ACLU Sues City

Isn't it bizarre that the city thinks it should allow 200 people to shelter for four months of the year and then throw half of them out and then prosecute the ones it throws out for being without a place to sleep at night??
This isn't what I want my city tax dollars to do.

What is interesting is that S.B. city leaders style themselves as being liberal and progressive yet when it comes to the most helpless people they criminalize them.

Being pro-choice and Democrat does not equate to being compassionate.

WTF kind of dream world do you people live in? If Santa Barbara is so unfriendly to the homeless, why do they move here in droves? A lawsuit against the city for not being accommodating to the homeless? Please tell me this is a story copied from the Onion.

Most of us who work for a living are tired of the aggressive panhandling, public defecation, and drunken rants of the mass of recently arrived homeless people in our small town. We need to send them back where they came from, not encourage them.

Believe it, Kratatoa, this is not a recent problem. This problem always existed--poor and homeless exist. The problem became more extreme in the 70's when the Camarillo state Hospital was closed.
The homeless come here for the same reason others do--the climate. It is easier to be homeless in CA than in Minn, NYor any nothern state.
I hope the city council finds some reasonable solutions for these homeless without viable means of support.

Actually the number of homeless in Santa Barbara is equivalent to other coastal cities. That is, the proportion of homeless to the general population is similar in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo. LA, and San Diego.

They are not moving here in droves. The economy is dead, and more people will find themselves on the street. You can't ticket people for sleeping in public or not having a place to live. A society that makes sleeping on public property a crime is unkind.

Santa Barbara should consider paying the homeless to leave. I'm serious. Pay $100 a person and have them sign a letter promising never to step foot in Santa Barbara again. Maybe include a one way bus ticket to San Fran or Santa Cruz.

If you don't think the homeless problem has become worse around here over the last couple of years, either (a) you never go downtown, or (b) you are blind.

What would be nice would be to see a concerted effort on the part of our elected representatives on all levels to examine what was done over the years to create the situation where so many people have become homeless and reset to default. Needless to say, I don't hear our local elected representatives addressing this point, even though they are so eager to present themselves as progressive-minded folks.

Simply criminalizing people won't solve the problem.

Hmmm. Good idea. Maybe our elected representatives already had it.

http://www.thedailysound.com/results/...

All these homeless folks come to SB because of all the services we provide them! It's not just the sunshine.

The homeless living in Santa Barbara aren't from Santa Barbara! They move here because of all the bleeding heart liberals, like lots of you folks, who allow them to take over the streets of this beautiful town.

It's a major detriment to this town that the main businesses district as well as #1 tourist attraction other than the wharf is overrun by intoxicated foul smelling and sometimes violent men and women.

Every season we fight to have the shelter remain open at full capacity. If only keeping the shelter open was the only problem . While keeping the shelter at full capacity 365 days a year is a no-brainer, what about Casa Esperanza's "programs" which preclude some of the most chronic homeless clients from using their services? I spoke to a former client recently who had "graduated" from Casa Esperanza. She was unable to hold onto her housing and tried to get a bed at Casa Esperanza. She was told she had to wait one year from the time she "graduated" until she would be let back in. How does one "graduate from chronic homelessness?

Since this issue is heating up along the usual Left/Right partisan lines, I'd like to ask this question: Could this problem (and I don't know the answer--I'm only asking) be a combination of Liberals making it too easy for the homeless to come to S.B. (as pointed out in this blog) and conservatives going overboard with their "cut costs" approach and shutting down mental hospitals? (as also pointed out here)

The situation sucks for everyone: People are literally out in the cold without a place to sleep and on the other side people can't walk downtown without being harassed.

This is one issue where Left and Right *must* come together for a solution.

I'm a conservative who'd have no problem paying higher taxes if those taxes actually went to building mental hospitals that kept the homeless off the streets of Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, I don't think it's that simple.

I'd prefer if those mental hospitals were built somewhere where land is dirt cheap -- maybe in the desert. It's too darn expensive to be housing homeless in Santa Barbara. It makes zero economic sense and reduces the quality of life for every body.

http://www.southparkzone.com/episodes...

It's stupid to just move the homeless somewhere else and say that it is another city's problem. All cities have homeless people, and the reason that homeless people move to one city or another is due to climate and how "easy" it may be for one to be homeless in a particular city.

If all cities began moving in the direction of being compassionate to homeless, and not criminalizing the activity of being homeless or existing in the city during the day then the homeless would naturally spread out and there wouldn't be homeless havens. This would help spread the costs of homelessness. If Santa Barbara chooses to be unfriendly to the homeless, then they are apart of the bigger problem rather than the solution. The solution is allowing people the freedom to exist as long as they are respecting property rights and not hurting other people.

loonpt: I don't have the patience to sit through a whole South Park episode right now (will do it later) but on the intro I notice Eric Cartman sings/shouts/ "ample parking day and night, people shouting 'howdy neighbor' ". Maybe there is a message for S.B. in Eric's message.

Most people in the US could work hard their entire lives and still not afford to live here in SB, yet we feel we HAVE to accommodate people who have not worked hard?

Where is the motivation for these people to get better if they are already on top of the world?

Lazy days at the beach apparently make past problems go away.

In Isla Vista the reason "homeless" come is because they know nthey have a sympathetic audience that'll flow them spare change for beer or the magic elixir (beer) itself.
These are not "homeless" in the socially acceptable sense of the word.
The 1s we encounter in I.V. are not interested in getting themselves up, see the next buzz/high as the only goal worth attaining, don't want to go to a shelter because there are rules to live by (which they eschew) & know the student population will support them.
Funny how "homelessness" has changed. During the Great Depression there were hobos. These homeless individuals lost everything, but maintained their dignity & their goal was to go from town to town to seek work opportunities. Yeah, some were less motivated than most, but they were also not aggressive because of laws in place @ that time & the social scene didn't support that.
It wasn't until the 1970's that the "bums" started to make their appearance. Don't know if they were leftovers from the Flower Power days who were examples of 1 acid trip too many, but they started to emerge.
The "big release" of the mental institutions during the 1980's also presented the issue of mental illness as a contributor to the homeless problem.
Now I thinmk you just have some people that say "screw it, I'll let others support me" & that's a large part of what we have in Isla Vista.
My wife & I volunteer @ Transition House & can honestly tell you that there are a lot of homeless families, but they want to get back on their feet.
The "homeless" in Isla Vista are mostly looking for that "40 oz. to freedom." :) henry

Hank,

Good synopsis. Obviously a distinction needs to be made between folks who want to "get back on their feet" and straight up bum drunks.

That said, If I lost everything I'd hitch a ride south and live somewhere cheap like Arkansas or Mississippi. There are plenty of places where a job at McDonalds can pay the rent. Santa Barbara isn't one of them.

So many opinions and so little facts. Here are some to consider:
1. Homelessness is increasing everywhere. People are not coming to Santa Barbara to be homeless, there is just more homelessness. Casa residents identifying their last housing as in Santa Barbara has increased by 20%. At the same time some of "ours" are in shelters elsewhere.
2. Stores are not closing because of homeless presence. Its the economy stupid. The LATimes today talks about Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades and West LA businesses closing and the amount of storefront vacancies. These problems are everywhere. Stop scapgoating the victims of the bad economy for the results of the bad economy. Get some logic. (And if their esthetic is bothering you to look at, why not build a place they can go and be out of sight.)
3. Moving treatment and care centers out where "land is cheap" doesn't work and has been tried. State of Ca built a huge mental health prison facility near Coalinga (as I recall) which it couldn't open because professional staff wouldn't live out there.
4. Each community produces its share of homelessness. Santa Barbara needs to recognize and accept its responsibility. More, Carpinteria, Goleta, and the County have failed to do even as much as the city has done.
5. Of course some homeless people say things like I don't want to work, take care of me, I need help, etc etc etc. This is part of their failure to function properly. This is what makes them unable to compete. Don't be bitter. Think about whether sleeping out in the rain and cold with no shelter and with odd handouts and occasional food and being harassed by the authorities and derided by the good burghers subject to all the illness and risk that such entails is an easy life. Mentally ill people say odd things but they should not be bound by what they say, duh!
6. The cost of housing the homeless is peanuts compared to what is spent on, for example, replacing the sidewalks every few years on State Street and other things taxpayers are expected to fund for businesses and favored groups.(such as the millions spent on the restoration of the Granada).

RHS,

The "cost" of dealing with the homeless isn't the problem in Santa Barbara.

Folks are migrating from all over the West Coast to wealthy beach towns like Santa Barbara because of the warm weather and free services we provide them.

If it wasn't so darn easy to be homeless, most folks, except the most mentally challenged or drug addled, would naturally move somewhere cheap enough that a low wage job would pay the bills.

This community is being overrun primarily by drug addicts, not ordinary working folks who lost their jobs. State Street is infested with stinking, panhandling drug addicts who not only harm local businesses, but make Santa Barbara a less welcoming place for children, young families, and anybody else who wants to enjoy our historic downtown and not be bothered.

Lars, I take pity on your cold heart.

And the hyperbole of your silly, overheated rhetoric which you attempt to pass off as shared wisdom doesn't reveal you as sage, just simple-minded.

Examples:

"so darn easy to be homeless," "this community is being overrun primarily by drug addicts," and 'State Street is infested with stinking, panhandling drug addicts..."

Really?

Easy. Overrun. Infested.

The standard definitions of these words do not apply to the problems we face downtown or with the panhandling which occasionally surfaces on State.

Nor does your bombast.

Here is something I heard on the Sunday night 11 O'clock news that still hasn't been posted on The Independent's website. http://www.noozhawk.com/local_news/ar...

http://www.keyt.com/news/local/413298...

Another source of the article. Anyway, I worked for ten years as a security guard for the News-Depress. (When I started out, it was simply the News-Press) Anyway, the problems I had were from Yuppies who insisted it was their right to park at the News-Press despite the ample public parking across the street. I never had a problem with being harassed by the homeless. This isn't to say that this isn't a problem as it's obvious many people have reported being hassled by them.

Here is my point: The city has long blamed the homeless for creating problems but at the same time turns a blind eye to the problem the drunks from the bars cause; why is this?...because the city created the problem by issuing all those permits in the first place and of course the bars attract spoiled college kids and gangbangers alike, but of course there is the fact that the bars bring revenue, while the homeless do not.

A woman I know who lives in that area (she lives in a house on property her family has owned since 1920) has endless problems with the bar patrons and is always wrangling with the city about how they urinate on her property and keep her up at night with noise, but hasn't reported problems with the homeless per se.

In short: The pseudo-progressives that run S.B. should take a good long look in the mirror before casting stones.

Moral of the story: Follow the money.

See! I hope you all realize now what a mistake it was to take out Hitler, he surely would have had a "final solution" to this homeless menace. Well, at least the Cold Springs Bridge is still a viable option. Maybe Lars idea to pay them $100 to JUMP might work. The money could be recycled to pay more homeless to jump after the road crews clean up the mess at the bottom. Or mayb pres 'YoBama's' FEMA will haul them off to the pending government death camps...OH, sorry, I meant 're-education centers'. Happy, happy, a clean and pristine Santa Barbara once again.
Alright, seriously; some of you hard core commenters should consider thanking God, or, if you're an athiest, give up thanks to whatever rock, twig, plant, or animal dropping you 'worship' that you're not presently occupying the same status as these unfortunate human beings!
Granted, many of these people smell like piss and they display the mannerisms of feral creatures, but every one of them is still a human being deserving of every effort and offer from the community they inhabit to somehow redirect and improve their situations, at least for those that are demonstratably eager to rejoin society.
Never, ever forget, barring the extra burdon of mental difficulties that plague many of these homeless, every single one of you may be one last paycheck away from rolling out your sleeping bag right next to one of those smelly undesirables!
I suppose that thought got lost while you were typing out your s**t rant on some $1000 laptop, sipping your freaking latte while the roof was redirecting the rain off your pointy little head.