Barbara Andersen quietly delivered an unlikely one-two punch — part good news, part bad news — when speaking before the Santa Barbara City Council this Tuesday. The city’s de facto homeless czar, Andersen had a lot to say on all the ways City Hall has been addressing homelessness on the South Coast.
In August, the first day center opened, located at the bottom of Chapala Street. Every day, 40 or more homeless people are connected with a range of services designed to get them off the streets. In the past year, 169 units of new affordable housing has come on line for people transitioning from the streets. A similar number of tiny homes and converted motel rooms were made available. Outreach workers with City Net now work every day, making more than 800 contacts with who eventually became 82 clients. As Andersen described it, the needle isn’t just moving; it’s dancing.
But even so, she cautioned, state and federal funding sources that have sustained all these projects have been cut in half. “This is disheartening for us,” she confided.