No Longer Homeless in Goleta

Happiness dances out of Michelle Sanchez’s room at Buena Tierra, as visitors cluster at her doorway on Thursday, hearing her story of how she came to this small apartment full of butterflies and hummingbirds and with her little dog, Kiko, at her side.

“I’ve been here since February,” Sanchez says, arriving by way of Isla Vista’s Hedges House of Hope and the DignityMoves tiny homes in downtown Santa Barbara. “I loved those tiny homes,” she said. “You got one little unit all to yourself.”

At Buena Tierra, the new permanent home for folks who were once homeless, Sanchez has found many of her old friends. They barbecue together; they walk their dogs; they play guitar in the sun. She gestures to her new apartment, talking about how her five brothers have come for a visit and she’ll be seeing her grandchild soon. “This is better than a tent,” she says, laughing.

Michelle Sanchez generously shared her new home, colorful with butterflies and hummingbirds, with visitors to Buena Tierra. | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

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The impresario who crowbarred Buena Tierra into life is John Polanskey, visible everywhere during Thursday’s ribbon-cutting event in a bright blue plaid shirt. He was in his element, ebulliently joking with everyone and anyone, thanking myriad agencies, elected officials, contractors, staff members, and individuals for their funding, support, and hard work — he name-checked maintenance workers, staffers, and then Evan Bowman, the site manager, who called out, “Get your rent checks in, everybody!” to laughter from the crowd.

The backdrop reading “The Only Cure for Homelessness is a Home” said it all.

What were once 68 rooms at the Super 8 motel at the corner of Fairview and Hollister in Goleta are now 60 homes for 60 people, with an office, laundry, and meeting rooms for on-site case workers, medical personnel, and other wellness visits. The site also holds a dozen units for patients newly released from Cottage Hospital. Land, motel, adding kitchenettes, and other costs totaled $23.6 million.

Buena Tierra has been full since the end of May, said Rachel Mallory, an on-site coordinator with the Good Samaritan homeless services nonprofit. There have been a few bumps, with some early tenants having to be evicted for breaking the rules, but they’d soon been housed again, she assured. The months have otherwise been peaceful among the tenants and their roughly one dozen fish, bunny, dogs, and cats — one cat arrived pregnant and four tenants now raise her offspring.

“And just because we like a challenge,” said Polanskey of his agency, the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara (HASBARCO), the motel property they acquired in 2022 sits in four jurisdictions: two county supervisor districts, and two cities — Goleta to the north and Santa Barbara to the south — requiring two sets of plan checks.

Polanskey also spoke gratefully of Yardi Systems, whose rental software HASBARCO uses across its various properties, and whose CEO, Anant Yardi, had lived at the motel in his early days. Yardi donated $30,000 to help cover the new residents’ beds and bedding, furniture, and kitchen supplies, then wrote another check when he learned the first hadn’t quite covered all 60 tenants. They range from veterans and seniors to young people just leaving the foster care system. Their next-door neighbor, Jiffy Lube, had offered to train anyone interested in learning a trade, Polanksey added.

Supervisor Joan Hartmann marveled at the persistence it took to try to buy the property twice; the funding was a collaboration of half a dozen agencies: “This is a testament to what we can all build together,” she said. “This is not just a home, but a nurturing environment where people can rebuild their lives with dignity,” Hartmann said.

Likening the effort to a barn-raising, Supervisor Laura Capps saw “the goodness of what is happening here,” praising the can-do spirit of the City of Goleta, which pitched in $600,000. Goleta Mayor Paula Perotte said she was really sold on the transformative project, especially after she saw all the wraparound services, and she warmly welcomed all the residents home again.

Bob Thomas lives on the third floor, which offers a view of the private jets at Santa Barbara Airport. He’d been entertaining the throng by shouting out future employment for those stepping onto the stage to speak. Capps, he thought, was destined for Senator. Thomas later said he was a mathematics and statistics tutor at UCSB but had been living at the Hedges House of Hope, which was an improvement over the Devereux Slough, where he’d battled the bugs before that.

Another resident, Johnny Watkins, bounced onto the stage, saying that when he first read about this housing, he recalled thinking, “Boy, I would really like to live there.” He described how he’d been living rough until a pastor helped him get into a vehicle. The best thing about Buena Tierra, said Watkins, were the on-site case workers, which meant he didn’t have to go across town for help. As well, “I can go places and get canned food or vegetables and take them home. It feels so good to eat a decent meal in my own place, you know?” he said, whooping, “I cooked some corned beef and cabbage. And got some cake!”

A more settled life has Watkins channeling his enthusiasm into working as a “lived experience ambassador” for homeless visitors to the newly opened FARO day center on Chapala Street, sponsored by SB-ACT (S.B. Alliance for Community Transformation).

“Someone had to be there for me. Now I’m able to return that for other people through SB-ACT,” he said. “It’s a beautiful feeling.”