Anonymous
Source: Santa Barbara Police Department
On June 23, 2021, a multi-agency collaboration between Santa Barbara City Environmental Services and Streets Division, Santa Barbara Police, Amtrak Police, and Union Pacific Police conducted camp cleanups along the railroad tracks within the City of Santa Barbara yesterday.
Since COVID struck last year, there has been a concern with homeless mobility and potentially spreading the virus to others within our community. When the Governor lifted restrictions last week, this allowed Officers to begin assisting with camp cleanups again in certain areas. This particular enforcement detail is unique, being that the railroad tracks are owned mostly by Union Pacific and are private property.
Starting from Castillo Street and moving east, Officers, Union Pacific crews, and Environmental Services walked the railroad tracks towards the eastern most reaching portion of the City near Channel Drive. Those found trespassing on the railroad’s private property were issued citations and asked to leave. All the individuals complied with the Officer’s requests and packed up their belongs and left.
A total of 15 citations were issued. Citations ranged from 369(i) PC – Trespassing on Railroad Property to narcotic violations. Backhoes were used to collect nearly 5,500 pounds of remaining trash and debris that was hauled away with multiple trailers.
“The main goal is to protect lives. People walking, sleeping, and camping near the railroad tracks is extremely dangerous.” According to Operation Lifesaver Inc., a non-profit organization of rail safety education, California is ranked as the number one state for pedestrian trespassing casualties. As of April 2021, there have been 136 deaths and 117 injuries reported from the Federal Railroad Administration within the last year. These casualties are directly associated with individuals trespassing on the railroad right-of-way. Texas is listed as second, with 31 deaths and 60 injuries.
The Santa Barbara Police Department has partnered in the past with Amtrak Police for railroad safety, education, and enforcement details. These details focus on pedestrians trespassing on railroad property, as well as pedestrians and vehicles ducking under or driving around railroad crossing gate-arms found at roadway and sidewalk crossings. “If the gate-arms are down, lights are flashing, the bell is ringing, wait to cross, even if you don’t see a train approaching!”
In addition to the railroad cleanup, park closure enforcement is also being enforced again. Enforcement checks started last Friday at Alameda Park. Officers offer services to those who have erected tents or are camping in the park prior to any enforcement action occurring. Those who refuse services such as the use of local shelters, mental health services, or City Net of Santa Barbara can be issued a citation for illegal camping or remaining in a park after closing hours if they refuse to leave.
More cleanup efforts are expected to continue throughout the next several months.
Hey, where is Food Not Bombs Isla Vista, Bonfire Collective, Eco-Vista and UCSB FTP during all this? Oops, I forgot, Santa Barbara is a city, not a special district run by the county like Isla Vista.
Much easier to seem like you are getting something done in a small district you can torment instead of an actual city.
But all jokes aside, seriously, why aren’t these groups protesting this mass displacement? The kind of things that make you question the goals and integrity behind those groups.
They had better get used to …moving. Because they are not staying. Anywhere.
No reflection on these agencies but the con to end homelessness was a start over 25 years ago the Poverty Managers have made it a business instead.
Trona, CA is practically giving away houses and empty lots with hook-ups – liquor store and health clinic in town. Plenty of places to go and legally camp out in this state, when one has chosen to live by the railroad tracks or a free way overpass. Take that SSI check and call Trona you new and legal home.
Point well taken Roger, 100% agree
LA County Sheriff fed up with too many failed agencies and tax dollars doing nothing but enabling even more vagrant camps. ………..” “Failed policies, self-interest groups, and political agendas are enabling a national crisis to fester within our communities.”
Villanueva said he was drafting another letter to Mayor Garcetti “telling him to unhandcuff the LAPD” and allow law enforcement officers to do their jobs.
“There is a time where you just have to call people out and cut through the BS,” Villanueva said. “This is that moment in history for the entire region to say, ‘Enough is enough, let’s get the job done.’”……..”
They need to salt the Earth after these cleanups. Scatter some huge boulders about so there’s no level, open ground to place tents. These would be great places to relocate the debris they dredge from the creek beds.
Plant copious amounts of cacti
Alice Keck too?? Our citiy’s being overrun, literally. Hey, let’s send them to Murillo’s place, what’s her address again?
What’s with the camper at de la Guerra Plaza?
Why do you make this someone else’s fault (” a wealthy nation”0? Why not put the burden on hose making these destructive life style choices? That is why all these Homeless Inc “programs” fail – it is always someone else’s fault, and thus the systems supposed to “help” easily get gamed.
Do victims of these vagrant camps (property owner and tax payers) have no civil rights to protect their own health and safety? The reason millions get spent and decades go by with no end to this issues is the entire approach is totally out of balance. All rights accrue to the vagrants and none to those charged with funding their life style choices, which includes sending them SSI checks they quickly turn into drugs as well as being their crime victims to also support their drug habits, as well a a multitude of other “free’ social services that support their continued poor life style choices. Everything about vagrancy is totally upside down. Yes, we issue citations. Yes we push them out of public spaces they are abusing with fires, trash and gross environmental pollution. Because that is what we expect from everyone who lives here. No more free passes to vagrant squatters. Limits and rules freely imposed on every who comes to this area are the very first steps to take.
We have become a Mecca for tourists on stolen bikes with their belongings in stolen grocery carts. The only solution is to separate the from the
You won’t find any poverty pimps out there helping to clean up they are too busy counting that dough rae me they get from the Gov. to help the homeless but they only help themselves.
100% correct. ^
Thank cartoonist Doonsbury for romanticizing vagrants and giving “rich” Santa Barbara a bad name for trying to oust them from the Fig Tree – a major drug-dealing stop for 101 truckers. This was decades a go, but Santa Barbara politicians played defense ever since, trying to down play any bad national publicity. Look what happened anyway. Lessons to be learn – pandering and false “compassion” only grew the problem. Now the city has an even worse reputation – the place to go for a guaranteed soft touch. Montecito and Hope Ranch may be “rich”, but you don’t see vagrants flocking to their vast and empty estates. But you do see these wealthier folks fund-raising for Homeless Inc as the full extent of their moral expiations. Today after decades of failed city policies, you only see even more vagrants now destroying the heart, soul and business of our relatively poor city instead.
Do a search for
In retrospect it was an error to clean up skid rows – they isolated these chronic problems and one could keep them from spreading into the wider community. Yes, the Garvey Hotel was a notorious hot spot. Way back in the 1970s. Then it became a Scientology Center which only proved their methods don’t affect addictions either.