Homeless Woman Sleeping in Neighborhood

April 3, 2019, 7:09 am 12.6k Views 39 Comments

By an edhat reader

We live on the Westside near a parking lot which tends to attract some interesting characters parking along the side of our house. Usually, its teenagers looking to make out and smoke pot but lately we think there may be a woman living out of her car. 

On a few mornings, my wife leaves for work quite early and she’s seen an older woman (mid 60’s maybe) urinating and/or defecating on the side yard of our house and across the street. She watched the woman then get into a nice-looking sedan and lay down in the backseat. She said she didn’t look “homeless” and the first time we chalked it up to maybe misreading the situation but after the second time and seeing which car belongs to her we’re pretty sure she’s living out of her car.

We don’t want to call 911 for a non-emergency and hope this woman gets the services she needs, but also don’t want her defecating on the sidewalk. Who’s the best agency to call?

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Written by Anonymous

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39 Comments

  1. Using the term “homeless” is inaccurate and masks the real nature of the problem we are facing. Referring to someone as “homeless” implies their problem is a lack of a home, and for the vast majority of “homeless” people nothing could be further from the truth. We are not facing a “homeless” crisis, we are facing a drug addiction crisis! The people in our community living in filthy encampments and ranting and raving on the streets are not there because they lost their jobs and cannot pay their rent. They are there because they are struggling with drug addiction. These poor souls are literally withering away and dying in the streets. What is our response? We enable them to the greatest extent possible. Rather than intervening to break their cycle of addiction, we learn to ignore their suffering and we make sure they spend as little time as possible in jail when they act out. In order to help those suffering from drug addiction, we must intervene. This means imposing harsh prison sentences and developing programs to ensure addicts have the support they need to stay clean once they re-enter society. True love and compassion sometime requires being tough and aggressive. Calling those who are suffering from addiction “homeless” is simply avoiding the harsh reality of the problem as well as the response that is required from us to solve it. I hate to say it, but a wounded animal on the streets of Santa Barbara would receive more love and compassion than a man wounded by addiction.

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  2. What does a harsh prison sentence do at about $50K per year per prisoner? Really all you need to do is segregate the person for 30 days so they can go through withdrawal and at the end decide if they want to take advantage of the housing and work programs that are available to them. Assuming that those programs can actually be created. Take the $50K and spend it for rehabilitation- that’s a much better and cost effective solution.

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  7. I’m glad someone already mentioned Home For Good (www.homeforgoodsbc.org) and Safe Parking. You can give Home For Good a call at 805-450-3558 and leave a message with more details about the location and we can coordinate outreach. We have daily outreach in the City of Santa Barbara and a weekly coordinated Outreach meeting with County, City and non-profit partners.

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  10. PITMIX: “All the fault?” You can’t lay this at the feet of our current City Council. They inherited this horrendous problem. When Sheila Lodge was Mayor and ready to take a strong course of action, Gary Trudeau villified Santa Barbara in his Doonesbury comic strip, showcasing our “heartlessness” to the nation, to the point where Santa Barbara officials backed off big time. Maybe you don’t remember: Trudeau publicized that our supermarkets were spraying their dumpsters with bleach, to prevent homeless from scavenging food. This condemning “news,” coupled with similar urban myths, made our fine City look like a collection of merciless blackguards. This was back when the Fig Tree was the main encampment. Posthaste, Santa Barbara capitiulated to public opinion and the problem has escalated to where it is now. Actually, I am surprised it has taken this long for our “shelter challenged” and “transient” problem to become so rampant.

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  16. Sell the house and move to a better neighborhood. Nothing is going to change in SB until SB changes its leadership and its misguided attempts at trying to equalize the imbalanced world… Just look towards SF for an example of how much worse things will get over the coming years until we the people put strong, capable leaders in office and demand action. Sad but true. Nothing will change until we change our city’s managers and elected officials.

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  18. I second the suggestion to email city council in fact, I think everytime someone even sees a homeless person and/or vagrant, we should send (1) a letter (2) an email and (3) make a phone call to city council in particular Murillo. Maybe then they will do something.

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  21. PLEASE email the city council. The police can’t do anything unless a crime is being committed, and courts have recently ruled that sleeping in one’s car is not a crime. There is an anti-public urination/ defecation ordinance on the city’s books, but don’t expect the cops to do anything unless it’s caught on video. Safe parking can outreach to her, but she can always refuse. In short, there is NO department of homeless services anywhere in this town or county that you can call to fix this.

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  23. I’d suggest talking to her yourself. I think most of us would be surprised by how many people are living in cars in our neighborhoods. There is a woman that lives in a car near Peabody and many of the parents seem to know her and speak with her. There are periodically folks sleeping in my work parking lot when I get there and they always tidy up and leave not long after that. If she is making a mess, perhaps she can be directed to a location with public restrooms…

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  24. wtf do you expect them to do? scoop them up and put them in homes? they are HOMELESS. they have no job, no place to go, no place to lay their heads or shower, or read a book in safety and comfort of a home. the state needs to do something, not our city council. they are not equipped or trained to handle a massive homeless population. i have met and helped many homeless in SBC, maybe if we all pitched in, it wouldn’t be a “problem”. Which brings up this, why is it a problem for YOU to see someone with less than you?

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  25. This jaw-dropping link will give you chills if you used to appreciate the Los Angeles area decades ago. Watching this live video (40,000 in LA), you would truly think that you are in Haiti or somewhere, except the homeless don’t have such nice tents in Haiti. Relative to the population, we have the same issue, except it will get worse for us because they are coming up here. And they are having huge problems with hepatitus & Typhus (spread by fleas) in LA. Could we be inviting the same? Can you just see a flea issue in Montecito? HA!! Fast forward to 5:30, put your speed settings on 1.5 and enjoy. Turn sound off if you want. Its real.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omUQFGLmOwc

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  29. Can’t blame anyone for not wanting their yard used as a toilet. Maybe she needs a “chamber pot” to use and can empty it at a gas station. Long ago homes all had one for nighttime use when they had outhouses.

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  32. Huge problems! Everywhere you look! All the fault of our current council!……Actually, we are good about responding to what looks like an emergency to our brains, so LA and San Diego have pretty much dealt with the hepatitis and typhus problems. As I’ve said before, based on population we should only be taking care of a few homeless people. We should be getting money from the State or Feds for the rest of them. Seems really crazy to me to expect locals to solve a national problem. Mr. Carbajal, Ms. Limon, Ms. Jackson, where are you when we need you?

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  33. We have too many people on the planet. Fortunately here the problem manifests itself in the form of poor people like the woman mentioned. Elsewhere, it is civil war, famine, displacement of entire population groups, pandemics and worse. Yet we insist on forcing unwanted pregnancies to term, we fight laws permitting death with dignity(God bless Jack Kervorkian) we withdraw funds from countries in need making it even more imperative for their poor to come to the US by any means, and we fail to come up with a means of helping the mentally ill. My mother was a zero population growth advocate in the 1950’s…….more people should have listened.

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  35. Build a big shower and breakfast facility at East Beach instead of the lame upscale unnecessary restaurant. This way the pain of it all will be In Our Face, but at least offering an actual start. Outreach? What a crock. $2M for birds to walk around and congratulate themselves for offering advice. This lady needs a warm shower. Offer her one.

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  38. What nonsense. The “needy poor” are OK but everyone else (you make the call as to whom they are) deserves brutal “tough love”. This tough love thing failed miserably a couple of decades ago. It is an awful way to raise children. It is a destructive way to address social problems–sort of like the idea that war will end the threats we face as a society. Most of the homeless people are simply unable to compete in our system. They are not that smart or have physical or psychiatric or emotional problems that keeps them out of the formal process of society. Some are addicted to drugs and end up on the margin because they spent whatever resources they had (including family ties) on addiction. But they are a normal and expected part of any society. It is how we handle this that differs–in the “sophisticated” affluent communities like SB the main reaction is to deny the legitimacy of their existence–the are “outsiders” and such. This is so comfortable as it means locals don’t have to do anything charitable or “risky” and we can just push them out of town (or at least out of sight). What hypocrisy.

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  39. In response to Chip and friends: What nonsense. The “needy poor” are OK but everyone else (you make the call as to whom they are) deserves brutal “tough love”. This tough love thing failed miserably a couple of decades ago. It is an awful way to raise children. It is a destructive way to address social problems–sort of like the idea that war will end the threats we face as a society. Most of the homeless people are simply unable to compete in our system. They are not that smart or have physical or psychiatric or emotional problems that keeps them out of the formal process of society. Some are addicted to drugs and end up on the margin because they spent whatever resources they had (including family ties) on addiction. But they are a normal and expected part of any society. It is how we handle this that differs–in the “sophisticated” affluent communities like SB the main reaction is to deny the legitimacy of their existence–the are “outsiders” and such. This is so comfortable as it means locals don’t have to do anything charitable or “risky” and we can just push them out of town (or at least out of sight). What hypocrisy.

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