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MyspaceAccording to reliable (if unconfirmed) reports, two homeless people died Friday night as temperatures plunged, and a third died around midnight on Sunday. One of the deceased, reportedly named Mike, died under the Milpas Street onramp near the homeless shelter. One report indicated he may have died from a drug overdose. That was the same site, however, of yet another death — a middle-aged male who was reported dead late Sunday. Little is known about the deceased.
According to various reports, Mike may have been in his mid-40s, a vet, and just released from state prison. His death has been reported by at least three separate sources, though not yet confirmed by Santa Barbara Police. In addition, a homeless woman named Christin reportedly died by Pershing Park the same night. Paul Ambrose, a homeless man who lives nearby, said he saw the paramedics show up and leave, only to be replaced by a vehicle from the coroner’s office. “How many more is going to take?” demanded Ambrose. “We need the whole community to get riled up about it. All these politicians get up there and say, ‘Too bad. Sorry about that.’”
The three deaths would bring this year’s homeless death total for the City of Santa Barbara to five, six in the past six weeks. Last week a homeless man named Greg died at the Santa Barbara pier. And county social service worker Ken Williams said he’s heard reliable indications that a homeless person died in Isla Vista last week as well. Just before Christmas, a homeless man named Freedom was found, frozen to death.
[UPDATE: Lt. Paul McCaffrey of the City Police Department confirmed this morning that Christin (her last name and the last names of the other victims have not yet been released) was found at around 7 a.m. on Saturday behind JJ’s Liquor near Pershing Park, but not in the park itself. Christin, 43, was well-known to police and was reportedly found with a number of empty vodka bottles around her. According to McCaffrey, Mike did in fact pass away under the Milpas Street overpass where he slept with a number of other homeless; he was found just after 9 a.m. on Sunday. Mike had purportedly spent the previous night drinking and taking methadone tablets. The third victim, a 52-year-old male, was found on Sunday at 12:20 a.m., but little is known of the circumstances surrounding his death.]
Paul Wellman (file)
Dr. Lynn Jahnke and John Buttney outside the warming center at the Unitarian Church Monday night Jan. 18, 2010.
With the sudden onslaught of extreme weather, homeless people are the most immediately vulnerable. South Coast shelters are operating at capacity with the largest, Casa Esperanza, having to turn people away. Church groups and volunteer homeless service providers have opened up three warming centers in churches throughout the South Coast. Two nights ago, Williams said more than 40 sought refuge at the Unitarian Church in downtown Santa Barbara. Several were forced to sleep outside under the eaves. Williams said that the recent storms are chasing a number of homeless people out onto the streets that hitherto have stayed out of sight and kept to themselves. “I’m seeing people I’ve never seen before,” he exclaimed.
Williams said he and Dr. Lynn Jahnke spent a portion of Friday morning downtown looking for homeless people to give ponchos and gloves to. “In one hour we gave stuff to 45 people,” he said. “That’s amazing.” The numbers should come as surprise to no one, said Williams. “We’re in the second year of a severe recession,” he said. “I talked to a guy on the street recently who nine months ago ran his own small machine shop. We’re seeing lots of people with serious mental illnesses. But we’re seeing lots of people who until recently had been doing okay.”
Jahnke and other homeless providers have been lobbying county administrators to take over the day-to-day responsibility of running warming shelters, overflow facilities opened up during times of extreme weather for those who would otherwise be exposed to the elements. With a strong storm predicted early this week — and a host of other storms possible after that — the need for warming shelters appears greater than ever. But the administrative protocol dictating when such facilities should be opened, and who should run them, remains the subject of bureaucratic buck passing, according to Jahnke. She has argued that the county is legally responsible for providing emergency housing. But the county is deferring and referring to a protocol hammered out three years ago among nonprofits and government agencies dealing with the homeless.
At that time, the Red Cross was designated as the go-to facility, but only when all shelters were booked to capacity two nights running. Since that protocol was adopted, the Red Cross reportedly backed out, contending that it should not be in the business of providing homeless care. In addition, there appears to have been some disagreement about whether all the shelters have been booked to capacity.
Because some homeless have expressed reluctance about entering the Rescue Mission — citing alleged mandatory religious indoctrination coupled with overly strict rules as their complaint — some have said the Rescue Mission has not been full enough to require the County Health Department to jump in. Two nights ago, that may have been true. (Rescue Mission officials have strenuously denied reports that they require guest to attend chapel services.) But Williams said that in the past couple of nights the Rescue Mission has been full. “We really need the county to step up,” said Williams. “Not only does the county have the resources, but it has the trained personnel who know how to respond in such situations.”
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Comments
The Rescue Mission requires mandatory religious attendance. If you do not sit in the chapel for an hour, you do not get feed, showered, or bedded. You have to take off your hat. So much for religious tolerance for Jews and Muslims. That is why I only stayed there one night. They also have a cattle call shower routine. It was the worst homeless shelter I have ever attended.
The staff is more intent on proselytizing than being competent.
Bird (anonymous profile)
January 25, 2010 at 9:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
So here it is in our faces: Santa Barbara is loaded with wealth and nominally progressive people occupying city hall yet people are freezing to death while people get tanked in the bars on state street. What a moral commentary.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
January 26, 2010 at 5:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
A unified movement is necessary, between government officials, city agencies, shelters, and the public. My end of this is to raise awareness within churches and other organizations, to mobilize individuals to make a difference. Everyone is invited to Pershing Park Wed nights at 5:30 for our meal sharing. I don't think we can have opinions about the homeless until some of them are our friends and we know their stories.
Jeff
syncman (anonymous profile)
January 26, 2010 at 6:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
While I releazie my postion is not of the popular variety I believe I am a realist. Why is it our problem here in SB to take care of so many homeless that transplant themselves to live here because of the free handouts?
Much like cats, if you keep feeding them they will keep coming around.
InTheKnow (anonymous profile)
January 26, 2010 at 10:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
According to reports - at least two of these people died of drug overdoses. How come the title blames 'Weekend Chill'? Is the problem with the Rescue Mission is that they are demanding sobriety?
Gordo (anonymous profile)
January 26, 2010 at 12:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
They froze to death. Does it really matter what other underlying illness they had?
Just because they weren't wealthy enough to do their drinking in a nice house, a wine bar (IE "tasting room") or a traditional bar is of no consequence here.
They froze to death.
For decades, we have hidden behind the tired old chestnuts of: "They're all drunk, drug addicts, they like living outside, they're all from somewhere else, if you can't afford to live here, then leave", etc.
An alarming number of homeless have jobs and live in RV's. Why is housing so expensive that a person with a job can't afford a place to live? What's up with THAT?
And what is up with the fact that almost no one seems to admit this is going on? Why do we keep pretending that all the people on the streets are addicted, mentally ill, or like living like that?
Oh right...because there is too much money to be made in the poverty business, and if a program has a big enough "head count", then its donations and funding, and thus the salaries of the folks running things.. go up.
Not admitting to any of this has gotten us nowhere.
Myth-perpetuation,hand-wringing, program-pushing,
and puffing up and proudly proclaiming "I got mine, tough spit for you, loser!" are solving nothing.
People are still homeless. They are still freezing to death.
Let's look back at a time when this problem didn't exist on this scale, when anyone with a job or on a fixed income had a safe, decent place to live.
Now let's look at what was done between then and now to create this situation...because surely it HAS been created, often unwittingly.
If this problem is ever to be solved, we have to throw out everything we are now doing. All the endless chest-thumping, myth-selling, profiteering, preaching, visioning, stakeholding, and committee-forming etc is not working.
What were we doing when things DID work?
Holly (anonymous profile)
January 26, 2010 at 2:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
InTheKnow (anonymous profile)
January 27, 2010 at 10:06 a.m.
InTheKnow asked: Why is it our problem here in SB to take care of so many homeless that transplant themselves to live here because of the free handouts?
InTheKnow, they don't come here for the handouts, they come because of the weather. Because it doesn't (usually) freeze here. Like all homeless people everywhere, they are sitting ducks when it does freeze. We really don't have that many, compared to Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, and similar mild-climate cities with some open space to hide in.
It is "our problem" because some of us are compassionate human beings, and because some of us see a self-interest in not having dead bodies lying around in the bushes. Simple enough.
Holly, it does matter why they died. It is not clear that they all froze to death. When people die of drug overdose, that is a cause no other person can prevent. It happens all the time with the homed as well as the homeless. And, when DID things work, as you suggest? You mean there was a time with no homeless, bums, hobos, tramps, vagrants... etc? Like, when was that? In a movie you saw?
Nitz (anonymous profile)
January 27, 2010 at 10:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Holly, your question can be answered simply by looking to our monetary system which is being controlled by a private banking cartel known as The Federal Reserve.
Please watch the following short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yquh-s...
(I hope the voice comes through, I tried it several times and finally got it to work. Youtube seems to be on the fritz with this video, I wonder why ;))
This cartel was created in 1913, however another important event occurred in 1971 which completely separated our currency from the gold standard. What this allows banks across the country and our government to do is to create vast amounts of money without worrying about what the money is being backed by, because it is being backed by nothing. Not only that, the banks are essentially counterfeiting money and charging people interest to loan it to them. They never had the money in the first place! This is inherently dishonest.
The creation of money devalues our savings, but it also devalues our wages and those on fixed government incomes. Every year we get a wage cut thanks to our dishonest monetary system. The government reports inflation based on a basket of goods in the CPI, but that doesn't include housing and energy. These commodities are necessary too look at and analyze as they have gone up in price at extremely high rates. They have gone up due to government intervention into those specific markets. Government is involved in college tuition, prices go up. Government is involved in healthcare. Prices have gone up considerably. Government is NOT involved in the sales of electronics, lasik eye surgery and cosmetic surgery. These market segments have seen increases in quality and decreases in price over the years, because that is what a free market provides.
This growth in money supply is what has allowed large corporations and government to expand so drastically, while destroying the poor and the middle class. They use it to fund wars and big business, while only treating the symptom of poverty rather than the cause.
Austrian Economics is the answer to poverty. It is the most moral system of economics.
loonpt (anonymous profile)
January 27, 2010 at 12:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Nitz, poverty always increases as the elitists, globalist bankers and the governments that they control attempt to feed off of the masses.
This is for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P772Eb...
loonpt (anonymous profile)
January 27, 2010 at 12:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"And, when DID things work, as you suggest? You mean there was a time with no homeless, bums, hobos, tramps, vagrants... etc? Like, when was that? In a movie you saw?"-Nitz-
As Holly pointed out (which you failed to note) there was a time when housing was affordable in Santa Barbara. I will add there was also a time when schoolyard shootings, road rage, and gang killings were isolated and not mainstream issues.
Consider too that so many are clamoring for more "gun control" and of course more drug laws because they see a problem and rather than look into (as Holly points out) underlying causes they would rather pass laws to limit freedoms of law-abiding people.
Do I make myself clear?
billclausen (anonymous profile)
January 27, 2010 at 6:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)