Santa Barbara Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Safe Parking Program

Thursday marked the 20th anniversary of Santa Barbara’s groundbreaking Safe Parking Program, which provides dedicated overnight parking spots to members of the community living out of their cars. The program was the first of its kind in the United States and has served as the inspiration for Safe Parking initiatives nationwide. Congressmember Salud Carbajal made an appearance for the celebration at a parking lot in downtown Santa Barbara and outlined plans to introduce a bipartisan bill this week that would unlock federal funding to further expand this vital program across the country.

“This is what success looks like,” Carbajal said, gesturing to the 15 parking spots behind the Santa Barbara County Administration building, the birthplace of the Safe Parking Program. With 26 parking areas in the Santa Barbara and Goleta region, this program has served hundreds of county residents facing a housing crisis. In addition to secure nighttime parking spaces, this program provides restrooms, hygiene services, and rapid rehousing assistance, all with the goal of transitioning individuals back into homes and mainstream society. 

County Supervisor Das Williams, 1st District, was also at Thursday’s event and said that New Beginnings, which runs the local Safe Parking Program, “literally wrote the book on this,” referring to a widely used manual that outlines proper implementation practices of Safe Parking programs for use in other cities. Since the idea was first introduced in 2004 by former Supervisor Susan Rose, also in attendance, cities in Colorado, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, among others, have adopted Santa Barbara’s method and implemented their own safe parking areas.

However, problems have always lied in the funding. “Agencies such as New Beginnings must cobble together state, local, and private funds to support the basic operation of safe parking shelters,” New Beginnings Executive Director Kristin Schwartz emphasized at Thursday’s event, pointing out that there is no dedicated funding for programs such as theirs. Because the Safe Parking Program is one of the least expensive options for serving the homeless community, Schwartz is excited at the possibility of expanding their nightly parking services with the implementation of Carbajal’s bill.

Carbajal’s original 2021 bill, which was advanced out of the House’s committee overseeing housing issues, would have created an entirely new federal grant dedicated to homelessness solutions. While that bill didn’t pass, revisions have been made that would allow Safe Parking Programs to be eligible for $290 million in federal funding already budgeted for through the Emergency Solutions Grants Program. The proposed reallocation of existing grant money has garnered bipartisan support, which Carbajal looks to carry with him as he introduces the Naomi Schwartz and Susan Rose Safe Parking Act in Washington this week.

As a former member of the vehicular homeless population, Supervisor Williams says that this programming has a unique mix of compassion and accountability while not enabling homelessness — a hard line to walk with housing assistance services in today’s polarized political climate.

This type of programming is necessary now more than ever. The most recent Point-in-Time Count occurred just last week in downtown Santa Barbara, during which volunteers gained crucial demographic information on the homeless population and spent time listening to their stories. While the exact numbers have not yet been released, Schwartz suspects that the number of homeless individuals, especially ones living in their vehicles, has increased since last year’s count.