Source: County of Santa Barbara
The Santa Maria/Santa Barbara County Continuum of Care (CoC) is applying for $2,272,896 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to support the work of local homeless service providers.
The 2019 Santa Maria/Santa Barbara County Continuum of Care (CoC) application and priority listing will be submitted as the 2019 CoC Consolidated Application to HUD by the September 30, 2019 deadline for the 2019 national competition. The County expects to hear announcements on CoC HUD funding in spring 2020.
The County of Santa Barbara is the lead agency for the CoC and responsible for coordinating the application process and submitting the final application to HUD on behalf of local agencies. The request includes several project types: Transitional Housing (TH), Rapid Re-Housing (RRH), Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), Coordinated Entry System (CES), and Homeless Management Information System (HMIS).
On September 12, the CoC Board approved funding recommendations from an independent review panel for this year’s grant application. The priority list detailed below can also be found on the County’s Housing and Community Development Division website under “2019 HUD Continuum of Care Local Priority Listing.”
Highlights from the 2019 CoC Collaborative application include:
- 10 percent reduction in first-time homelessness
- 5 percent increase in exits to permanent housing
- Partnership with the County’s Workforce Development Board to encourage employment
- Enhanced coordinated outreach and engagement county-wide by agencies working to end homelessness
Through the Continuum of Care, community stakeholders engage on the issues facing Santa Barbara County’s individuals and families experiencing homelessness, and other at-risk populations, and become part of the solutions being offered to address those challenges. The CoC utilizes the Coordinated Entry System (CES) and Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) to track progress and provide continuity of care for individuals and families experiencing homelessness. These service-tracking systems coordinate providers, interventions and services to help persons transition from homelessness to permanent housing. Information collected helps define gaps and inform funding decisions to maximize resources for the greatest impact on reducing homelessness.
An important tool in the arsenal used by housing and service providers working to reduce homelessness in Santa Barbara County is the completion of an individualized assessment of the person experiencing homelessness to identify the most appropriate housing intervention, coordinate care across providers and assist in finding safe, affordable housing.
Statistics provided by the County’s Homeless Assistance Program show that 499 households (787 persons) transitioned out of homelessness since January 2018 when the CoC began a concerted ‘coordinated entry’ into housing programs. The County confirmed there are still more than 1,300 households in need of housing assistance. Resources seeking funding in the application will allow more persons to be assisted.
An overview of homeless resources in Santa Barbara County can be found at https://www.liveunitedsbc.org/resources-clients.
WHAT is SB City Staff submitting!? I hope it isn’t more Tiny Homes proposals!
I wonder how much money they’ve already blown through over the last 20 years and have accomplished nothing! Homelessness growing by the day. This money will be gone in a flash but the problems won’t.
Please use some of this funding to clear out all homeless encampments along the 101 and Union Pacific. Please take the man with the cane who begs at las Positas northbound off ramp and give him appropriate shelter. Please take the man in the wheelchair who is begging at the State St/Delavina triangle right out in the middle of the traffic to a safe place. Thank you.
All that they are going to do is attract more homeless and make it seem reasonable for those able bodied people that they too can live off the welfare of others. Let’s hope that they get turned down.
The guy in the state st/de la vina triangle repeatedly refuses help. Police, assistance programs, etc. have spoken to him countless times. He will not go anywhere !!!
How about using a part of the money to put up “DO NOT SUPPORT PANHANDLER” signs?
$2,2 MILLION going to vagrants and illegals- NOT programs for your kids, Not for public transportation projects, not for a trade school for our non-college attending youths, or a ton of other programs for taxpaying WORKERS, not TAKERS…
Some of these pandhandlers make $100s per day. What’s their incentive to get real jobs when they can live off the “kindness” of others?
Some people talk about missing out on buying Apple or Microsoft when stock was 10 bucks. I miss buying into the Homeless Industry before it got so big. All these millions and billions going to this organization and that organization to cure the incurable – Homeless Incorporated is the growth industry of our times.
The homeless who need help are the ones with mental issues and the veterans we should be honoring for their service, families who were one pay check away from the streets and lost in the gamble to stay housed. Can’t paint all homeless with the “all are drug addicted alcoholics”.
Just because you are down and out, you don’t have the rights to litter everywhere, poop in creeks, have your penis out on state st in the middle of the day(and unfortunately yes i do have photo evidence). It does not matter how much money you have, these things are not acceptable.
You can show that picture to the police and sign a complaint for indecent exposure get that person the help they need to get off the streets.
Now this is a compassionate comment. Thanks.
There was an old guy who worked the Carillo off ramp for years, holding the back of his neck and pretending to be lame. I saw him literally skip across San Andres Street one day, he rides a nice bike and I was told he had housing. Just another Lazy Beggar, making bank on the off ramp. I wish folks would stop funding them.
@COASTWATCH I’ll chip in .20 for your share of this windfall. Spend it however you please. Let us know how it goes as you bravely assist our community from behind your keyboard.
@EGGS- Don’t forget to count the MILLIONS of dollars the CITY of SB gives Homeless Inc. over the last 30 yrs… It’s been a MILLION plus every year the last 10 yrs… That IS a lot of our tax monies spent for non-change and doesn’t not benefit the local SB community members- Rather, it supports vagrant travelers from all over the United States that come here to “vagra-tions”…
All these people have the chance to get off the streets if they really want to. The help is out there for those who truly want the help. If these people don’t want to help themselves then no one can help them. If these people want to be vagrants then they can be, they can be so in the middle of nowhere, not in our neighborhoods.
What would Jesus do?
Jesus didn’t have meth-heads around, they would have burned them at the stake…
Riiiight Burned them at the stake that is the Invaders way.
Yes, those people are panhandling during the day and go back to their Montecito Estates at night in their Beemers. Care to cite a source for your misinformation? A site that is not connected to the Koch Bros?
And your solution is? Let me guess- 1) run them out of town and let them be another City’s problem. Out of sight, out of mind. or 2) Put them all in jail at $50K/yr/person and then whine about your taxes going up.
Take this money to develop a Homeless Village on County Property bear medical, veteran, social services, and law enforcement on Cathedral Oaks. Include inpatient long term care facility beds for chronically I’ll and those with brain dysfunction; build transitional assisted living and long term supervised living for 200-300 with socio-medical and/or VOCATIONAL training or placement needs. Then create a mega 500 pad campground like at Yosemite with assigned inexpensive pads for rent. Offer communal rest rooms, showers, mini-market, and day labor job postings with a bus stop out front. GET TO WORK COUNTY & CITY LEADERS. Stop kicking the can!
Recent story that California has 1/2 of the country’s homeless population but only 12% of the overall population. That means we are taking care of a lot of people that come from other states. We should be on the hook for helping our 12%, and the feds and other states should be giving us money for the rest. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the red states start to take care of their responsibilities- it will not be good for your health.
I suspect that if citizens completely stopped giving panhandlers money, the local transients would move on their own. There are many agencies and faith organizations that feed them…they aren’t starving. The money is used for booze and drugs. **Please stop giving panhandlers money**
$100? Try $200 & up. A guy I know comes here 2 months annually to work homeless circuit.
Yes give the money to the poverty pimps who feed the homeless powdered eggs and pocket the rest.
Let’s Protest! It’s time for us to be seen and heard. Come Monday, 9/30 6p to Franklin Center, 1136 E Montecito Street. I bet few will show Monday because few care about kids or Americans.
If we all stopped giving money to panhandlers, and the transients all left our city on their own, the poverty pimps will also go out of business. It’s a win-win.
I totally agree. Enabling the homeless just increases it. The want hand outs which handicaps them instead of true help.
Jesus would tell them to sin no more with a loving tone. Just like he told the woman the group who wanted to stone her.
In the 80′ s the News Press did a story on the pan handlers/homeless who worked the off ramp south bound in the middle of the freeway. They worked shifts and made at least $20 an hour. Minimum wage was less than $10 at that time. You could not work that off ramp unless you were part of that group. They were organized and made bank. Too bad they did not use those skills in a positive manner. Same story today. Do not give to them, it is enabling. They need to feel no choice but to get help and off the drugs and alcohol.
Incredible lack of compassion here. So sad.
How about a sign that says “Please Do Not Feed the Bums”?
Is there one single comment here that is not 100% hateful towards the homeless? I tried to read through them all, but it’s just deflating.
Several faith based groups run a food program for the homeless in Lompoc. I volunteer there once in awhile, and donate frequently to the program. The transients there mostly live in the river bed, but there are some that live in cars. My first hand experience is that these folks are genuinely against any help other than cash or food, and they are nearly 100% against living in a shelter that has any constraints (dogs, shopping carts, drugs, booze). This program has been going on for decades. and it’s the same people that come every night. And every volunteer says that you should never give this group cash unless you’re OK with it going towards booze or drugs. So lots of empathy, but zero results. We’ve got to change what we do.
Some people are tired of being used I have been homeless and helped other homeless 3 of the hundreds of people I helped took in, fed, did not rip me off one ripped off a neighbor for 1,400 in recycling, one got me for 1,800 in cash I really could use that money now. Last week I let a homeless girl use my e-mail it took me 2 hours to get my account back on… The homeless girl was a friend of another friend I never would have just let anyone use it now they are both mad at me go buy your own crap and screw it up I have no money and hardly anything else…People are tired of seeing shit and piss all over State street why should they have to see this and smell it when they are downtown having dinner ? Is it a requirement they have no compassion if they don’t put up with peoples bodily waste? Then there are the demanders who not only panhandle but demand money from people and if they don’t give it up they block their way on sidewalks or standing in traffic…-People are tired and they have every right to be some of the panhandlers are pro’s who own homes and rent in the area. There is one homeless girl out there who offered me a slice of pizza one day it was very nice of her when I see her out there and she asks for help I help her the money goes for food as she is not an addict or alcoholic when she asks for help she is genuine I know her everyone else HIT THE ROAD!
My problem is that people here lump all types of homeless into one, evil and lazy group. They’re not. Many of them are lazy kids/adults who don’t want to work and just want to get high/drunk and lay around. BUT there are also a large number of homeless who would work, if given the chance, or if mentally able to. Save your outrage for the lazy drug/booze hounds. But spare a little compassion for those who do not want to be homeless, there ARE some truly troubled souls out there.
I read compassion in most every post. Live and let live, but not at the expense of others. Habituate freely in designated places for tents, drug, use, or sobriety. However do not loiter, trash, sleep, sit, beg, pander on public walks and streets intended to transport folks and for everyone’s use. People who want help can get it by your or their dialing 2-1-1 for assistance. Day paid work can be made available.
1569517354 – yes most posts are from compassionate, thoughtful readers. We pay high taxes, spend trillions nationally “helping” homeless in the wrong way. We must stop what isn’t working.
Favorite NYC Encounter: Bouncer IDs us at jazz club notes we are from SB. He comes here every year. Stays at Chase Palm Park; livesFREE Funk Zone Food from Norbert. . A DON SBHigh Alum says, “I sure hope you take off your Rolex.” We went to a different club: generosity, compassion used and abused.
I’m real sick of it. Been here since 1988 when you still had the hobo jungle and problem has just got worse every year. Need to make it illegal (enforcing it) for them to panhandle and camp out. Provide a list of free social services to those capable of helping themselves. Need to have big mental/rehab institutions to commit those too mentally ill or drug/alcohol addicted to care for themselves.
There is lots of compassion. Compassion for my friends, my family, for visitors, for businesses, for my children, and all people that work hard to better our lives and the community. I have compassion for all those willing to live in a civilized society that is driven by rules to make our lives better. It’s not about a lack of compassion. We can no longer tolerate behavior that degrades our quality of life.
What does that work out to per homeless person? Enough to buy each of them a condo (until the next batch arrives?)
Most of these comments are compassionate or thoughtful. We must have different definitions of those words if you think they are. I use Webster’s, what do you use? Trump’s?
“are not”
Poverty pimps? How is that a compassionate statement?
2019 Homeless Count was 1803. So that money is about $1,260/person. Not even enough for one month’s rent in SB. Maybe save your outrage for a topic that deserves it?
How are the posts labeling people as poverty pimps compassionate? They don’t seem compassionate at all.
Many of you need to ask yourselves why it bothers you so much to see people living in the cracks seeking out an existence. There is a high likelihood that the issue is actually your problem, not the ‘homeless’ person’s. Our selfish and frankly, stupid approach to health care and education is at the core of the problem. As is the American dogma of being self reliant and able to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps…”. That idea is pure bull. Compassion is an emotion, it’s fleeting. The issues are not due to a lack of compassion (there is plenty of that), its due to our societies flawed beliefs. People are confused by the idea of self reliance and most tend to greatly exaggerate and/or ignore the realities of their own lives. They are simply wrong about how much help and good luck they receive(d) in their own life and tend to scorn others without a second thought. Pair this American ideology with the for profit reality of America and you have all the makings for a “crisis” for those who slip and or fall behind…
Decades ago my Mother walked out of McDonald’s on State St. (across from the Granada Theatre) and overhead two “homeless” women talking. The one woman was bemoaning the fact that, via panhandling in front of McDonald’s, she had made *only* a little over $600 that weekend. *******About 15 years ago I had a classmate at SBCC tell me she gave a panhandler $5.00. This took place near the same McDonald’s. About five minutes later, she saw the guy driving his “Beemer” past her. (Not making this up. She said he was driving a very nice BMW. ) He stopped at the red light there on Anapamu St. She ran down, stuck her hand in the open window of his car and demanded her $5.00 back. He reached in his pocket and returned the money to her.