Santa Barbara Supervisors Ease Restrictions Surrounding Homeless Encampment Sweeps
County Also Bans Oversized Vehicle Parking Near Row Crops, Considers ‘Safe Sleeping’ Campgrounds
The Santa Barbara County Supervisors unanimously voted to ease the advance notification restrictions required before county administrators order homeless encampments cleared out — “resolved” being the term of art — and reducing the length of time the county has to keep any personal belongings confiscated in such sweeps.
Under the county’s existing self-imposed rules, written warnings were issued at the targeted encampments no less than 72 hours beforehand. Now that time requirement is 48 hours. Likewise, it used to be that county crews would be responsible for storing confiscated materials for 90 days. Under the new rules, the new storage requirement is 60 days.
In a related move, the supervisors approved a brand-new parking restriction on oversized vehicles, barring them from parking along roads adjacent to row crops. As Supervisor Bob Nelson noted, the concern was the effect of human effluent discharged from such vehicles near where food is grown.
The supervisors were also told that county administrators are now giving serious thought to creating “safe sleeping zones” for people who have no place to sleep. Given the acute shortage of available shelter beds throughout Santa Barbara County — and the exorbitant cost of creating new housing of any kind — the idea of monitored campgrounds accompanied by showers and porta-potties has a utilitarian appeal. Other communities, such as San Diego, have already pursued that option, but to date, Santa Barbara has been loath to explore it.
The “safe sleeping” idea borrows heavily from the Safe Parking program that originated in Santa Barbara more than 20 years ago, in which owners of private parking lots have allowed small clusters of supervised car-dwellers to spend the night, provided they can be up and out early the next morning. While that program has been widely lauded for its effectiveness and compassion, the number of participating parking lots has hardly kept pace with growing demand.
Former supervisor Das Williams, in one of his meetings, pushed to use state or federal grant money to pay parking lot owners money for the use of their lots. Safe Parking has never done that, and the supervisors heard how such payments might upset the economic underpinning of the entire program.
The supervisors also heard how county homeless administrators contacted their state and federal representatives to see if the pool of available public parking lots could be significantly expanded for the Safe Parking program. As usual, the supervisors were told such entreaties yielded no results. It was hardly the first time such requests have been made.
Gina Rodarte Quiroz with the Committee for Social Justice, herself homeless for six years, blistered the new relaxed notification and storage requirements, arguing the sweeps will only further traumatize people who have already been traumatized too much. The actions, she said, lacked compassion and would only criminalize people who have no choices or options where else to go. Any identification or other necessary documents could easily get lost and connections with key social service providers severed.
Supervisor Nelson thanked Quiroz for her comments and then explained he couldn’t disagree with her more. Letting homeless people live in the riverbed, he said, wasn’t compassionate, safe, or good public policy. And no one, he added, should confuse the Santa Maria riverbed for a home.
