SANTA BARBARA, Calif.-While the Santa Barbara City Council Meeting received an update on strategies and initiatives addressing homelessness, City Net’s Regional Program Supervisor Al Ortiz said his team was helping someone find a bed at the PATH interim housing program for the night.
PATH Regional Director Liz Adams said there are seven beds set aside for people experiencing homelessness each night and they are usually full.
There are also a handful of shelters that work together on any given night.
Adams told the county how they helped a domestic violence survivor with a child find temporary housing this week.
Santa Barbara’s Senior Assistant to the City Administrator Barbara Andersen said there are a variety of strategies supported by the city.
“The City of Santa Barbara is benefiting from years of prioritization from Mayor and council to address homelessness,” said Andersen,” We have been able to deploy a diversity of strategies, from on the street to interim housing, to permanent housing solutions all to try to address what we know is an ongoing affordable housing crisis. People are falling out of housing as much a they are entering into homelessness and seeking services and we are trying to strike that balance of how to we help as many people who are coming in as the people who are already experiencing homelessness.”