a dead horse, pretty much all of Santa Barbara is. If you want to make REAL money panhandling, Go on Coast Village Road or better yet San Ysidro and East Valley Rd… That is where all the uber rich democrats live- Even Oprah lives over there!
Hahaha. Nice try. (Not a panhandler.)
Yes let’s re-direct all the bums to hang out in front of the montecito stores & compounds and I guarantee action will be taken by the city.
Of course we will read all about this incident in our local newspapers tomorrow. Should be headline news in the Montecito Journal. Lead story in Noozhawk and Independent?
A few years ago, in an official city report it claimed upwards of $500,000 a year was given in this city to panhandlers. But that was back when State Street was busy and people still had not figured out this money was not going for food, their dog, medicine, or a bus ticket; it all goes for drugs. Plenty of shelter services in this town. Too many. The proper amount to give a panhandlers is zero. Don’t even think about supporting, enabling and encouraging any pan-handler anywhere in this entire city.
We were walking oceanside this evening, looking out at the oil derricks all lit up orange and yellow. We weren’t even talking about homeless people and suddenly, out of nowhere, my significant other said, “Those derricks aren’t even being used now, right? Maybe we should send all the homeless people out there.” Thoughts?
it’s been a while since I was there but in the waterfront area of San Francisco the people asking for money gave you something for it. One guy had a sign “Will jump rope for 5 minutes for a dollar.” There were musicians, jugglers, poetry readers. I gave the jump rope guy a dollar. Who remembers Mason B. Mason with his guitar, singing and making up songs about you as you walked by? Who remembers the mouse on top of the cat on top of the dog. It was fun to see and made State Street interesting.
@Shorebird- The booming voice of Mason is always thought of whenever I pass Canon Perdido and State , and yes, the dog / cat/ mouse was hysterical- But now the panhandlers and “homeless” in general are a different type altogether- Most are young and able enough to get a job and “work”, instead they choose a street life and are aggressive-entitlement punks.
The tone of these comments is disturbing. Why are people gleefully advocating to shove Santa Barbara’s homeless problem immediately over to Montecito? How neighborly is that? How does that solve the problem for all of us? And the world does not end at Coast Village, people. That’s in the city limits of Santa Barbara.
Not when someone gets in your face and demands money it isn’t a small issue. Some people can protect themselves others cannot. Something needs to be done.
It’s not a few bad eggs it’s alot of bad eggs.
@A-155 The reason I am an advocate for sending Panhandlers to Montecito is that the Montecito Elite Class LOVES to support “Homeless Inc.”… As long as it’s compartmentalized in “The City” of Santa Barbara… NOT in their protected-behind -the -hedges-horticultured-estates… They love to literally feed the homeless as it removes their liberal guilt, they just don’t want to deal with it.
There is actually alot of stuff that goes on in Montecito and BOOM it’s the same as here…
Some comments make it seem the posters really hate Montecito people, calling them all liberals (not) because some actually show compassion. Jealous because many of the residents there figured how to make a lot of money? The friends I have living in Montecito are regular working stiffs, or retired from being regular working stiffs. Don’t paint everyone with the same brush.
Well said coastwatch…I couldn’t agree more. It’s the truth (people just hate hearing it).
They are likely polluted with gas and chemicals would cause health problems… Plus someone owns them and would then be required to carry the liability, and someone would have to pick them up and drop them off and take them food, evacuate them in big storms. Who would police the fighting and clean up their refuse and biological waste? Shipping homeless people to oil derricks is a weird idea to say the least.
Panhandlers need to move into Upper Village Montecito and into the heart of county first district supervisor Das Williams – Das is one of their biggest supporters. Let him fix this problem at last, at the county level, instead of just tinkering around the edges of this problem or demanding the city fix it for him. Let the socially liberal Montecito supporters deal with this issue directly face to face, because for too long they donated money to put this problem in someone else’s back yard.
Buy a de-comissioned cruise ship and park it off shore for several thousand occupants..
Years ago Barney Brantingham interviewed homeless in De la Guerra Plaza for his NP column. One man bragged about the thousands he made, Barney wrote about it and the IRS showed up to tax the guy.
My thought is that you probably need a new significant other.
Thoughts: Wtf?? You realize the homeless are still people, right? Try not to ruin compassion for many with the misgivings of the few bad eggs. Sounds like you and your significant other may want to put in some volunteer time at the soup kitchen to realize many, if not most, of these people are not bad people and are simply down on their luck, you could gain some empathy. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
This thread reminds me of so many commenters who whine and snivel about lower State Street! Panhandling, whether taking place in Montecito or Santa Barbara, is a minor problem. Quit whining and enjoy paradise!
Not to trivialize the issue, but if you put out birdseed, you get birds. If you put out cats, you don’t.
Throw more money at the problem that will fix it.
These comments are really depressing. Faced with an urban crisis, all you can think to do is beat up on another community, and wish the problem on them? Don’t many of you think that’s exactly how some of our homeless ended up here? Because someone else dumped them on us? Why perpetuate that? Why not work on the problem instead?
And someone prove that Montecito funds Homeless, Inc. One Lady Ridley Tree does not a whole community make. There are a lot of working folks in Montecito. It’s not all mansions and estates.
Yes homelessness is a federal problem, but it gets punted to the cities and counties to deal with it. Our city is spectacularly unambitious about solving homelessness. Our mayor is clueless. But a community that decides to tackle homelessness itself, at the street level, can make great strides despite the idiots on the Council. Milpas had a concentrated Outreach project that achieved really good results in 2014, and that’s partly because their businesses participated in helping get the most chronically homeless off the street. The Indy did a story on it, I think. State St copied the project, but didn’t get good results because their businesses didn’t get as involved. The community is the most important decider of what goes on and problem-solving skills.
I thought Santa Barbara was full of can-do people that loved working in community spirit. This feels like the echo chamber for the can-don’ts.
Re-open the state care institutions, like Camarillo used to offer. The promieed psycho-trophic drug “cures” that closed them down did not work. Re-open them and build new ones. Voters supported Prop 63 – Mental Health Services Act years ago and wasted all that money. Voters again said use that money to get these vagrants off the street. Sooner the better for all concerned. New message coming from California taxpayers – you will not live in our streets, creeks, bushes, rooftops, water channels or storefronts if you come to this state. You will be assessed for state or federal care institutions and that is where you will stay..
Talk to your local federatl representative Salud Carbajal. He should be front and center on this topic. Meanwhile ask your state reps – Hannah Beth Jackson and Monique Limon where the voter approved, billions of tax dollars Prop 63 – Mental Health Services Act – has gone. Voters supported this ballot measure to get these people permanently off our streets – what happened to all that money.
Get hardcore addicts and mentally impaired vagrants off our streets now. This is where we start. Then we move up the ladder until tax-paying residents finally take back their own town.
your post makes too much logical sense for most of these edhat readers to comprehend. betcha this gets a lot of down votes lol! but i speak the truth….
LMAO!
Went into the General Fund and squandered . Duh 🙂