It came as no a surprise that the Los Angeles Times devoted a six-part editorial series on the urgency of solving homelessness, given Los Angeles County has 58,000 people who are homeless. To put L.A.’s issue into perspective, 1,500 people are homeless in Santa Barbara County. The Times printed these editorials as the its editorial board continues to be concerned that the right moves are not being made, and have not been made in the past decade, to tackle the homelessness epidemic Angelenos face. This was a bold move by the Times, and we must question whether Santa Barbara should have a similar sense of urgency to prevent what L.A. is experiencing from happening in our town.
It is true that Los Angeles is not Santa Barbara, but it is fair to ask whether we are on the precipice of having a homelessness problem of our own. We should consider whether now is the time to build a sense of urgency to tackle homelessness.
Santa Barbara’s current rate of housing individuals experiencing homelessness is approximately 300 people a year. However, the point-in-time count — an annual measure of homelessness — has stayed consistent at 1,500 for the past 11 years. If we doubled our rate of housing to 600 people a year, we would effectively eliminate homelessness in just five years. And Santa Barbara County has shown promising signs of progress.