State Grants $8.3 Million to Move People from Vehicles to Housing in Santa Barbara

In response to a steady rise in the number of people living in their cars and vans — by about 20 percent a year over the past three years — local officials focusing on the issue managed to secure an $8.3 million state grant to “resolve” concentrations of car camping at 21 locations.

The immediate plan is to move about 300 of Santa Barbara’s 600 vehicularly homeless people onto one of the 27 parking lots now controlled by New Beginning’s Safe Parking Program over the next two years. There, they can sleep in a secure parking lot that’s regularly monitored by Safe Parking staff while enjoying the amenities offered by a nearby porta-potty. The long-term plan is to get as many of these residents into temporary supportive housing — a motel, perhaps — or something more permanent as quickly as possible.

Based on the most recent Point-in-Time Count — which offers a quick, if imprecise, snapshot showing the relative size of Santa Barbara’s homeless population — the number of people living in their vehicles jumped from 611 households last year to 710 by early this January. At any given time, about 200 people are living in their vehicles in one of the 27 parking lots Safe Parking manages.

According to county officials, the biggest jump in this population involved seniors and families with children. According to Kristine Schwartz, New Beginning’s executive director since 2013, Safe Parking has some clients in their nineties.

With the elimination of many emergency tenant protections enacted during the COVID crisis — coupled with a rise in Santa Barbara’s already astronomical rents — Schwartz said the uptick in numbers are not surprising. She takes issue with Hollywood depictions — like in the movie Nomadland — in which van life is seen as a quasi-romantic, if slightly down-and-out alternative to traditional housing.

“People in our program don’t want to be living in their vehicles,” Schwartz said. “It’s not their choice. They have no options. It’s all about money.”

She said 40 percent of Safe Parking clients work full-time. Many have lived in Santa Barbara for decades but found themselves on hard times because a spouse died, they were fleeing domestic violence, or befell a medical emergency. Safe Parking, she said, has a policy of not accepting people who just moved to Santa Barbara in hopes of securing a spot in one of her lots.

Schwartz bristles at the suggestion that those who can’t keep up with rising rents should simply move elsewhere. “To tell some 77-year-old man he has to move to Kansas City — that’s just not realistic. They have family here. They have friends here. They have medical providers here. You don’t just move.”

Nearly $4 million of the grant will be used to hire about 35 new staff members. Half will do outreach work, connecting with people living in encampments now. The other half will go to housing navigators, people trained in the mysterious art of finding affordable units in Santa Barbara’s private housing market.

Another $3 million will be spent on short-term infusions of cash that enable clients to transition from one of Safe Parking’s 27 parking lots to more permanent housing. This fund will cover security deposits, first month’s rent, and other temporary subsidies designed to get someone under a roof and enclosed by four walls. It will also help defray expenses incurred by the myriad of counselors and social service navigators New Beginning’s provides. Another $700,000 will be set aside for interim shelters through Safe Parking Program lots and hotels.

Safe Parking is not for everybody, and it doesn’t try to be. For example, it does not accept the big RVs often seen at the public parking lot by Castillo and Carrillo streets in downtown Santa Barbara. They are plagued with chronic and expensive upkeep issues, Schwartz explained. That can be a problem because New Beginnings requires residents to clear out by 7 a.m. Often people who reside in vintage RVs are less inclined to get off the streets and seek permanent shelter.

The Safe Parking program started 20 years ago this summer and has become a much emulated and studied program by other communities dealing with the proliferation of automotive homelessness.