[Noozhawk’s note: First in a series sponsored by the Hutton Parker Foundation.]
It started simply in 2005, with two pastors showing up weekly at Santa Barbara’s Pershing Park with bowls of spaghetti to feed the homeless.
And for five years, the meal train continued, delivered by Jeff Shaffer and Rich Sander, who had met in the ministry and shared a desire to help those in need.
Gradually, over shared pasta and a period of five years, the men developed a trust with the homeless community and identified significant needs beyond a hot meal.
People on the streets needed help navigating the system and accessing resources, so Shaffer and Sander dabbled in case management. They wanted to do more than provide a one-off approach.
They wanted to challenge the status quo and change systems.
“It’s great to offer relief services to people on the street,” said Sander, executive director of the Santa Barbara Alliance for Community Transformation, or SB ACT.
“But what would it look like to radically change Santa Barbara so that people don’t have to live on the streets at all?”
That’s when the pair read an article on the collective impact model developed by Stanford University, and realized they were already working toward that approach in a less structured way.
Collective impact is a framework for bringing different sectors together with a common agenda for solving a specific social problem. Thanks to SB ACT, it’s a formula that’s now been playing out in Santa Barbara for the past 12 years.
The fundamental concept is that large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination. The coordination is key and that’s where SB ACT shines.
SB ACT serves as the backbone organization, integrating nonprofit organizations, government agencies, local businesses, private donors and foundations, keeping everyone on track to address and advance issues around homelessness.
“With our backgrounds in ministries, we saw that we could act as the peacekeepers and build relationships between different entities,” Sander told Noozhawk.
While collaboration among Santa Barbara nonprofit organizations is nothing new, collective impact initiatives are distinctly different.
According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review website, “collective impact initiatives involve a centralized infrastructure, a dedicated staff, and a structured process that leads to a common agenda, shared measurement, continuous communication, and mutually reinforcing activities among all participants.”
“There are a lot of outstanding nonprofits doing amazing work, but most are working in silos, not talking to each other and not solving the main issue,” Sander explained.
In 2019, the Santa Barbara Foundation requested that SB ACT create a map of homeless services throughout Santa Barbara.
That mapping eventually led to a three-year strategic plan and collaborative partnership between the foundation and the City of Santa Barbara, each pledging $100,000 to combat homelessness.
“Our organization blew up after that,” Sander noted.
SB ACT helped to increase the number of affordable housing units, strengthened partnerships and expanded efforts at neighborhood navigation centers — one-stop shops offering services for those experiencing homelessness.
The services provided include case management, food distribution, health care, hygiene and showers, mental health support, pet care and more.
“Our direct service providers are doing great work,” said Landon Ranck, operations manager at SB ACT. “And yet, if you provide food to the homeless then that likely consumes your focus, and you’re not thinking about how to solve the bigger issue.
“SB ACT has the time and capacity, working as a neutral party, to focus on homelessness as a whole, taking a 30,000-foot view.”
The big picture clearly shows that the homeless need more than a warm meal. Partner agencies offering services at Alameda Park, the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission and the commuter parking lot at Castillo and West Carrillo streets downtown include Doctors Without Walls, Showers of Blessing, Pacific Pride Foundation on-site HIV testing, C.A.R.E.4PAWS, as well as case management and behavioral wellness specialists.
Many faith communities sponsor weekly meals at each location.
“We reach about 150 different people each week,” said Ranck, adding that it represents about half of all those facing homelessness in Santa Barbara County.
“In sheer numbers countywide, our homeless population has remained fairly consistent over the past five years,” Sander said. “It’s just that the homeless became more visible due to externalities caused by the COVID pandemic.”
Restaurants and parks closed, leaving people on the street with nowhere to find food, use the restroom or panhandle. Encampments increased as did visibility.
“We are successful in the fact that our numbers didn’t increase as they did across much of the nation,” Sander said. “Yet of course we are working toward having those numbers trend down and the major challenge is the need for more housing.”
Ranck pointed to larger forces at work, as well.
“It’s important to note that over the last 40 years we’ve also seen the closure of state-funded mental institutions, leaving many with no place to go, particularly in Santa Barbara with a lack of affordable housing,” he said.
But that is all starting to change, thanks to the coordinated efforts of SB ACT. The organization was instrumental in identifying candidates for housing at DignityMoves, and has contributed to the increase of outreach and case management staff by more than 25% over the past four years, which means there are more individuals helping move people toward housing.
SB ACT helped facilitate 99 street exits in 2021, and significantly increased the rate of housing retentions.
“There’s a lot more collaboration happening because of SB ACT,” Ranck said. “It’s not as tangible but, ultimately, it’s what makes the difference.”
It’s also not sexy from a fundraising standpoint — it’s challenging to raise funds for coordination.
With contributions from the Santa Barbara Foundation, the Hutton Parker Foundation, the Natalie Orfalea Foundation, the Ann Jackson Family Foundation, Grace Housing Inc., the City of Santa Barbara and others, SB ACT is able to operate as a neutral facilitator, not beholden to any one entity.
Since SB ACT does not provide direct service, it also doesn’t compete with service providers for funding. The organization remains lean and nimble, with just four employees all working from home (Shaffer recently left for Long Beach-based Kingdom Causes Inc.).
This structure allows the organization to respond quickly to needs and holds an “anything it takes” fund that is used for just that — fixing a car, buying a bus ticket to reunite with family and whatever is needed to get people off the streets.
Yet, what it truly takes is the hands of many, working together.
“I think a lot of people see homelessness and want to boil it down to a single issue,” Sander said. “But homelessness was not created by any one issue and it will not be solved by any one agency.”
Click here for more information about SB ACT, or click here to make an online donation.