A report from this year’s count of Santa Barbara County’s homeless population was released on March 20, and the data shows an increase in the prevalence of unsheltered homelessness.
The county’s rates of unsheltered homelessness rose by 27 percent from 2017, when 893 residents were found to be living without a home and without shelter.
Santa Barbara County does its tally of the local unsheltered homeless population every two years, and information gathered by volunteers during what’s known as the Point in Time Count is used by various organizations and the county to secure further funding and resources for the homeless population.
There are a number of factors that could have contributed to this year’s increase, namely a significant decline in the county’s available emergency shelter beds, according to Emily Allen, program director at the Northern Santa Barbara County United Way. United Way is one of the organizations that helps coordinate the Point in Time Count each year it’s done.
In past years, Allen said the county’s emergency warming shelters were open during the count, so that homeless individuals who would normally get a spot in an emergency shelter during cold or wet weather would not be counted as unsheltered. This year, a consultant who worked with the county suggested that those shelters should only open if the weather permitted and questioned whether those staying occasionally in emergency shelters should even be considered “sheltered” homeless individuals.
On the morning of this year’s Point in Time Count, Jan. 24, Santa Barbara County’s Freedom Warming Centers did not need to be open. The warming centers only open when temperatures drop to 35 degrees or below, or there is a 50 percent or higher chance of rain.
Several other shelters had fewer beds this year than in 2017 as well, Allen said.
The Santa Barbara Rescue Mission is currently undergoing major transformations and only had about 20 available beds during the count, Allen said, significantly fewer than usual. And while People Assisting the Homeless, an organization with shelters across California and in Santa Barbara, used to expand its capacity throughout the winter months, it didn’t do that this year. The organization is now only able to expand its capacity if the weather is considered to be potentially life-threatening.
Outside of the increase in unsheltered homelessness, the data gathered during the 2019 Point in Time Count is fairly similar to that gathered in past counts.
“It’s not particularly surprising, but it continues to give us good information,” Allen said.
Of the 1,803 unsheltered and sheltered homeless individuals tallied in this year’s count, 52 percent were found living in Santa Barbara’s city limits, and 22 percent were located in Santa Maria. Lompoc had the third highest rate of homelessness with a count of 249 individuals. Roughly 63 percent of those counted were living unsheltered, according to the report, and the vast majority said they were living in Santa Barbara County when they first became homeless.
While Allen said it’s disappointing that these numbers aren’t decreasing, she’s looking forward to some of the work that United Way and other organizations will be doing in the future. Housing placements are increasing, and Allen said the county will be using some new state funding to do homelessness prevention work, something that she said hasn’t been prioritized for quite some time.
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 4, 2019.
