Work crews began assembling 20 tiny homes for the homeless in the Isla Vista Community Center parking lot this week.
Costing about $4,900 a piece, the 8x8-foot prefab structures made by Pallet, and the services that will come with them — including bathrooms and showers, and mental-health or other support through the Good Samaritan shelter operator — are underwritten by about $1 million in CARES Act emergency homeless financing to Santa Barbara County agencies.
The residents will be chosen from among the homeless people already living in Isla Vista, an element that Kimberlee Albers, the county's homeless programs manager, affirmed would ensure that Isla Vista would not become "the place to go." Outreach workers had counted about 44 homeless people in Isla Vista in June, a number that had grown to about 80 by November.