Anonymous
Source: City of Goleta
A multi-agency effort coordinated by the City of Goleta began on Monday, September 9, 2019, with the clean-up of homeless encampments, trash, and debris found within the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) owned rail corridor. The rail corridor goes through Goleta City limits, spanning just west of the Cathedral Oaks Overpass to Patterson Avenue. The clean-up effort is expected to last four days, concluding on Thursday, September 12, 2019.
Agencies assisting in this clean-up include: UPRR Police, Caltrans, California Highway Patrol, Goleta Police Department/Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, MarBorg Industries, Homeless Services within the Santa Barbara County Department of Behavioral Wellness, and the City of Goleta’s Public Works Department.
Vyto Adomaitis, Director of Neighborhood Services & Public Safety for the City, said, “This clean-up effort is a priority for the City of Goleta for many reasons. As confirmed by the recent Santa Barbara County Grand Jury Report on Railway Safety, the clean-up efforts are consistent with the goals to reduce fatalities, safety hazards and future fires from occurring in and around the railway corridor going through Goleta. This is accomplished by closely working with property owner Union Pacific Railroad and our allied agencies.”
Representatives from Santa Barbara County Behavior Wellness are present during the clean-up effort to offer shelter and services to homeless individuals they come into contact with.
City of Goleta Mayor Paula Perotte said, “The City is making a concerted effort to holistically address the needs of people experiencing homelessness within our community and on a regional level. We are working on our first ever Homeless Strategic Plan which will be finalized by next Summer. We look forward to continuing to work with the community and non-profit partners on this important issue.”
Great job Goleta!!! I love how its a multi-faceted approach with offering homeless services so these people aren’t left high and dry to do it all over again. Hey City of SB, are you watching? It’s your turn.
Once again, Goleta gets it done! Wake up SB!
This is just going to push the homeless into our neighborhoods, especially up by Lake Arrellaga.
Any bets on whether all these folks simply move to the other side of the railroad property fence? Set up beside the freeway and it’s a Caltrans problem instead of a Union Pacific problem. Another major issue is the overgrown foliage around the railroad and highway 101 corridor. I fear it is only a matter of time until a fire starts in one of the encampments on a really hot and windy day. Clearing and these areas would discourage the encampments and substantially reduce the fire hazard. I would suggest cactus and really sharp agave plants for landscaping. They require no water, discourage trespassing, and they do not present a fire hazard. The lake Los Carneros park is another area where we could make a huge improvement. I suggest we clean up all the dead overgrowth in the park, make it more accessible to the community, and clear the encampments at the same time….or we could wait for nature to do it her way.
High priority for Goleta = Remove garbage and stench. //////////////High priority for Santa Barbara = Remove plastic straws and every sitting bench. Goleta is The Goodland, and Santa Barbara is literally turning into a toilet.
If vagrants under their own power come here; they can also leave here. Where they go is not our problem; it is their problem. They cannot camp here.
Human filth. Disgusting trash from meth-head vagrants.
Santa Barbara should follow lead. I’ve reported encampments off Upper State/Calle Real and Offramps and on onramps. There’s a bunch of tents and trash, and not to mention drug addicted vagrants who have intention to get off the streets as they basically have no consequences for their actions.
I lived a long time in Hawaii; a common problem in the islands are “ukus” or head lice. They are parasites which feed off the host to survive. The only way to get rid of ukus is to shave the head and start fresh. This seems to parallel the only way to get rid of homeless parasites and homeless camps- shave away all the beautiful foliage which borders our roads and start fresh. The ukus won’t go away on their own.
Unfortunately, most of the aggressive panhandlers live in the suburbs, so this won’t do much, but displace the unseen. The woman, or ‘family’ with the rotating family in front of TJ’s in Goleta, lives in Summerland. One business owner on Calle Real followed the young woman with the pit bull (same dog used by several other panhandlers)…. turned out, she ‘lived’ in the same neighborhood he did.
And once dispossessed of their Goleta encampments, watch these bums flood into Santa Barbara. Gee thanks, Goleta.
That’s leadership. Glad the useless ACLU didn’t file an injunction claiming private property is unfair. Hear hear for Goleta stopping a corridor. And for Buellton too when they swept the scum out of the riverbed. I’ve seen more and more able bodied males lately. With 4.5% unemployment they can get a job somewhere. They made their bed and now have to live with the consequences.
Hopefully the City of Goleta will also monitor the open spaces in Ellwood. Piles of trash, shopping carts and tents show up regularly, occasionally accompanied by a threatening individual. The eucalyptus forests, hidden cliff face camps, and the swampy areas adjacent to UCSB housing and Phelps Road need regular monitoring, not just when complaints are filed or campers are threatening people. Locals are terrified a camp fire will inadvertently be set that burns down adjacent housing. Perhaps in addition to trail signs warning of the falling trees, some “NO CAMPING” signs could go up? So sad for all involved, the homeless, the community, and the law enforcement and mental health people who are all too familiar with these problems.
I think your comments are spot on. Fires routinely start around the drug addict encampments. It is only a matter of time until this occurs at the wrong encampment at the wrong time and strong winds carry it into surrounding neighborhoods. A fire initiating in the overgrowth along the 101, the railroad, the creeks, lake los carneros, and other poorly maintained open spaces could rapidly burn to the ocean during a high wind event. Unless we start maintaining our open spaces and clearing out all the overgrowth this outcome is inevitable. It is a matter of when and where it will happen, not if.
The tide gauge measurements in santa barbara show a consistent long term trend. There is no recent change to this trend. If you or someone you know believes their property near the ocean will soon be submerged by rapid human caused seal level rise, please let me know as I would be glad to buy said property for an appropriate discount taking that into account.
The City of Goleta should look into hiring park rangers to patrol their open spaces and parks. It would make residents feel safer knowing there is someone regularly patrolling those spaces and kicking out those abusing the rules.
In the 80s we kids would ride dirt bikes all over the Ellwood mesa, Sands beach, the slough area, etc. I know, right: the shame! There were regular patrols by sheriff deputies of the RR tracks as far North as the bridge at Naples and the entire area. They rode dual purpose motorcycles and if they weren’t there every day, it was nearly every day. This would put an end to the homeless campers I see all the time when walking our dog on the Ellwood mesa today.
I’m glad to see this. A helpful follow-through would be to abate undergrowth, removing ‘cover’ for new camps.
Be careful what you wish for. If you’re walking your dog(s) off-leash, those Rangers are more than happy to ruin your day. Yeah, yeah “leash law” and so on. But us scofflaw off-leash people enjoy our open space——a lot. And despite what the dog-averse gang likes to think, we pick up after our dogs.************ I went to Oak Park the other day and because City Animal Control has been (nicely) telling people to leash their dogs, guess what? The park was EMPTY. No happy dog walkers. Not a soul, apart from the usual faction of repulsive transients hanging out on both sides of the creek, at the picnic tables. One dude was so creepy, stumbling toward the bathrooms, it was revolting. A BIG load of blankets (at least a dozen) all piled up on the creek bank, along with assorted other junk. It’s absurd to tell people they can’t allow their dogs to romp and play off-leash but it’s okay to find the park is loaded with plastic confetti, piñata plastic candy wrappers, bottle caps, plastic straws (yep) and . . . most trashy of all . . . the bums.
Something obviously needs to be done about the homeless situation; however, calling human beings many of whom have severe mental illness “scum” and comparing them to head lice is not solving any problems. I support a multifaceted approach where those with addiction problems can get help and those who want to work can get employment assistance. Just clearing them out only moves the problem elsewhere. It’s common sense.
Interesting. Naturally one doe s not know the circumstances regarding this person but she does appears well nourished, healthy, and perhaps capable of work. One would think a job, albeit menial for a while, would be better than begging. For her own personal well being and feeling of independence.
Not the brightest bulb are you? Many of these folks are disabled and mentally ill. So much compassion for the unfortunate.
Until the US as a country creates policies to handle poverty, lack of affordable housing, homelessness, addiction, and mental illness, it won’t change. Until then, the unfortunates will just get shuttled from place to place. Solves nothing.
Ho bra thats good thinking
Goleta is a trash can, look under your bridges, tunnels, train tracks. Goleta is no better than SB.
Stop using the term “homeless”. Triage this population group into (1) the have nots; (2) the can nots; (3) the will nots. The last group, the (3) will nots – those who are service resistant — cause 80% of the problems.
At 9:24 – you’re very welcome! Now how’s about you get YOUR city to do something about it. Don’t blame Goleta for cleaning up our town.
To be effective this needs to be done everywhere. Keep them moving along until they find a place where they can collect their government checks and hunker down near a liquor store out of the public thoroughfare. Those beggars in front of Trader Joe’s are particularly obnoxious, I stopped one day to take a picture of the miss-spelled sign they use and the guy pulled out an iPhone and took my picture. Don’t feed the animals.
at 9:20 except we’re cleaning it up, how’s that going in urine-soaked SB?
Why work when you can depend on the Bleeding Hearts to simply hand you money ?
No one comes to this town to visit Goleta. Nothing special about it, boring, nothing beautiful, no spectacular scenic views. People forget about Goleta because its ugly. “old town” is run down and filled with homeless.
Oh, come on now 10:17. I live and work in Goleta and we get plenty of visitors to our little town. Anecdotally, we almost always take business partners to a casual lunch at Sandpiper (I love their Ellwood sandwich). After lunch we take the 101 South back to the office and the vistors always are shocked to see the size of the camps next to the railroad between Winchester Canyon and Storke. I’m glad to hear that they’re cleaning these up. We get it, you don’t like Goleta but either you’re trolling the Goodland or just misguided.
at 10:17 – Nothing beautiful in Goleta? No views? You’ve obviously never been to any of the beaches there. Old Town is “filled with homeless?” No, it’s not. Just because some people in that area may look a little rough around the edges (ie, not millionaires or tourists), doesn’t mean they’re homeless.
Bakersfield?
It is great that Goleta is cleaning up these camps. Santa Barbara has been doing this for years.
There was a great article in Forbes magazine on Sept 9th. It is about how our useless governor is calling for a state of emergency due to the homeless population. Hit the nail right on the head in a long, well written article about how messed up CA’s government is when it comes to dealing with these situations.
You can build and throw money at them till you are blue in the face. The fact is, most that live in those conditions don’t want help.
There have been several very sad instances of people being hit by trains, so it seems like it makes sense to make sure there are no camps close to train tracks. It’s a good decision to clean up there for safety.
Low level offenders only get tickets because there is no room in the jail. When the new jail is built, repeat offenders can be incarcerated.
Compassionate one there, aren’t you?
Hell goleta sees SB throwing out the welcome mat, wanting to build yet more publicly funded “homeless” housing in the heart of downtown. No wonder they figured it’d be an easy sell to clean up their neck of the woods, flush the $/-/:!-which we all know flows downhill..and ends up where? SB
Finally!!!!!
The homeless problem includes almost every city in the state. There’s no need to turn this into Santa Barbara is better than Goleta or vice versa. They are both nice places with the same homeless problems. All the cities in the state are eventually going to have to figure out a solution to homelessness. Blame our “leaders” instead of this nonsensical rivalry.
Rather just blame our leaders – why not REPLACE them…quit voting for these career politicians. Gavin Newsome is a disaster for this state
Agreed! If we want different results, we need different leadership!