This is a response to Nick Welsh’s article titled “Shelter to Close?” in the August 28 edition of your newspaper. Please look back to your archives at the time PATH took over the shelter. There were warnings from some then that PATH was a large Los Angeles nonprofit that would not serve the Santa Barbara community well.
Some nonprofits, I would argue that PATH is one of them, are technically nonprofits but are predatory. They are set up for the purposes of paying very large salaries to a few top individuals. They are slick at marketing and they compete aggressively against small, local nonprofits for government contracts. Check PATH’s compensation of its top administrators and see for yourself.
This is water under the bridge now, but what it does mean is that perhaps the fate of the shelter is not that dire. If PATH was pulling money away from its Santa Barbara operations to fund its overpaid L.A.-based executives all these years, then perhaps a local nonprofit will be able to run it successfully if given the same resources.
