As someone who has personally experienced homelessness, worked on the front lines as a homeless outreach worker, and now serves on Santa Barbara County’s Continuum of Care Program, I have seen the complicated realities of homelessness up close.
The county’s proposed changes to its encampment policy — removing the requirement for available shelter beds before clearing encampments and reducing the notice period from 72 to 48 hours — may seem like reasonable, even efficient, responses to a growing crisis.
However, these changes would ultimately be devastating, both for the unhoused and for the community at large.
Encampments are not the cause of homelessness; they are a symptom of a much larger issue: the lack of affordable and permanent housing.
Sweeping encampments without offering people a safe and dignified place to go is not only ineffective, it is morally wrong.
The existing requirement to have available shelter beds before clearing encampments, while far from perfect, at least acknowledges that people have basic rights to shelter.
The proposed changes prioritize efficiency and aesthetics over compassion and justice.
I remember vividly what it felt like to be homeless. The uncertainty, the fear of losing the few belongings I had, the daily struggle just to survive.
A 72-hour notice to pack up everything you own is already an overwhelming burden; reducing it to 48 hours only adds cruelty to an already harsh reality.
The City of Santa Barbara has approximately 1,000 unhoused individuals but far fewer than 400 emergency shelter beds.
When I’ve asked city officials or law enforcement officers where they expect people to go after an encampment is cleared, the answer is often silence. There is no real plan for these individuals.
The proposed policy changes do nothing to resolve this. Instead, they force people deeper into crisis, pushing them out of sight but not offering any real solutions.
Proponents of these changes argue that sweeps improve public safety. But the data simply do not support this claim.
In cities like Los Angeles and San Diego, where encampment sweeps have been aggressively implemented, homelessness has not decreased.
In fact, 80% of cleared encampments are repopulated within weeks. Why? Because these sweeps don’t address the underlying issue: the lack of housing.
A report published in the Journal of American Medical Association confirms that forcibly relocating unhoused individuals worsens health outcomes, particularly for those struggling with addiction or mental health challenges.
The constant upheaval causes immense trauma and instability, often driving people further into despair and isolation.
During my years as a homeless outreach worker, I saw the damage these policies inflict. People lost vital documents, medications and personal possessions — sometimes the last remnants of stability they had.
I remember one man who lived in an RV. When his vehicle was towed, he didn’t just lose his shelter, he lost his sense of safety and hope.
These experiences are not isolated. If the proposed changes are implemented, faster sweeps and fewer requirements for bed availability will only intensify the suffering of people who are already among the most vulnerable in our society.
Rather than focusing on getting people off the streets, we should be expanding safe parking programs and increasing the number of shelter beds.
I understand the need for flexibility during emergencies like wildfires or floods. However, that should be the exception, not the rule. Flexibility cannot come at the expense of people’s well-being.
In reality, these policy changes will make it easier for local jurisdictions to remove unhoused people from public view without addressing the deeper issues at play.
It’s a short-term fix that will only perpetuate a cycle of displacement and suffering.
The League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara raised this issue in a recent letter to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.
They highlighted how these changes violate best practices for addressing homelessness, as outlined by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
The league also pointed out that the county’s failure to follow humane guidelines could jeopardize millions of dollars in state and federal funding.
Our community has made strides toward addressing homelessness with evidence-based, compassionate policies. We cannot afford to undermine that progress by reverting to punitive measures that have been proven ineffective elsewhere.
From a moral perspective, these proposed changes contradict the values we hold as a compassionate, inclusive community.
Working alongside faith-based organizations and social justice advocates, I have come to believe deeply in the principles of equity, dignity and care for the marginalized.
Almost every religious and ethical tradition teaches us to care for the least among us.
Criminalizing homelessness by making it easier to clear encampments, especially without providing alternative housing, is not just a failure of policy; it is a failure of our moral obligations.
Homelessness is not a crime. We cannot treat people as criminals simply because they have nowhere to go.
These proposed policies prioritize convenience and aesthetics over justice and humanity. What we need are policies that lift people up, not push them out of sight.
If we want to truly address homelessness, we must go beyond encampments and invest in permanent, supportive housing.
We need to provide safe, stable places for people to rebuild their lives, and we must listen to the voices of those directly impacted by these policies.
To the average Santa Barbara resident, these proposed changes might seem like a way to clean up our streets and improve safety.
But in truth, they will not make our community safer. They will only further marginalize the unhoused, strip them of their dignity, and ensure that homelessness remains a persistent issue.
Instead of pushing people out of sight, we should be focusing on solutions that truly address the root causes of homelessness.
Let’s reject these harmful policy changes and commit to building a future in which everyone in Santa Barbara has a place to call home.
