New Beginnings celebrates its 50th Annual Gala Friday night at The New Vic

Homelessness and mental health issues are two hot-button issues taking center stage tonight at The New Vic as New Beginnings celebrates its 50th Anniversary Gala.

“New Beginnings is a longtime safety-net organization,” said Kristine Schwarz, Executive Director of New Beginnings. “We’re the leading non-profit veteran-provider of services for those veterans who are struggling with mental illness, homelessness and housing insecurity. And, we also have a life skills parenting education program and provide psycho-educational services to the community at no cost to the agency or to the participant.”

New Beginnings got its start in Santa Barbara during the late 1960s; the organization began helping the local homeless community in the 1990s and serves roughly 2,000 people each year.

Friday night’s event will include a stage performance titled, “Food and Shelter.” Organizers said it is a heart rendering story about a homeless family splurging on a day at Disneyland.

“The purpose of our event tonight is to change the narrative around homelessness. We have a pre-conceived idea of what homelessness means of how people fall into homelessness, why they remain in homelessness, how they get out of homelessness and, we need to change that narrative in order to make a change in our community,” Schwarz said.

Lloyd Dallett, a longtime Santa Barbara artist, recently became involved with New Beginnings following the tragic loss of her 61-year-old brother who battled mental health issues for years. She is deeply concerned about seniors afflicted with homelessness and is now devoted to raising awareness and addressing the stigma associated with mental illness.

“My personal experience gave me a whole new awareness of what the indigent population is — that’s part of what this play is about as well,” Dallett told reporter Beth Farnsworth. “It’s to help people understand the breadth of, the scope, the enormous scope of people that are living on the street. And obviously, it’s a huge a problem throughout California, and the country, but especially California.

Dallett said her brother ultimately died of starvation on the streets of San Francisco.

“The thing I learned with my brother is that there are people from all walks of life who end up living in the street and there’s just so many reasons and it’s just a complex situation,” Dallett said. “New Beginnings has been great in helping all kinds of people and their Safe Parking program is fantastic. It helps lots of middle class people working jobs that …. lost their housing for any number of reasons.”

For more information about New Beginnings, click here: https://sbnbcc.org/

For more information about The New Vic, click here: https://ensembletheatre.com/