City Council Task Force to Tackle Homelessness

Oh. My. GOD!

I wasted weeks and weeks of my life sitting on one of those ridiculous Silly Council Task Forces to "study homelessness", along with the usual selection of "stakeholders", all of us actually believing that our service meant something.

What it means was that once again, the City got to look good at the expense of trusting citizens who actually thought we were going to make a positive difference in the lives of Santa Barbara's residents, both sheltered and homeless.

Instead, we were treated to the bigotry of one individual who shall remain nameless here. This person is a City College Trustee whose Mantra was "Enforcement, enforcement, enforcement. I want those people gone. I didn't spend what I did to buy my beachfront condo to have to see that trash outside my window every day. More enforcement. I'm not interested in any other solution, and anything but increased enforcement and stepped-up crackdowns is a waste of my time."

Yes, that is a direct quote. I was six feet away from this charming individual and I wrote it down. Every meeting consisted of the facilitator trying to help everyone explore and reach solutions...humane and realistic solutions...while the City College Trustee rolled eyes, sighed, tapped feet, and sat with folded arms, staring at the ceiling.

It was the ugliest display of outright bigotry I've seen against the poor here yet, and none of us ever believed this person's hatred would ever be considered by the Silly Council.

We couldn't have been more wrong.

Not one of our suggestions was entertained; when we gave our report, we were all thanked for our time, dismissed, and informed that the City would be implementing the suggestions made by the CC Trustee.

Within weeks the parking signs prohibiting motor homes on the streets went up. The special anti-parking tickets became law, and homeless people...many of them at work at their jobs at the time...came "home" to find their houses towed away and impounded, with fees attached that were so costly they could never afford to pay them.

They lost possessions, pets, and entire homes on wheels.

But the CC Trustee's views are nice now. Lots less poor people ruining the landscape.

These studies and task forces are a joke, and a bad one at that. This latest one is yet another attempt to convince an already angry public that all homeless people are drunks, druggies and criminals...or sainted Madonnas with children. As always, the majority is ignored, and we work hard to pretend that nobody who works could ever possibly be homeless...right?

Wrong.

Pick up a paper and look at the jobs available to the average person...then go look at the rental ads. There's the answer...in black and white. Keep avoiding it at your own peril, Santa Barbara...and watch the ranks of your desperately poor, homeless and EMPLOYED residents swell exponentially.

I said all this in a cover story for the News & Review in 1984; it's going to get much worse before it gets better...because we keep believing in fairy tales instead of the hard truth of economics and opportunity.

Here we are 24 years later....worse off than ever...warehousing homeless residents in locked campuses out of sight of the CC Trustee types and "legitimate" residents, then claiming we need a "recovery zone" so the undesirables will be buried even deeper out of sight.

And yet...nothing said or done about the clean, sober, hardworking poor and homeless....as usual.

I'd LOVE to see what this latest joke on the taxpayers is costing...and who is going to have a nice fat job running yet another pointless poverty pimp program out of the deal?

Stay tuned!