Dear Anonymous

This letter is in response to the article “Off the Floor No More?” about the possibility that Casa Esperanza will lose dozens of beds.

Santa Barbara has a very vibrant community of donors and foundations. Usually these donors, who make contributions in some cases in the millions of dollars, seem to concentrate on the arts world.

I challenge people who make donations—the famous universal donor Anonymous, as well as those who donate in their own names—to step up to the plate and give to Casa Esperanza, the Independent Living Resource Center, the Mental Health Association and the other organizations like them that make our community liveable for those less-fortunate—and that make our community more attractive by helping those who don’t want to be begging, heaven forbid, on State Street or at the beach, to be in a place where they can be cared for and helped. That way we don’t have to read letters in local newspapers about how awful it is to see the reality of our, and so much of the country’s, economic and social treatment of some of our less fortunate citizens.Joel Goldberg

P.S. A shout-out to Ken Williams for his incredible efforts to make homelessness an understandable and treatable condition. Also to the late Kit Tremaine, a woman who used her money to advance a more equitable society, and to Rob Rosenthal, who lived here in Santa Barbara, and now is a professor on the East Coast, who, with the financial aid of the late Ms. Tremaine, wrote a book about the homeless of our beautiful and desirable community.