Santa Barbara Alliance For Community Transformation announces long term solution to end homelessness locally
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — SB ACT Executive Director Rich Sander is confident that they can end homelessness locally, but it will take a mental shift and boots on the ground.
“First, we need to get rid of this idea that it's just impossible notion. And second, the solution to homelessness is housing,” said SB ACT Executive Director, Rich Sander.
Sander says that last year’s numbers reveal that roughly 1,000 people in the city of Santa Barbara are unhoused.
He says that building affordable housing units to meet those needs is doable, but it’s not just about helping those that are unhoused, it’s making sure they don’t fall back into homelessness.
“We need to align our service provider partners so that there is a flow when somebody falls into homelessness, that there is enough of a safety net between all of the different arenas, whether that be case management, shelter, semi-permanent housing, permanent supportive housing, that all of that is in place and people are moving through,” said Sander.
The 3-year plan discussed at Monday’s meeting says they want to reduce the number of people returning to homelessness by 25%.
They also plan to increase the number of households diverted from homelessness by 15% and help 55 unhoused people with the greatest behavioral health needs move into some form of housing.
In order to accomplish this SB ACT says it’s essential to improve people’s attitudes towards homelessness.
“People's life circumstance is doesn't always determine who they are as people that we do get to make advances. We do get to get steps up,” said local pastor Leo Smith.
“You can imagine, if you're dealing with, you know, really high rent and a low paying job and maybe you have one thing go wrong in your life, you know, a family member passes away, you have a mental health crisis, whatever it might be any of those things can be the one thing that takes you into homelessness.”
SB ACT will be hosting a “Homeless 101” training on March 20th at noon so that people can understand the root causes of homelessness and how to be a part of the solution.
