Shaw’s Steakhouse and a neighboring furniture store, Sergio’s Furniture and Mattress, have both been closed since Jan. 3, when a fire that started just outside the buildings grew into a blaze that destroyed two-thirds of the restaurant and the entirety of the store.
The fire was initially described by first responders as a “rubbish fire,” which they said appeared to have started in the alleyway behind the buildings. Although the Santa Maria Fire Department is still investigating the incident and hasn’t released any official information on its cause, rumors of a homeless person starting the fire are circulating.
“I wonder if the fire was set in the alley by someone who is homeless trying to stay warm,” Santa Maria resident George Moreno wrote in a comment on the Sun’s Facebook page just after the fire.
Leonard Champion, chief of the Santa Maria Fire Department, said that while many people seem to think that’s the case, it’s hearsay.
“We have no idea where that idea came from or where that rumor started,” Champion told the Sun.
Although the fire did start in the alleyway behind Shaw’s, he said, there is no evidence—which includes video footage from security cameras at neighboring businesses—to suggest that a homeless person started it.
The Fire Department will have a clearer picture of what happened once it receives two reports: one from a lab that is testing some of the evidence collected on scene and another from an electrical engineer who is looking into a potentially faulty electrical panel. The panel, Champion said, was found behind the building near some destroyed mattresses, and investigators think that could have been the catalyst.
While the department does occasionally get called to warming fires started by homeless individuals who are cooking or trying to stay warm, he said it’s rare, and those cases usually don’t lead to much more than a warning and a brief lecture on fire safety.
“I would say it’s not very common at all,” Champion said. “I mean maybe during cold weather there may be an increase, but we just haven’t seen it.”
That could be, he said, because emergency warming shelters open up all over Santa Barbara County when the weather gets as cold and rainy as it has been recently.
There are five emergency warming center locations in the county, according to Kathy Hayes, director of Freedom Warming Centers, in Santa Maria, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Isla Vista, and Carpinteria. If opened all together, the centers can hold about 200 people.
Freedom Warming Centers is the only organization that offers emergency overnight shelter to anyone on especially cold or rainy nights from November until the end of March every year. Attendees can show up any time between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., and they don’t have to be sober to get a bed.
The warming centers only open when temperatures drop to 35 degrees or below, or there is a 50 percent or higher chance of rain. Hayes said the criteria for opening here are similar to what’s used by emergency warming shelters nationwide, and the shelters are meant to be used only when the overnight weather becomes life threatening.
Santa Barbara County’s warming shelters have opened roughly 38 times this season, she said.
Hayes said homelessness is an issue that’s “only growing” on the Central Coast, and cities like Santa Maria lack many of the services others have had for years, including day centers and low-barrier shelters, which accept even people who have recently been drinking or using drugs.
“Santa Maria is just way behind when it comes to providing services,” Hayes said. “[Good Samaritan Shelter] has great services but this problem has become really big, and it takes more than one organization.”
Good Samaritan has nearly 200 beds for people experiencing homelessness in Santa Maria alone, according to Executive Director Sylvia Barnard. The nonprofit also runs shelters in Lompoc, and Barnard said the organization’s shelters have been overflowing for about seven years straight.
Priority goes to women with children, families, veterans, seniors, and then to single men, who she said are most often put on a waiting list and turned away. Those individuals are left on the streets, sometimes in cold weather, but Barnard said she hasn’t heard of warming fires becoming an issue in the Santa Maria area.
While the county, through its Continuum of Care Program, is making an effort to create more space for those in need, that effort is indirect. Barnard, who also works with Continuum of Care, said that program is working to find housing for those who frequent the shelters, which would in turn open up shelter spaces for those on waiting lists.
Santa Barbara County’s rental market is competitive, expensive, and the qualifications necessary to apply for most rentals—proof of a monthly salary three times that of the monthly rent—are nearly impossible for most people working minimum wage jobs to meet.
The Housing Authority of Santa Barbara County even issued Secton 8 housing vouchers to a number of homeless individuals, but Barnard said so few landlords are willing to participate in Section 8 that many of those certificates remain unused. On average, she said it takes the Housing Authority 93 days to get someone housed.
“I believe that our homeless crisis is really a reflection of the housing crisis in our county,” Barnard said.
While Barnard said much of the general population thinks of homeless people as mentally ill, lazy, jobless individuals who cause trouble, light dumpster fires, and abuse drugs and alcohol, those are, in most cases, total misconceptions.
“That’s really not the face of homelessness we serve,” Barnard said, adding that most homeless people in North County are families, and 70 percent of all adults they serve are employed.
Barnard said for some people, one large and unexpected expense can be enough to throw them into homelessness, and it can be a difficult cycle to get out of.
Many people live paycheck to paycheck.
“Homelessness is really complicated and complex, and it can happen to anyone at any time,” she said. “I wish people knew more about homelessness and could understand that many of our peers, even in the business community, have experienced homelessness.”
Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash can be reached at kbubnash@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 21-28, 2019.
