This article was underwritten in part by the Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund for Social Justice, a proud, innovative supporter of local news. To make a contribution go to sbcan.org/journalism_fund .
More folks are living in cars, federal cuts to social services are putting local people at risk of losing their homes, and new resources are available to help prevent homelessness. Those are the main takeaways from S.B. ACT’s June 8 All-Hands meeting.
S.B. ACT, or Santa Barbara Advancing Collective Transformation, is a nonprofit that coordinates social services for people experiencing homelessness. About 40 people, including folks working to prevent and address housing insecurity, city employees, unhoused folks, and business owners, met in First Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara for Monday’s meeting.
Rising Vehicular Homelessness
S.B. ACT’s executive director, Rich Sander, and its director of programs, Landon Ranck, presented data collected from Santa Barbara County’s Point-in-Time Count that shows the biggest number of unhoused people in the county live in vehicles.
The Point-in-Time Count is a one-day census of unhoused people, providing a snapshot of what homelessness looks like in the area. S.B. ACT serves as the local count coordinator for this census; counting occurs on a single night in January. The most recent data was collected in January 2025. At that time, volunteers counted 962 people living in vehicles not designed to serve as a permanent home. Comparatively, in 2024, volunteers counted 710 people in vehicles.
Folks who live in vehicles may not consider themselves homeless, Ranck said. He presented responses from people who call their vehicle home, collected as part of a county study on vehicular homelessness scheduled for public release this summer.
“Some of these reference van life . Others reference that ‘we’re not homeless; we have a place to live,’” he said.
Other responses noted Santa Barbara’s high rent prices and ability to save money by living in a vehicle. Many people who live in vehicles, executive director Sander said, work jobs or attend school.
The community needs more data on vehicular homelessness to better help people, said S.B. ACT Executive Director Sander. Sander said that, in his experience working with unhoused people, sometimes people will say they want to keep their current situation until affordable shelter is an option for them. Right now, Sander said, he’s unsure if that’s the case with vehicular homelessness.
“If this is the case, we’re trying to figure out: What does this look like in response? How do we make safe communities around vehicular homelessness? If this is truly what people are wanting, how do we do it in a way that’s not impacting the rest of the city and neighbors?” he said.
One related discussion among meeting attendees, Sander, and Ranck surrounded Goleta’s Safe Parking Program. Goleta has an estimated 200 people, as of last summer, living in vehicles. The city also has a program, operated by the nonprofit New Beginnings, where with valid driver’s license and registration, people can spend the night in a monitored lot and access restrooms and social services. The program has 36 spaces, but it’s not full.
The Impact of Federal Cuts
The meeting also addressed how changes to federal programs, such as the early termination of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) emergency voucher program and the expanding work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), will put people at risk of homelessness.
Melinda Maysonet, S.B. ACT’s Lived Experience Working Group lead, spoke at the meeting. The Lived Experience Working Group meets twice a month and works on projects that raise awareness on homelessness issues and advocates for support. Its members are current and formerly unhoused people.
Maysonet, who lives with a chronic illness, said she personally receives support from the emergency housing voucher program.
“My doctors tell me I’m not sick enough to qualify for disability, but yet I’m not well enough to rejoin the nine-to-five rat race. So, what do you do?” she said.
Maysonet is not alone. In December, 349 people in the county will lose this funding, which helps them afford rent. Coupled with tightening work requirements for SNAP (about 5,400 people in the county are at-risk of losing grocery assistance in the coming year) and other federal cuts, Ranck said SB ACT expects an increase in homelessness.
Recently, the Lived Experiences Working Group visited community members at risk of losing these federally funded services and offered information and connections to local support.
Good Samaritan’s Prevention, Diversion, and Retention Program
“I think we’ve probably all been aware there is a problem, and now we just want to talk about how we can actually address this now,” Ranck said as introduction to the meeting’s final portion — a rundown of Good Samaritan’s Prevention, Diversion and Retention program. Good Samaritan said it has been working to expand the program, which started in 2022.
The program recently received $563,012 in State funding for prevention services that help stop people from becoming homeless. People facing housing insecurity can call Good Samaritan’s Housing Problem Solving hotline at (805) 621-6882.
The hotline puts callers in touch with a case worker to help troubleshoot the problem. Case workers, who will meet with the caller in person, can set up mediation with a landlord, create a payment plan, or even help pay off a one-time medical bill to help the caller make ends meet.
“This is not going to be 30 minutes and then everything’s resolved,” Ranck said. “This is going to be, ‘Hey, you have to commit to the process and come talk to us a little bit.”
The program also assists folks who have become homeless recently, or for whom losing their home is imminent, Ranck said. The goal is to “divert” them from the streets or entering the homelessness system, and re-house them as quickly as possible. Finally, the program addresses retention: helping folks get back into housing.
Retention can be a multi-month process: Ranck said Good Samaritan will work with people placed in housing for up to six months, and in certain cases, longer, to help them create a sustainable routine to keep their home.