After reading the February 7 article entitled, “Homeless Day Center to Open in Downtown Santa Barbara,” I wanted to first congratulate Barbara Andersen on her dogged fight to bring a day center to downtown Santa Barbara. Her perseverance will undoubtedly directly benefit hundreds of Santa Barbara residents. I, however, found the sentiment expressed in the last paragraph of the article troubling.
Anderson is quoted as saying, “ … there will be fewer La-Z-Boys … It’s going to be really housing focused. We accept people where they’re at, but we may give them a little nudge.” Within this statement there seems to be two ideas implied: first that making the experience of homelessness too comfortable will disincentivize individuals from moving to housing and second that the barrier to entering housing is personal will — in need of only a “nudge.” I would argue that both these ideas are, at best, objectively false.
Homelessness is a traumatic event, one that repeats every day for many in our community. The statistics on the effect of homelessness on physical and mental health, exposure to violence — especially sexual violence — and vast shortening of life expectancy, show homelessness to be a devastating experience. Providing those experiencing homelessness a bit of respite, even in a recliner, is not going outweigh these horrors. Imagining so is absurd.
Similarly, framing homelessness as a problem of reticent individuals in need of a prod ignores a large body of research on the root cause of homelessness. Simply put, homelessness is a housing problem. Study after study has shown that the key factor which drives homelessness in a community is not the presence of generous social services, prevalence of mental-health issues, rates of addiction, or even good weather, but rather lack of affordable housing. It should be no surprise that rates of homelessness have skyrocketed directly in concert with increased costs of housing.
Even if nudging were all we had to do, to where would we nudge? There are simply not hundreds of affordable units sitting around. Santa Barbara has crushingly high housing costs paired with exceptionally low vacancy rates. Subsidized housing waitlists run into the years. This is the perfect storm to drive hundreds into homelessness. Until we can provide enough homes at an affordable level, we will continue to see our friends and neighbors forced onto the streets.
To realistically provide the housing our community needs will take dedication, commitment, and coordination of politicians, policy makers, public officials, nonprofits, faith communities, developers, lenders, social workers, case managers, and local citizens. Luckily, we are a community that has just such dedicated individuals, and there are several amazing endeavors in progress. While all this happens though, I for one, will not begrudge my neighbors a comfortable chair.