As a Santa Barbara resident since 2016 who has worked extensively on homelessness issues — developing the Neighborhood Navigation strategy, co-founding the Food Bag Cooperative during COVID, and serving as board president of Santa Barbara Street Medicine — I feel compelled to speak out about a grave injustice unfolding at the FARO Day Center.
John Lewis once said, “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up.” Today, I’m speaking up about our City Council and administration’s misguided approach to one of our community’s most vital resources for unsheltered residents.
Just over a year ago, in June 2024, our elected officials and staff joined agencies and funders in celebrating the FARO Center’s grand opening with ribbon-cutting ceremonies and proud speeches. Today, we face the heartbreaking prospect of the city abandoning this essential support center — essentially giving up on our most vulnerable neighbors.
The Reality of Homelessness Services
The city’s current demands reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of how homelessness services actually work. Officials now want a sanitized, appointment-only model serving “the nice ones” — individuals who are clean, organized, and easy to manage. This approach ignores the reality that our unsheltered neighbors often haven’t showered in days, struggle with trust issues, and can’t navigate bureaucratic appointment systems.
Street outreach workers know it typically takes 17 to 18 different interactions before someone accepts help. These aren’t your appointment-only clients. They need time to build trust, gather paperwork, and begin working with health providers. The original Neighborhood Navigation plan recognized this reality with a pop-up model offering comprehensive services during consistent weekly windows — document preparation, housing assistance, mental and physical health services, warm showers, clean clothes, meals, and food bags, all available simultaneously.
When transitioning to a permanent location, modifications were expected, but the holistic approach remained key. The appointment-only model was later imposed by a City Administrator who hadn’t been part of the previously successful model. Her telling comment that “the Neighborhood Navigation/Day Center model was too successful for its own good” reveals the problem: instead of addressing success-related challenges collaboratively, the city retreated into revisionist history, claiming the center was “always supposed to be appointment only.” This simply isn’t true.
A Success Story Under Attack
The FARO Center has been successful. The SBACT coordination team has worked tirelessly, bringing kindness and compassion to our unsheltered neighbors while continuously improving operations. Are they perfect? No. But they’ve remained open to new approaches and committed to improvement. Staff members, though exhausted by negative messaging from City Hall, continue doing their best to accommodate ever-changing city demands.
This isn’t just about staff — it’s about the people served at FARO. They need what the center provides, not what out-of-town consultants or desk-bound city staffers think they need. Most critically, they need food. The city is ending meal service at FARO on July 31, creating another hunger crisis on our streets, just like last summer when park meal services were stopped as the Day Center came online.
A Path Forward
Rather than shutting down FARO services and blacklisting SBACT’s coordination efforts, the city should embrace collaboration. Thirty-four organizations wrote letters supporting the center’s continuation — we have an experienced coalition ready to help. The expertise exists in our community; people are willing and able to solve problems proactively.
The city must move away from closed-door, attorney-led discussions toward transparent, regularly scheduled community input sessions. The FARO Center needs runway time — support to refine operations while maintaining services. Our homeless neighbors can’t wait for perfect conditions; they need help now.
We face a choice between two approaches: continue hiding behind legal threats and unofficial messaging campaigns that damage reputations built on years of collaboration, or choose transparency and community partnership.
Take Action
What can engaged citizens do? Contact your City Council member, the mayor, and the City Administrator. Ask them to choose a “Yes We Can” model over a “Blame Game Lawyer Up” approach. Demand they keep the center open, engage community partners, and work together toward success.
Our city’s response to the FARO situation will define who we are as a community. Are we willing to do the hard work of serving our most vulnerable residents, or will we abandon them when services don’t fit neat, sanitized expectations?
The answer should be clear. Santa Barbara must choose compassion over politics, collaboration over isolation, and transparency over closed-door decision-making. Our unsheltered neighbors deserve nothing less.
Maureen Ellenberger has worked on homelessness issues in Santa Barbara since 2016 and currently serves as board president of Santa Barbara Street Medicine — Doctors without Walls.
