Trained volunteers from several organizations collected an estimated 50,000 pounds of trash and abandoned materials from the Santa Maria Riverbed and connected about 35 people to resources during a homeless encampment cleanup, Santa Maria Public Information Officer Mark van de Kamp said.
“We’ve had—like most cities in California—homelessness is a very complex social problem with no easy solutions … . Being homeless in itself is not a crime, but many kinds of public conduct are illegal. We’ve been partnering with various agencies for many years to address the homelessness situation,” van de Kamp said.
The 2020 Homeless Point-In-Time (PIT) count tallied 382 individuals experiencing homelessness in Santa Maria, down from 464 in 2019, and residents have complained to city officials about the trash, debris, and encampments in the riverbed, he said.
“The cleanup went for two days, and we targeted specific areas in the riverbed where we knew there would be trash to be cleaned up. We posted notice-to-vacate signs many days ahead of the [72-hour] minimum,” van de Kamp said.
Moving forward, he said, the effort includes brush trimming, removing abandoned property, and posting repair signs in the riverbed. During the Feb. 24 cleanup, Santa Maria city officials led the coordinated effort with agencies—including the Good Samaritan Shelter, 2 Mexicans Junk Removal, United Way of Northern Santa Barbara County, City Net, Caltrans, private property owners, and the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office—to follow the city’s three-pronged approach: education and support, enforcement, and partnership, he said.
“I think we’ve made a good impact for now. … That said, not everyone is willing to receive the help, but we make the attempt to connect them to resources and assistance,” he added.
City Net—a Santa Barbara County nonprofit—was one of the entities connecting those experiencing homelessness to housing opportunities, Regional Program Manager Emily Koval said.
“We serve encampments from Carpinteria to Santa Maria and we are trying to connect people to housing first and foremost, medical and mental health resources, and anything that falls into the realm of case management,” Koval explained.
About a year ago, City Net was granted two countywide contracts—one for generalized outreach and the other specific to encampments “off the beaten path” like the Santa Maria Riverbed. City Net was made aware of the cleanup, and its team contacted those living in the riverbed to connect them with services, Koval said.
“There’s been a continuous conversation of the possibility of a cleanup. Once we were aware the cleanup was happening, we wanted to be there to support our population through the decisions they would have to make and if they needed anything. We just remind them that we are there and we do care about them,” she continued.
Although she couldn’t comment on the cleanup’s results, Koval emphasized that Santa Maria—and Santa Barbara County in general—need to continue this coordination to find creative, permanent housing solutions.
“These encampments show how many houses are needed in order to adequately serve our population. … One entity can’t act alone, you have to have all the moving parts in place,” she said.
This article appears in Mar 3-10, 2022.