Much has been written in the past couple of months about disruptive and unlawful behavior at and around the FARO Center, Santa Barbara city’s “navigation center” on lower Chapala Street, opened last year to connect unhoused locals to services such as Medi-Cal, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, safe parking lots, and mental-health counseling. The center also serves lunch twice a week and hands out gently used clothing. And for a lucky few, about 10 percent of the clients actually find apartments in a housing market stacked against the poor.
Shortly after the center opened, neighboring businesses began complaining: Their front and back yards, and the street trees, were being used as bathrooms. Someone tried to break into Jodi House, a nonprofit just north of the center that serves brain-damaged adults. Another center patron spoiled her clothes and was kicked out; she then smeared excreta on the exterior walls of a clothing store two doors down. The Police Department was constantly being called over smoking, loud boombox sounds, yelling, fights, and loitering, not only in the unguarded parking lot when the center was closed, but up and down Chapala. In March, the building’s owner informed the city of a cease-and-desist letter from Jodi House, with a long litany of legal complaints against the city, with whom SBACT holds a contract to operate the FARO Center rent free. The landlord was threatening possible eviction.
As a newish trustee of SBACT, I experienced several troubling months of wrangling over who controls the FARO Center. Though the city foots the bill, SBACT folks operate with an unusual air of independence and an informal management style — factors that, ultimately, would compel me to resign from the board. Here’s my story:…