Anonymous
By the County of Santa Barbara
Governor Gavin Newsom announced on June 14, 2023, that Santa Barbara County has been awarded a significant grant of $6 million to tackle the pressing issue of unsheltered homelessness in the region. This grant aims to link individuals currently residing in encampments near dangerous state right of ways and heavily impacted waterways to crucial services and establish pathways to both interim and permanent housing.
Santa Barbara County’s selected sites include the Santa Maria riverbed between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, where collaboration with Caltrans and San Luis Obispo County will address homelessness among a transient population between the City of Santa Maria in Santa Barbara County and more rural areas in San Luis Obispo County. Additionally, the Santa Ynez riverbed in Lompoc and Solvang, which runs under a Caltrans right of way, presents an opportunity to address long-standing homelessness issues in this area. The grant also targets homeless encampments near creek systems leading to beaches in South Santa Barbara County, including Goleta, Santa Barbara, Montecito, Summerland, Carpinteria, and unincorporated areas, where hazardous environmental impacts have been documented.
Lucille Boss, Encampment Response Coordinator, expressed the urgency of addressing unsheltered homelessness, stating, “The impacts of this year’s storms demonstrated that unsheltered homelessness is always unsafe, unhealthy, and must be addressed with urgency. This grant, a collaborative effort with San Luis Obispo County, Caltrans, and cities throughout Santa Barbara County will link people currently in encampments with a pathway to interim and permanent housing.”
The grant encompasses various crucial components, including funding for a specialized outreach team projected to serve approximately 250 individuals. This team will provide in-field case management to encourage people to accept available and planned interim housing and permanent housing. The outreach will begin this summer. Interim housing projects and permanent housing projects near prioritized areas are already under development. Outreach teams will meet acute needs in the field and link unsheltered persons to long-term supportive services to ensure their retention in housing placements, working to connect individuals to services that meet their unique needs, such as street outreach case managers, housing navigators, mental health practitioners, certified substance use disorder specialists, medical coordinators, and community support programs. This funding source does not include clean-up/removal nor environmental rehabilitation/restoration; it is focused on housing and services to engage people and provide pathways from unsheltered homelessness to interim and permanent housing.
To ensure the success of this initiative, Santa Barbara County has garnered significant support. The grant application included letters of support from Caltrans, Assemblymember Gregg Hart, Senator Monique Limón, the County of San Luis Obispo, and cities such as Santa Maria, Lompoc, Goleta, Santa Barbara, and Carpinteria. These partner jurisdictions have committed to leveraging existing street outreach teams, collaborating with short-term non-congregate scattered sites, establishing linkages with landlords, and partnering with environmental groups.
The County of Santa Barbara has been proactive in this effort for the last several years. The Board of Supervisors on August 31, 2021, approved a 3-year (2021-2024) Encampment Resolution Strategy and Encampment Response Protocol with a goal of resolving encampments of varying size and impact. This strategy and protocol were used to apply for this competitive grant funding.
The awarded grant is part of the Encampment Resolution Fund (ERF), an initiative spearheaded by Governor Newsom and the Legislature. Governor Newsom’s administration has proposed providing $750 million to support 10,000 individuals living in precarious conditions on California’s streets.
More of our CA State Tax dollars being thrown into the hands of Homeless INC. It’s a very profitable business and has been for years.
COAST – try reading for once. It’s a grant. And even if it were my tax dollars, do you know why I don’t live in Texas or Florida? Because, I don’t want my tax dollars paying to take away the rights and freedoms of people. If you hate, so very very much, our state and what Newsom spends money on, go. Move. NO ONE is forcing you to live here and contribute to housing the homeless. No one is forcing you to help provide for the disenfranchise. No one is forcing you to support, pay or in any way help anyone. The CA border is open, move somewhere where you approve what is done with your taxes.
A grant from the State of CA doesn’t come out of thin air. It comes from California taxpayers. Call it what you want, it’s taxpayer-funded. Whatever your personal thoughts are on it, either way is fine, but don’t be foolish. Governor Newsom is only fooling fools by calling it a “grant”, something he’s good at in my opinion.
Look up where grants come from.
Taxpayers don’t come out of thin air, they come from nationalized military dominance over Natives, Red Coats, and Krauts (among others).
If you have a problem with taxes, complain to our military or police. 🙂
Sac – At risk of sounding incorrect you should track down exactly where this grant came from.
It’s not clearly apparent when you search for that info so I’d actually wager that it did in fact come from our pockets.
Any NPO involved would have a top listed SEO result on google (if you know how to use google that is) and would love to tell you about how much they donated to the grants.
Last I checked you’re thinking more along the lines of private grants like university scholarships and whatnot.
You learn something every day! Hooray!
Sacjon, the grants came from the State, where do you think the State gets the money for the grant?
yeah, some taxes, but also NPOs, donations from philanthropists as well. It’s not all from taxpayers.
People in Santa Barbara LOVE taxes. They would prefer confiscation of everyone’s wealth but their own, but in the meantime accelerated tax rates will offer temporary succor
Great. Now we get to argue with people who are economically illiterate (at the adult level) and don’t understand that state government grants come from CA or USA taxpayers of some stripe. Private grants are rarely administrated through the state because it is not tax friendly or smart, but if this is one of those, it would be a gift by a taxpayer to the state. Bond money also comes from the people who buy bonds and the taxpayer is on the hook for the interest on the bond. People who buy bonds make money on their bond purchase because taxpayers pay the interest on the bond for 30 years
“don’t understand that state government grants come from CA or USA taxpayers of some stripe” – Weird, I don’t see where anyone said that. Not sure what you and SBPOSER are on about, but no one here ever said that. Reading comprehension is so very, very important.
Yay! The way to address our homeless situation is to provide those souls with housing, and mental and physical health support. Pretty simply. This is not an isolated problem or unique solution. It worked in Canada. A HUGE federal funding effort to eliminate homelessness there. It worked in Utah. Yes, it costs $$, but what is the value of a human life?
Also, what is the cost of leaving people in the creek beds and bushes? That has costs as well.
Encampment Resolution Funding Program is all taxpayer money. Some state and some federal via the CARES Act (Coronavirus money)
The language in the bill below uses the word “appropriated” which translates as: take (something) for one’s own use, typically without the owner’s permission. Tax money spent is often referred to in this way because the once the State has the tax funds and a bill like AB-140 it does not need to consult the taxpayer on spending, it simply informs them.
From AB-140
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB140
(h) The development consists of the acquisition, rehabilitation, reconstruction, alterations work, new construction, or any combination thereof, of lodging facilities or dwelling units using any of the following:
(1) Moneys received from the Coronavirus Relief Fund established by the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (Public Law 116-136).
(2) Moneys received from the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund established by the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) (Public Law 117-2).
(3) Moneys appropriated and disbursed pursuant to Chapter 5.5 (commencing with Section 50606) of Part 2 of Division 31.
(4) Moneys appropriated and disbursed pursuant to Chapter 6.6 (commencing with Section 50672) of Part 2 of Division 31.
(5) Moneys appropriated and disbursed to fund the uses and accomplish the objectives specified in Section 50675.1.1 or 50675.1.3.
Its not about using tax money. We pay taxes to solve problems
The discussion should be about cost effectiveness of projects and the results we get.
I don’t mind spending tax money to help homeless. I do not mind a certain level of experimentation with different ideas and approaches. Failure can be OK as long as we learn lessons
I do want very frank honesty.
In the article quoted below we are told only 27 people returned to the streets out of 66 helped at Red Rose Motel so we got 60% rate and lives helped off the streets.
But notice no follow up questions like:
Me: “where are they now?
City of SB: “Off the streets”.
Me: “OK, everywhere or just off of SB streets?”
City of SB: “We know some are still in town and off the streets”
Me: All 33? Or did some move out of town?
City of SB: “We can’t say about all 33, we do know some are still in town”
Me:” Exactly how many?”
City of SB: “We do not have an exact number”
Me: “So you have no way of tracking them once they leave SB?”
City of SB: “No”
Me: “OK, that is fair, so some may still be homeless, they just moved and you can’t track them. How many are still in SB and off the streets?”
City of SB: “We do not know their status unless they voluntarily check in with us or are contacted on the streets by homeless outreach, law enforcement and that report gets back to us.
Me: “OK, so I see that we are talking about a group of 33 people that as of today have not been contacted by police or homeless outreach in SB, but for all we know, 1/2 might be homeless in Ventura, or elsewhere?”
“The Rose Garden Inn project ran from July 5, 2021, to Jan. 31, 2022. During that time, 63 people stayed at the motel on upper State Street — 43 men and 20 women. Of those,12 people were placed into permanent housing or other “safe locations,” according to the staff report. Another 13 people were connected to mental health and substance abuse treatment programs. About 33 became “document ready,” meaning they were able to obtain key documents such as birth certificates and other records to be eligible for disability or other social services. ”
27 returned to the streets, out of 63.
Put it into the old Juvenile Hall.
Put them all there. I’m tired of wondering when the cheap housing around town will all be filled with drug addict bums.
$6,000,000
How much will SB Government take as an administration fee? $1,000,000? $1,500,000?
How much will SB Government pay their “advisors”? Another million?
Look up the history of our air sing of grant money. About 30% goes to administration & advisors.
Regardless over 1,800 known homeless. And they going to help only 250.
They e done this before. Recall the hotel stats, upper State Street, etc? And where are those people now?
Back on the street.
There will be about $14,000/homeless
Does that sound like a permanent solution?
Or just optics to make it appear the government is helping?
Or just money laundering to put money in peoples pockets ?
Throughout the decades there have been numerous “first time ever” “collaborative” efforts. Hundreds of millions spent here in SB.
And what do we get. A 28% increase in homeless over the last 10 years.
That’s progress!!!
Way to go “Party of the People”!
And your solution is? Not a snide comment, an honest question. I would like to read a viable answer to this question.
Build drug-free bunk houses where the homeless will have a place to sleep , shower, and locker to store their belongings. You can’t camp in the bushes but you’re welcome to stay here. Don’t want to get off drugs, ok your option is to attend a drug treatment facility, mental health facility or go to jail. Our state has spent over $10 BILLION addressing homelessness only for the problem to get worse, the money is there to do this and will actually get people off the streets.
https://www.noozhawk.com/27_rose_garden_in_homeless_residents_returned_to_streets_citys_homeless_str/
“The Rose Garden Inn project ran from July 5, 2021, to Jan. 31, 2022. During that time, 63 people stayed at the motel on upper State Street — 43 men and 20 women. Of those,12 people were placed into permanent housing or other “safe locations,” according to the staff report. Another 13 people were connected to mental health and substance abuse treatment programs. About 33 became “document ready,” meaning they were able to obtain key documents such as birth certicates and other records to be eligible for disability or other social services. ”
27 returned to the streets, out of 63.
How you paying for all that, VOICE?
With the same funds we have spent and will spent homeless, just utilizing those same funds in a different way rather than continuing the same thing we’ve spent over $10B which not only didn’t approve the situation it made it worse.
So you approve of your tax dollars going to help the homeless. Wow, cool! That’s pretty liberal of you and I would never have thought you’d say that. Pleasantly surprised, Voice!
Was that comment at 11:32 meant to be in English?
The City of SB has been throwing MILLIONS (@ least 1.5 every year) to HOMELESS INC for decades… All it has done is propagate the “homeless” administrators and staff within the County, Cities and “non-profits”…. The $8 Million would be better served to get the vargrants in FORCED REHAB PROGRAMS to eliminate the addiction which turns into “mental health”… Once they are off drugs and alcohol, they can go into vocational training and WORK back into society…
Dude, no it shouldn’t. Disease and homelessness shouldn’t be a federal crime.
You should move to China.
Dude, being a junky on the streets should be unconstitutional.
You should know that.
COAST – “forced rehab” is unconstitutional. You should know that. Addiction is only 1 form of mental health, it’s not the cause as you so ignorantly suggest.
“If you build it, they will come” and they will keep coming.
CONS: Get all these dirty homeless people off our streets and out of our parks!
CALIFORNIA, NPOs, PHILANTHROPISTS, ETC: OK, we’re going to help put those people in tiny homes and do other things to help them get off the streets.
CONS: NO! Don’t use my tax money!
CALIFORNIA, NPOs, PHILANTHROPISTS, ETC: We’re using grant money and might need some of your taxes to help clean your town like you asked.
CONS: Never mind. Leave all these dirty homeless people on our streets and in our parks!
SZQ – What is your solution?