AnonymousSource: City of Goleta
Homelessness is a nationwide problem which affects Goleta as well many other communities throughout California. On a single night in 2017, 553,742 people in the U.S. were experiencing homelessness. 65% were staying in emergency shelters or transitional housing, and 35% were staying in unsheltered locations.
Locally, according to a 2017 report by the Central Coast Collaborative on Homelessness (C3H), there were 99 people living on the streets in Goleta. The Federal government mandates these Point-in-Time counts occur once every other year. The number of homeless persons within Santa Barbara County has remained steady over the past six years, but there have been shifts within the County, including a 111% growth in Goleta from 2013 to 2017. There are several efforts the City is currently doing to address homelessness. Additionally, a team from the City is working with agencies and jurisdictions for a more comprehensive and collaborative approach for this difficult issue and exploring grant opportunities to fund potential new approaches to homelessness.
The City provides financial support to homelessness prevention efforts and services undertaken by nonprofit agencies through Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding, City Grant Program funding, and Support to Other Agencies funding representing $137,060 in contributions over the past five years which include the provision of transitional housing at the Salvation Army, emergency shelter during extreme weather conditions at the Freedom Warming Centers, emergency housing for homeless families at Transition House, the Safe Parking Shelter and Rapid Re-Housing Services provided through the New Beginnings Counseling Center, landlord liaison programming to assist people transitioning out of homelessness to rent affordable units, and support to the former Central Coast Collaborative on Homelessness (C3H). Also in 2018, the City provided grant funds to support to the Interfaith Initiative of Santa Barbara County, which provides free showers to the homeless through Showers of Blessing.
Goleta’s Community Resource Deputy (CRD) Dave Valadez is also an important law enforcement asset to addressing issues surrounding homelessness in Goleta. CRD Valadez oversees the Goleta Restorative Policing Program, which connects homeless individuals with the services they need and is a member of the Sheriff’s Office Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) which addresses issues between the homeless and law enforcement. CRD Valadez is coordinating weekly efforts to conduct regular patrols, monitoring and timely clean-up of homeless encampments in response to citizen complaints all over the City. CRD Valadez also partners with other organizations and has started a Business Watch, Creek Watch and Park Watch where residents can contact him directly to let him know about a homeless individual or encampment. Finally, CRD Valadez is also coordinating homeless encampment clean-up efforts with Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol and the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) in areas along the 101 Freeway Corridor. CRD Valadez can be contacted directly regarding homelessness issues by sending him an email (dvaladez@cityofgoleta.org), or calling him at work (805-968-3878) or on his cell phone (805-319-9773).
Something needs to change because the current plans are not working. I’m all for opening up abandoned jails, hospitals, mental facilities etc and forcing them in to get help and back on their feet. Cruel? Maybe, but letting them suffer on the street sounds worse.
Thank the ACLU why nothing is being done. That organization has done more to destroy than “protect”.
$137,060 for 99 people is $1,383 each. For $200 each of them could be given a one-way Greyhound bus ticket to NYC. Want to stay warm? $20 to Tijuana. Nice coincidence that this report is published the same day an encampment burns next to the railroad tracks.
A count of 99 folks seems inaccurately low even for 2017..
As you stated, if a homeless person and/or couch surfer has no assistance or job how do you expect them to have the financial means to move?
We need some strategic goals for removing barriers to increase job retention, retraining, community job internships leading to company placement. We are all just an illness or paycheck away from homeless. Do not be so harsh. Everyone is not the same and neither are the homeless.
There is no job retraining in Santa Barbara County. Single older adults are expected to work; however, there is no assistance available. It is important to also note the growing population of blacklisted homeless individuals who have been forced to quit a job due to stressful, threatening and/or poor management_ a common practice at Cottage who is a monoply in this County.
I agree with *722 to this extent: When Reagan closed the mental facilities, he did so as civil rights issue. While there have been abuses of people being committed who are not a danger to themselves or others, the vast majority of mentally ill people on the street would be much better off taken care of and receiving medications to live as close to functional as possible. Those down on their luck, those with addictions and those who choose the “trailer for sale or rent” lifestyle are vastly different.
Goleta’s attempt to smear the food around the plate is just another avoidance of its responsibility to share realistically in providing resources to actually house, shelter, feed and protect the vulnerable it creates and who live in its boundaries. Goleta has long engaged in a policy of driving homeless and semi-homeless (RV and car residents) into Isla Vista and Santa Barbara by refusing to locate any real services in its borders. This propaganda should evoke snickers.
Visionary, aware, compassionate, and intelligent…A good change of pace in this ongoing discussion
You are only one “paycheck away from homelessness” if you plan poorly and fail to budget according to your own needs and means. That long failed bumper sticker phrase needs to be eliminated out of any vagrancy argument. If your means cannot support life in a high cost area, you need to move where it does not require constant scolding and demands on others to support your own poor lifestyle choices.
Stop misrepresenting present resources that alraady go a long way moving people into productive jobs. All community colleges in this state simply ask you show up in order to advantage of what they offer in work retraining. Ventura, SBCC, Alan Hancock – taxpayers fund them so people can move on with their lives. Always excuses. No more,. No more excuses. The opportunities are already there .Transcend your own laziness and take advantage of them.