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Yahoo!Let’s face it. If you had to live on the street, you might pick Isla Vista as your residence of choice. It’s a beautiful place to park your shopping cart, and lay down your sleeping bag for the night. It’s the type of place where students, residents, and the homeless coexist, and, notwithstanding certain incidents of apparent violence against I.V. homeless , get along without too much trouble.
Cat Neushul
Just last weekend I spent an evening in the park at Coopula listening to a live band. On my right were college students, and on my left were a row of homeless men, sitting in plastic chairs, and drinking their alcohol from a paper bag. Did I feel uncomfortable being right next to these rather enthusiastic music lovers? No. They have as much right as I do to appreciate the beauty of the evening. I got a kick out of the fact that they seemed to think the band was as good as I did.
While downtown I.V. seems to be the hangout of choice for many of the homeless, you can find them just about anywhere. Many mornings I look out my front window and see a homeless woman pushing her shopping cart full of worldly goods through the open space. I’m not sure where she’s coming from, and I definitely don’t know where she’s going, but she’s a part of my morning ritual.
As far as students are concerned, they seem to think of the homeless as a way to round out their resume. They can check off the” I know a homeless person” on the list of things to do. They seem to think they are doing their good deed for the day by giving them beers or inviting them to their parties.
But the homeless are anything but a joke. They can definitely make things difficult for residents. They sometimes camp underneath the oak trees in the Camino Corto Open Space where Isla Vista Elementary School is located. That’s not a good thing. You want to be sure that children can walk to school without having to pass homeless encampments. In the past I’ve seen someone try to light a fire beneath those trees. I can’t say for sure that the person was homeless — it could have been a misguided, disheveled student — but it still got me thinking: With all the fire trouble we’ve had, the last thing we need is a campfire in an open field.
The ability to set up camp underneath the trees is one of those only-in-I.V. type of things. Try camping near a creek in Santa Barbara. I had a friend who parked his camper outside my previous house on the Mesa. Within two hours. a police officer was at his door, asking him to move along.
Recently, there was an e-mail chain that got me thinking about the homeless in a more negative light. Some I.V. residents were upset about an incident involving a long time local, and a supposed homeless person. According to the e-mail I was sent, a woman had been threatened by someone holding a baseball bat when she confronted what she thought was a homeless person near the row of trees before the steps to Devereaux Beach. I followed the e-mail trail for days as residents gave their opinions, and offered their suggestions to solve this problem.
I called Lieutenant Brian Olmstead, from the Isla Vista Foot Patrol, to find out what had happened. Olmstead said, “We are still trying to figure that out.” He had talked to the resident involved, and in the end, wasn’t sure it had involved one of the I.V. homeless. He said that officers know the 30 to 40 regulars in the area. He suspected that it could have been the other kind of “housing challenged” person often found in I.V. — the “I live in my van, bus, or decades-old trailer type” who was just passing through. He also said the victims of homeless crimes are usually other homeless. It’s not usually students or residents, according to Olmstead. But that doesn’t mean the homeless don’t pose challenges for residents.
“It’s hard to find a solution,” Olmstead said. He said that officers can go out and enforce the law by issuing citations, or taking homeless people to jail for breaking the laws, but he said that this doesn’t solve the problem. Hearings are continued. The jails are overcrowded, and the homeless people are eventually let out. “This is a neverending cycle,” he added.
So what’s the solution? Better people than I tried to solve this issue. But as with all the other challenges in I.V., residents need to make sure that the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and other government officials understand that there’s a problem. They should have a chance to sit down with government representatives, police officers, mental health professions, and shelter experts to come up with some ground rules that can make everyone feel more comfortable. No one wants homeless people camping beneath the trees near an elementary school, nor do we want people to have free reign to park their camper on a street overlooking the beach as though it were a trailer park. These things are out-and-out unacceptable. There has to be a line drawn in the name of public safety. Where that line is drawn should be up to a committee of interested parties. But this does have to involve compromise. We could make I.V. so inhospitable to the homeless that they moved to another location. But as Lt. Olmstead said, “You are just moving this problem from one place to another. That’s not solving the homeless problem at all.”
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Students don't just invite homeless people to parties or give them beer, they volunteer with organizations like the Community Affairs Board to interact with the IV homeless people in a more positive way. For instance, every Wednesday morning students provide the homeless with breakfast in Anisq'oyo park, or they volunteer with the SB Community Kitchen at St. Mark's Catholic Church in IV, which provides meals for the homeless. Students care about the IV community, and many take action to directly improve the situation of homelessness in IV. It's important to remember that the beer and partying stereotype of UCSB does not apply to all students!
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cotati (anonymous profile)
June 10, 2009 at 8:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh, Please...The students idea of contributing is providing a meal or helping at the soup kitchen? They don't care about "the community of IV", they are just fulfilling their community service obligations or trying to make themselves feel good.
There are several types of homeless in IV; Mentally ill, substance abusers and "just don't want to work"ers. The issues surrounding homeless are so vast and complex, that a committee is not going to solve the problem. A committee doesn't need to set ground rules. The law already does that, and the homeless don't care about the laws.
Mentally ill need intensive counseling and medication monitoring as well as a roof over their head, substance abusers need drug and alcohol treetment and need to be AWAY from the excessive drinking and temptation of Isla Vista. The others need a social conscience and sense of self worth.
So what does IV do about all of that? We have two churches that cater to them, one provides breakfast, one provides lunch. We have an abundance of recylcing materials that provide enough money to support their alcohol habit. Students provide them with booze, burritos and a warm welcome to their homes, parks and streets. One of the churches even provides a homeless camp behind the building where the homeless can curl up for the night. There is an effort to provide counseling by some of the churches, but they fall short. In essence, IV is the Shangri-La for homeless.
Why is there such an acceptance of the homeless by the IV community? Why is it OK for the students to wake up with someone sleeping outside their window? Why should they have to push a sleeping bag out of the way in their laundry rooms? Why should the kids have to remove the 40oz. King Cobra from the bottom of the slide before playing on the playground? Why does the community embrace those that trash the park with their passed out bodies, church provided lunch boxes, clothing and various sundries that accompany the homeless?
All you have to do is look at the rest of the community, it's a trash pit and it's OK with those that "care about their community".
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VoiceofSB (anonymous profile)
June 11, 2009 at 8:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Voice, I believe you're speaking reality here, something most I.V. residents of the ivory tower academia realm have trouble dealing w/.
Even if you give "homeless" folks a golden opportunity, somehow, some way, they'll screw it up for themselves & others.
Let me give you an example going back to 1995:
The apartment complex across the way from me on the 6600 block of Sueno became abandoned due to some very odd circumstances (the property owner went nuts, used a firearm & wound up in SB Co Jail).
Well, the word was out that a "crash pad" was now available so they started filing in. As soon as they settled in the shenanigans began: Puking off the balcony, syringes showing up all over the place, broken bottles everywhere, piles of garbage, fights w/ each other & their neighbors, the smell of urine everywhere, the list goes on, you get the picture.
It was an ugly scene & on more than 1 occassion I had to resort to physical violence to protect myself & neighbors from these aggressive squatters who seemed to feel entitled as to what they were getting.
The cops couldn't do a damned thing about them because the property owner was not pressing tresspassing charges due to his mental state (schizophrenic/paranoid).
Eventually, the property owner died, the property went into probate & was auctioned off. By the way, this nightmare lasted 2 YEARS!
Fast forward to 1999-2000 or so when the I.V. "homeless" wanted to make an encampment on the Estero park property on the 6700 block of Sueno.
All this because it was discovered that the "no camping" ordinance didn't extend to I.V.
I wrote an article in the Daily Nexus saying how this was not a good idea, as it would become overcrowded, a filthy mess, drug & alcohol use would skyrocket, fights would begin & eventually a stabbing or 2 would occur.
For this warning I was labeled a racist, anti-homeless, a rich snob, anything negative you can think of.
So the camping began, followed by the smell of urine all over the place as well as little mounds of fecal matter, then the drunken/drugged out shenanigans, then the fights & eventually ended up w/ 2 stabbings.
I hate to be right about all the wrong things, but that's 1 time I was more than happy to be 100% correct!
In all, the homeless ain't going away anytime soon, but there needs to be understanding & actions on the issues of mental problems & substance abuse.
That leaves 1 group out of the equation: The "I forgot to stop partying" or the I don't want to support the system" or the "who needs to work?" crowd.
These are the crowd that take away from those who TRULY need the help & resources that are already hard to come by.
There always going to be there, making it a morally tough decision for those who care to make. But hey, it is my moral decision to not support them, that's my personal stance. They're obviously well versed in getting what they want, it just ain't going to be from me :) henry
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hank (anonymous profile)
June 11, 2009 at 11:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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