Santa Barbara County will extend warming shelter opportunities this winter for residents experiencing homelessness, following a vote by the Board of Supervisors at its Dec. 13 meeting.
Typically, warming shelters open when the weather forecast predicts a 50 percent or greater chance of rain for two consecutive days, or temperatures dropping below 35 degrees at night. But for the 2016-2017 season, Freedom Warming Shelters has received a $20,000 budget increase to open shelters when the forecast predicts a 50 percent chance of rain for just one day.
“We were seeing last year during those El Niño conditions that our county’s homeless really need the shelter during even one day of rain,” Erin Wilson, director of the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, said at the meeting.
The Board of Supervisors’ 4-1 vote approving the budget increase—with 4th District Supervisor Peter Adam the only dissenter—changed the stipulations for opening the warming centers for the first time since the program began in 2009.
Warming centers in Northern Santa Barbara County are located in Santa Maria at the Salvation Army on Cook Street and Lompoc at the Peace Lutheran Church on Ocean Avenue. The centers accept anyone regardless of mental or physical health, and sobriety is not a requirement.
This article appears in Dec 15-22, 2016.
