Based on data collected through the Homeless Management Information System, Santa Barbara County experienced a 34 percent increase in unsheltered homelessness from between 2020 and 2021.
According to Santa Barbara County’s 2020 point-in-time count, 1,897 homeless individuals resided in the county in 2020, with the largest number in the city of Santa Barbara.
To help resolve the issue, county Homeless Assistance Programs Manager Kimberlee Albers and her team conducted research and met with stakeholders over eight months to come up with a homelessness encampment strategy and protocol to get people into permanent housing. She understands the importance of having a well-researched plan of action.
“It’s a very complex issue, and everybody wants a quick answer,” Albers said.
On Aug. 31, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the Santa Barbara County Encampment Response Protocol proposed by Albers and Housing and Community Development Deputy Director Dinah Lockhart, which aims to “resolve” 45 encampments over the next three years.
The purpose of the protocol is to provide increased clarity and coordination around the initial clearing of encampments, the proposal states. At the meeting, Albers and her team requested $1.9 million to implement the three-year strategy, with hopes for an increase.
“We need at least three years if the multidisciplinary team can walk and hire more people as needed,” Albers told the Sun. “Three years isn’t even that long; we need a strong strategy for the funding landscape.”
The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan, a COVID-19 relief fund that allows elected leaders to finance critical projects for homeless relief, Albers said. The funds will help launch an encampment response team led by a new encampment response coordinator—which the county is now in the process of hiring.
The county staff report states that the team would include staff from the Community Srevices, Public Health, Fire, and Sheriff’s departments, and a homeless outreach worker. The response coordinator would track reports of encampments, deploy a response team, and manage other logistics. Encampments will be prioritized based on health and safety evaluations as well as their proximity to communities.
The team will connect with people living in the encampment, enact temporary health and safety measures, begin cleaning, and initiate closing and removing the camp, according to the staff report.
Older models
Albers said she researched homelessness responses in Oakland, Santa Cruz, and a proposal in Los Angeles because they seemed to have comprehensive plans and a breakdown of homelessness sheltering protocols.
In Oakland, the homeless population nearly doubled over a four-year period, increasing from 2,191 people in 2015 to 4,017 people by 2019 with 142 known encampments across the city, according to city documents. As a result, the Oakland City Council allocated $12.6 million to deal with homelessness encampments.
However, an April 2021 audit found that Oakland’s strategy lacked direction.
“The city was not adequately prepared to shoulder such a massive project, and the EMT was overwhelmed by the undertaking of closing and cleaning encampments throughout Oakland. Specifically, the audit found the city lacked an effective strategy for dealing with growth in encampments and did not provide sufficient policy direction or adequate funding at the onset of the crisis,” the audit report states.
Albers said she didn’t recall all of the specifics during her research, but she said a larger structure may have been lacking to move people through Oakland’s social services system.
In response to the audit, Oakland released a detailed report about how the city planned to address the issues with its original plan to tackle encampments.
Oakland created emergency community cabin shelters (similar to Lompoc’s Pallet sheltering program), began a street and encampment response team and a safety response team, and began seeking out leases from hotel and business owners for housing.
The city also invested in a prevention and intervention program, Keep Oakland Housed, a partnership between public and private entities to help with mental health, legal representation, and emergency financial assistance.
Albers said the city of Oakland was very helpful in sharing its information and practices withSanta Barbara County.
“One thing that’s great about the homeless network is everyone is really gracious in sharing their information and lessons learned. It’s such a hot topic, there’s not a shortage of resources when we are all learning together,” she said.
Collaboration
Although other jurisdictions and cities in the county aren’t required to follow the new protocol, Albers said the county received their input as it came up with the strategy and recommends the plan’s adoption. She said that oftentimes when there is not one universal strategy, the homeless population can move between jurisdictions and not receive adequate care. Without a unified model for every area to follow, it’s possible to continue seeing this pattern of shifting people around.
“The strategy is to ensure that we are looking at the long-term end of encampments and not just moving people around, which is a benefit countywide,” Albers said.
Second District Supervisor Gregg Hart said he is pleased with the progress the county has made.
“This is an enormous challenge that has been ongoing for decades, but what’s new and exciting is the new commitment to collaboration from local governments in the county,” Hart said. “Different approaches have pushed around the problem; we are now intentionally focusing on housing needs for people and giving them the resources they need to find housing and stay there. We are being very intentional about solving the problem, rather than just imagining that people will just find housing and the issue will go away.”
Albers said she has been seeing promise by meeting with the mayors of Goleta and Santa Maria to present in-depth protocols and strategies.
“The consistency and benefits of the same approach can get people into safer environments,” Albers said.
Moving people into sheltering and re-housing programs can’t be done without enough housing opportunities.
The Homeless Encampment Strategy acknowledged this in a detailed Community Action Plan that walks through ways to increase access to shelter, creating new permanent housing with supportive services, leveraging long-term rental subsidies, and finding sustainable funding, which was discussed at an Elected Leaders Forum on Sept. 10.
That action plan was approved in February, and since then, the county has increased rapid re-housing openings by 339, temporary housing beds by 137, and permanent housing units by 46, and received $8 million in new funding, according to county data.
“A lot of progress was made, but there’s still a lot of work we need to do,” Albers said.
There’s still a demand for 714 more re-housing units, 563 more beds, and 789 more permanent housing units, according to a presentation at the Sept. 10 meeting.
Project Homekey—a $1.4 billion state funding opportunity to purchase and rehabilitate hotels and motels to convert them into permanent housing for the homeless and increase the flow of services at current shelters—could help the county create more sheltering options.
The first project funded through Homekey created 15 units and served 8,000 people in Lompoc, Albers said during the Sept. 10 meeting.
“There is a real urgency to identify sites if we want to capitalize on this opportunity and resolve encampments,” Albers said.
First District Supervisor Das Williams called on community members to act during the Aug. 31 Board of Supervisors meeting. He said he heard back from community members in his district who offered space that could be used for potential sheltering opportunities.
“Most people are usually supportive, but when sites are in your neck of the woods, people sometimes are not happy about that,” Williams said. “In my experience, people react by saying this is a good strategy, but this isn’t the right site. Over 20 years in politics and I’ve never found the right site.”
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at [email protected].
