It used to be famlies and the church who took care if the less fortunate. Families are less cohesive today with many born out of wedlock into fractured situations leading to failed lives. 90% of the youth in the United States who decide to run away from home, or become homeless for any reason, originally come from a fatherless home. (U.S. Department of Justice). With both the nuclear family and the church under attack by the progressives, we are expected to turn to government for solutions. For just a little more of your money these problems can be solved by government. But all that is ever accomplished is that the government is bigger and the citizen is poorer. Private opportunities for those in need diminish as more and more resources are channeled to government. It is a slippery slope into socialism when we believe government can solve our problems and vote for politicians who propose grandiose government solutions. Big visions of government managed utopia come with huge price tags and universally lead to equality in poverty.
You forget the nobility who also took care of the peasanta in the days of old. Today's liberal, secular, humanist "aristocracy" has no regard for the poor and vunerable, but neither do many "conservatives" - it's someone elses problem, or believing falsely that the free market will magically save people from poverty...
You speak of the attack on the nuclear family (yet ignore the extended multigenerational one), but this is not merely a contemporary issue that just came about, it's the product of centuries of liberal thoughts (some of that liberalism you proudly embrace) that have always sought to undermine traditional strucures. Capitalism, industrialization, and urbanization atomized communities and destroyed the dignity of labor, economies previously centered on interdependence, local cohesion, and the welfare of families were gone. The sexual revolution though very much an attack on families was merely the culimination of liberal decay that triunphed over sexual morals and still affects us decades later. Leon Blum, Prime Minister of the 3rd French Republic during the interwar period spoke of men and women engaging in as many, uncommittted relationships as they pleased, and mind you this was in the very nation once called "The Eldest Daughter of the Church", liberalism is a sin and it infects everything it touches, the "Americanism" many conservatives champion is too a part of this problem....
Where there existed benevolent nobility undoubtedly they did benevolent deeds. Kudos to benevolent nobility. Theo of York has said that "Today's liberal, secular, humanist "aristocracy" has no regard for the poor and vunerable, but neither do many "conservatives"". I would reply that there is great regard by the progressives as a politically expedient means to gain election but to solve the problem would diminish the party. Conservatives would have the problem solved through increased opportunities via a stronger and less regulated/taxed private sector. This would strengthen the conservative party. The downtrodden overwhelmingly vote for the progressives promising a government solution.
Having participated in private sector capitalism I must disagree. Profit drives people to do their best and to realize their full potential. In my business profit is not made over people but by pleasing people. We had happy customers who benefited from our products and happily paid for them. Their lives and businesses were improved and we profited. We grew our business and employed many. The employees were part of our family and not exploited as some like to portray the employer employee relationship. Most of this anti capitalism misinformation is spoken by academics, vagabonds and malcontents who have never participated in capitalism.
It is also convenient you ignored this part of my criticism; Capitalism, industrialization, and urbanization atomized communities and destroyed the dignity of labor, economies previously centered on interdependence, local cohesion, and the welfare of families were gone.
Capitalism is a liberal innovation thay contributed to much of the cultural and moral decay we see today. Pornography, drugs, exploitation, etc are rampant, sins once deemed unnacceptable by society have been ingrained in media and mass produced. The poor and vunerable have remained poor and vunerable, and where previously they took pride in their labor and did not care for profit but self sufficiency, they now struggle to live off of meager wages earned in the jobs of today. There is no respect for labor, or the human worker, craftsmanship was replaced by mass production of items thay destroyed local and family owned businesses, people moved away from their homes in tight knit rural and agrarian communities to work in unhealthy and undignified work...
Wage slaves like myself do not benefit from capitalism. It benefits you, because you have wealth, and of course, consumers with money to spend are "happy" with your products but consumer "happiness" translates to nothing for the poor and vulnerable. Profit drives people to do as they please, Hugh Hefner is a prime example, an unscrupulous man who made profit throigh exploitation, dehumanization, and a complete lack of regard for morals. So what if you claim not to exploit others, this doesn't translate into fairness for everyone else.
" Most of this anti capitalism misinformation is spoken by academics, vagabonds and malcontents who have never participated in capitalism."
I am not spreading misinifromation nor do I fit into those grouos you mentioned, though I was once a basic conservative and MAGA hat wearing Trump supporter who previously defended capitalism, as a Catholic monarchist I can see past that and realize that capitlaism and free market style policies are not Christian, traditional, or moral.
When I was in my 20's I had nothing but ambition. I never had your feeling of being a wage slave. I never felt exploited even when working for $1.70/hr at Arbys roast beef is delicious restaurant. I got there at 5:00 AM alone and cleaned the restaurant and bathrooms and set up all of the machines, threw some roasts into the oven and made a batch of horsey sauce. After setup I ran the slicer for the lunch rush. I was in high school and did that for a summer. With the money I bought myself a used 1966 Gibson ES 335 and she was a beauty. My first instrument of quality. I still play every day but I digress. I learned much about work ethic and learned how to rig the time stamp so if I was a bit late it always read 5:00. I feel sorry to hear a young man with his life ahead of him talking such trash as claiming to be a wage slave. If I was your father I would give you a whipping so you could have something real to complain about.
Thank you once again, Bonnie. Your ability to zero in on what's really critical should be taught to our local government who mostly seem incapable of thinking at all - except where their careers are concerned.
Yes, absolutely - locals should come before out of towners for housing. That this even needs to be stated shows how removed from the basics of elected representation too much of our Santa Barbara government is.
Why these politicians keep getting elected by the people they seem least to care about is something I have despairingly wondered since we moved back here. Thank you for addressing it. “This desperate, needy, yearning for a sense of belonging among the public, now that religion has faded, drives the populace to always having to vote for the least-worse option, based on the tenets of false political loyalties.”
Yesterday in comments on Jim Buckley's column, the question of why so many Democrat Party members seem unhinged came up. Your answer above is a profound one about religion. I think you are right about political parties having taken the place of organized religion. However, organized religion may have given people a sense of belonging but that has not always lead to peace or cohabitation or looking out for one's community anymore than belonging to political parties has. We are living right now under a horrific and terrifying example of this: Jews and Muslims.
I think the sense of belonging that promotes the healthiest communities is what Jane Jacobs wrote about in The Death and Life of Great American Cities: knowing who your neighbors are. What she calls “eyes on the street” - where neighbors look out for each other and watch for intruders who might mean harm. This is what is being eradicated from our lives here by our government. They are doing it in every conceivable way from State Street to Old Town Goleta to the STRs and breaking up of neighborhoods, to us not even knowing the homeless the way we did in Santa Barbara when I grew up. Or when I lived in NYC, where my Greenwich Village neighborhood was traveled through daily by thousands of people, but we still knew the homeless by name.
This sense of belonging to our communities and caring about our neighbors is something we can take back and should.
A sense of belonging to anything is corrupted from a young age by single parent families without faith. To have a sense of community requires first a sense of belonging to a family and a faith. Without this foundation, communities and further, all of civil society crumbles.
With all due respect, Jeff, Israel and Iran are not places of single parent families and God knows they have faith. I do not see organized religion playing the cohesive role the way you do. Not in all the years we've been on Earth.
You are right, much strife has arisen between religions. I was thinking within America with a single predominant religion and culture. Isn't the goal of unchecked immigration without assimilation to destroy our culture and pave the path to fundamentally transform America? I still believe that the intact family of faith is the building block of a stable society. That may never be achieved again. I am afraid that strife and division will be forever in our future.
My mom grew up in a single parent family during the Great Depression. Her dad died of TB from WWI when she was 4, her mom had to go to work to support them. Her Granny moved in and took care of her while her mom abandoned her several times, once for five months while she ran off to California with a man. It haunted my mom her whole life. And I think it's why she had such a strong bond with the Democratic Party. She was a very sane, much loved and admired woman, not a loony. A very kind person whose egalitarianism was much more real than her political party's. I attribute that to her Granny.
Nearly all my beloved childhood books were about plucky orphans. Becoming independent and resourceful, even as a child while facing down bullies and peers was the order of the day. There were no messages of victimhood in my entire young landscape. Just the opposite.
Yes, you're right about the Left. Destroying the family means that the state becomes the family. I think the underlying emotion they prey on is abandonment. They undermined the two parent family which created a fear of abandonment in children raised in single family homes where one parent left and showed no interest in them. So it's this collective overwhelming fear of abandonment which the Left manipulates. In my experience abandoned children are more likely to grow up into cult members. Whenever I encounter a loony Democrat who defends their party no matter what I usually find a fear of abandonment.
Jeff I agree with you here. But there is really no going back. If you want to contibute you need to offer solutions that will work in todays society with declining number of kids being born into a married family and the complete collapse of religion throughout the modern world. Without modern solutions you are just the old white guy in his boxers telling the kids to get off his lawn.
Religion did not collapse. The spiritual remains an integral part of the human experience. May it find new expressions and a new home in our family of man.
You know nothing of my age, skin color or preference in underwear. That you reveal yourself to mentally picture me in my skivies frankly gives me the creeps. Freedom and individual liberty requires a civil society and a virtuous populous. I used to believe that this was possible without faith but now I realize that faith and intact families are requisite. Otherwise the aspirations of the government to quash our freedoms is inevitable. And this is my opinion.
See above, it's an eye-opener. A documenter has traveled with the immigrants and there's money involved for many people "handlers" of the immigrants ... now I understand why the Biden Administration wants immigration! I remember Biden stating, "I don't see a problem!" It's to make money, of course. Always follow the money trail. Look up the term "NGO" on Wikipedia, too.
Want to know where the money goes for various programs that can't account for where the money went, then follow the money and you'll find some DEM pockets full of $$$.
The Government, the NGOs, the Catholic Church, they are ALL in on it! And those facilities filled with "unaccompanied minors" being delivered to who knows what horrors? How can this be going on ???????
Ya, you know the FBI is not looking into this because it IS a huge horror of events going on by so-called law-abiding entities profiting off of illegals. I presume the Feds are supplying money to the NGOs to perform services in which politicians receive a kickback; especially all the politicians that are pro-immigrant. It's REALLY DISGUSTING those that are pro-immigrants-for-profit could care less of the murders and rapes by these known criminal immigrants.
Excellent point about prioritizing locals who have become homeless. This should also apply to the low cost, or affordable units in fancy new developments. I’ve heard about out of towners bagging those.
Those units also get gamed by those working inside our own local government agencies too. We really need and in depth audit of what we already are providing, before adding even more with no end point in sight.
Remember every year UCSB tosses out approx 5000 new graduates who may have decided they really like living here, but have no skill sets to afford this area’s housing challenges. Are they also “locals in need” of “affordable housing”?
Underscoring how very little we know about this alleged “crisis”.
Hope you folks are sitting down, but the acting Director of ICE letter to Congress was just released indicating there are over 13,000 CONVICTED murderers roaming our streets which entered our country illegally. Add in another 15,000 CONVICTED of sexual assault which ICE has no idea where they are located.
This dereliction of duty by the Biden/Harris administration is no less than a high crime which are grounds for impeachment! Harris is directly responsible for unleashing these criminals on our society, all in an attempt to flood the zone with new Democrats…how treasonous!
I would like to know what our Representative, Salud Carbajal’s reaction is to this massive breach of national security.
Thank you, Bonnie, once again for keeping folks like me who do not make it to the meetings updated and informed. The situations that you have described are outrageous and I would like to think that the November election will be some kind of good turning point. I received a sample ballot yesterday and noticed Salud's opening statement under his qualifications for the job and his mention that his father was a farm worker. After reading it all I could think of was "and so what?" Is that a qualification to constitute being elected.? Fingers crossed for Thomas Cole!
Remember in 1982 when the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh sent a bus down from Oregon and loaded up all our winos and bums and took them North to their commune Rajneeshpuram? Promised them milk and honey! When they got there they found out they were expected to grow the vegetables and build houses and oh Hell no they all came back.
SB finally admits our homeless population is not all locals. Caught in another lie.
But bigger issue is that we have a housing emergency, according to them despite our population not growing in the last twenty years per the Census.
SB is admitting to using local resources like affordable housing to house non residents. Kind of like the illegal aliens being housed over American Citizens.
Meaning SB does not care about its poor residents, its locals.
SB is millions in debt and they admit they’ve been supporting non resident homeless and illegal aliens. The City alone stated they spend over $750,000/year just on first responders servicing drug overdosed homeless. A SB Grand Jury stated the City spends over $10 million/year on homeless. The County spends $20 million/year.
Very gracious of SB to spend millions on non residents and refusing to help locals at the expense of tax payers and putting us into debt. And they have never ever reduced the homeless population by any significant amount.
The City and County governments simply have to narrow their focus to maintaining the city ... potholes, policing, etc. Let the State and Federal governments fund the homeless. If you feed the birds (homeless) they will stick around, but if you stop feeding the birds (homeless), then they will move on. Got how that works, City Dumb Dumbs! And then maybe you can get back to trimming the palm trees, too.
Aristotle Quote: "It is also a habit of timing to prefer the company of aliens than that of citizens at a table in a society. Citizens they (politicians) feel are enemies, but aliens will offer no opposition."
Aristotle states what is happening today ... the flooding the country with aliens. Patriotic citizens are too disagreeable therefore bring in the aliens to displace you. We are being punished and hopefully eliminated by the bureaucrats.
You have to ask yourself, "Why are different layers of government doing the exact same thing? Is it because it's a proven source of personal financial gain? Stir the pot of money and it simply overflows into other hands.
When doing a search on money laundering with regards to charities, I got the following result: "It’s a shocking but a truth that money launderers are increasingly using charitable organizations to clean their dirty money. By leveraging the perceived integrity and often complex financial activities of these entities, they manage to mask illicit funds and turn something noble into a tool for criminal activities." So much for the NGO organizations taking care of the immigrants!
Now they want to kick out the non-resident homeless? They, Democrats, said all the homeless are SB residents. So now they’re caught in that lie.
Democrats made it illegal to move homeless off the streets and to send homeless back to their hometowns. Thank you ACLU. But in true Democrat form I’m sure the ACLU will support the removal of homeless despite their previous position.
Idiocracy.
SB government expects you and me to take care of homeless, they are NIMBYs. The City and county have public parking lots that sit empty all night. They remove homeless from the parking garages. But they expect landowners to open up private parking lots to homeless.
Our government does not care about homeless.
Since the 1980s there have been numerous, expensive, reports as to why people are homeless with proposed “solutions. Each time it is called the “first ever” collaboration of its kind. Lies.
Now Newsom wants homeless cleaned and is pressuring cities to hide the homeless. So now SB cares? They don’t care, they’re doing what they’re told to do.
Newsom has not proposed any solutions either.
Funny how our millions in research and the missing $24 billion and still zero solutions proposed.
Three mayors ago, Democrats promised us the 10 year plan to end homelessness right along with the threat we would be inundated under water up to the infamous Blue Line. Elections have consequences.
Once Trump eliminates the Central Bank and utilizes a new currency, Cryptocurrency, there will no longer be this corruption with missing or misplaced or embezzled money which will then be a thing of the past.
When my husband was applying for social security in the ‘90s the fellow next to him said he was relocating from Santa Monica because he was told Santa Barbara was more “user friendly”.
Artisan Court at it’s opening’s featured speaker was a guitar playing alcoholic who had only two weeks prior had gotten off the bus from Texas. Also highlighted was an Ace Hardware employee who wasn’t making enough money to pay for an apartment. Guess what that means we’re subsidizing a hardware store!
Also there’s no requirement for sobriety, attending skill training or any other kind of program.
A life left in free fall. That’s not helpful for the person or society.
Time to bring back vagrancy laws. Sleep on the street or relieve yourself in public, you should go to jail. Give the homeless a choice between rehabilitation camps or jail. I realize nothing can be done about this problem unless the courts allow it.
The homeless are being allowed to destroy our communities and those on the left are enabling this as it has become a cottage industry to the tune of $24 billion in California alone. The ability for the state to forcibly commit the mentally ill living on the street is key to solving this issue.
Huge amounts must now be spent clearing brush along all our highways to expose and prevent new encampments. Our public libraries a became unusable for the general public, especially for children.
Public parks for general use are often too unsavory due to vagrants and their paper covered bottle libations. State Street in any iteration will never survive the return of vagrant take-overs as well. Nor gangs using this dividing line street for their own turf wars.
The list of auxiliary vagrant impacts on our public spaces far exceeds even the demands now for automatic tax payer funded shelter.
People move all the time, often to be closer to family or to more afforable retirement area. Prior city residency should not be a priority requirement. A consideration, but not an automatic priority.
I disagree, but thats OK. Its a worthwhile discussion to have.
My contention is that the long time residents of any area based community (city/town/country) are who know it best. They have built it and define the look and feel of the area... aka: "the vibe of the thing"
They have watched transients come and go. They want their children and their grandchildren to be able to live near them in what they have built.
Also, long-time residents tend to be older, vocal, and make up a disproportionate percentage of the vote in any area. So the long time residents = majority voters = priority for elected officials.
As for how to best help the homeless. Believe it or not, It may start with semantics and language. It's time to try something different than what has been done for generations. These people are indeed "home"-less; A "home" implies a family of people that have your back and that you have theirs. Family cares about you and makes demands on you and your behavior, and expects the same in return. A "home" is a place where you belong and contribute.
A "house" is just a place, a building, a roof over your head, but it is not a "home"
A "house" does not address the soul of a person.
A "home" is the solution to "house"-lessness.
The state, and well meaning citizens of any area, including our own, can build houses and throw money and appoint "czars" and perform acts of charity and kindness; BUT they can not provide "homes". That is not nor has ever been the purview of the state. That is the purview of religion and religious based outreach programs. It doesn't matter what religion it is, but that is the ultimate goal of any religion. To build and provide a home for the homeless. A family of people who have have each other's backs and are willing to do the hard thankless ugly monotonous work of getting to know the people who are down on their luck, attending to their needs as human beings. Not just write a check and build a shiny new facility that everyone can point to and say "see! we care!".
The late great comedian Sam Kinison once did a skit that like all great comedy, was based in truth. At the time, the issue being discussed was another timeless issue, world hunger. The gist of Kinison's view on the problem was "Do you really want to end world hunger? Then stop sending food! Send people U-Hauls so they can move to where the food is!"
You want to help the homeless? Stop giving them houses! We need to give them "homes".
Thanks! I will submit it after a few tweaks to expand on the idea.
Just commenting on others and then retreating back into my own life has been my speed for a while now. Time for a change.
I am trying to put my money where my mouth is by running for Goleta City Council, District#4 this year. :)
Commenting on what others have put out there has been cathartic for me but at some time, I can't just criticize those in power for doing what they feel is best for the community we live in. I have to put myself out there myself and try. Whatever the faults of whoever is in charge right now making decisions, I can not fault them for trying to make the world a better place. I just disagree with the paths they choose sometimes.
Its a corny phrase that dates me to my favorite decade, the 1970's, but I think it applies:
The Homeless Enabling Industry is growing here. These people are incentivized to make the homeless problem bigger not smaller. They have made a career out of the homeless buzzword. If they really solved the problem they would be out of a job. Every incentive and paycheck they get is because they are rewarded only when the problem gets worse. They are attracting vagrants here as we all can see. It’s called ‘job security’.
There now is a demand for five government hires for each “housed” street person in order to provide 24 hour monitoring care. Housing first as a replacement for prior state institutional care, benefits exactly whom?
Excellent article. If you build it they will come!!
As for Salud, I will always remember his true feelings about people who do not fit his elite ideals, 'Lompoc, the ARMPIT of Santa Barbara County!!!
Salud fits the mold of the iconic LIBERAL DEMOCRAT NARCISSISTIC ELITIST.
It used to be famlies and the church who took care if the less fortunate. Families are less cohesive today with many born out of wedlock into fractured situations leading to failed lives. 90% of the youth in the United States who decide to run away from home, or become homeless for any reason, originally come from a fatherless home. (U.S. Department of Justice). With both the nuclear family and the church under attack by the progressives, we are expected to turn to government for solutions. For just a little more of your money these problems can be solved by government. But all that is ever accomplished is that the government is bigger and the citizen is poorer. Private opportunities for those in need diminish as more and more resources are channeled to government. It is a slippery slope into socialism when we believe government can solve our problems and vote for politicians who propose grandiose government solutions. Big visions of government managed utopia come with huge price tags and universally lead to equality in poverty.
You forget the nobility who also took care of the peasanta in the days of old. Today's liberal, secular, humanist "aristocracy" has no regard for the poor and vunerable, but neither do many "conservatives" - it's someone elses problem, or believing falsely that the free market will magically save people from poverty...
You speak of the attack on the nuclear family (yet ignore the extended multigenerational one), but this is not merely a contemporary issue that just came about, it's the product of centuries of liberal thoughts (some of that liberalism you proudly embrace) that have always sought to undermine traditional strucures. Capitalism, industrialization, and urbanization atomized communities and destroyed the dignity of labor, economies previously centered on interdependence, local cohesion, and the welfare of families were gone. The sexual revolution though very much an attack on families was merely the culimination of liberal decay that triunphed over sexual morals and still affects us decades later. Leon Blum, Prime Minister of the 3rd French Republic during the interwar period spoke of men and women engaging in as many, uncommittted relationships as they pleased, and mind you this was in the very nation once called "The Eldest Daughter of the Church", liberalism is a sin and it infects everything it touches, the "Americanism" many conservatives champion is too a part of this problem....
Where there existed benevolent nobility undoubtedly they did benevolent deeds. Kudos to benevolent nobility. Theo of York has said that "Today's liberal, secular, humanist "aristocracy" has no regard for the poor and vunerable, but neither do many "conservatives"". I would reply that there is great regard by the progressives as a politically expedient means to gain election but to solve the problem would diminish the party. Conservatives would have the problem solved through increased opportunities via a stronger and less regulated/taxed private sector. This would strengthen the conservative party. The downtrodden overwhelmingly vote for the progressives promising a government solution.
-Chauncey Gardner
The private sector has done nothing nor will it do nothing. Profit over people is the prime ideal of capitalism and free markets.
Having participated in private sector capitalism I must disagree. Profit drives people to do their best and to realize their full potential. In my business profit is not made over people but by pleasing people. We had happy customers who benefited from our products and happily paid for them. Their lives and businesses were improved and we profited. We grew our business and employed many. The employees were part of our family and not exploited as some like to portray the employer employee relationship. Most of this anti capitalism misinformation is spoken by academics, vagabonds and malcontents who have never participated in capitalism.
It is also convenient you ignored this part of my criticism; Capitalism, industrialization, and urbanization atomized communities and destroyed the dignity of labor, economies previously centered on interdependence, local cohesion, and the welfare of families were gone.
Capitalism is a liberal innovation thay contributed to much of the cultural and moral decay we see today. Pornography, drugs, exploitation, etc are rampant, sins once deemed unnacceptable by society have been ingrained in media and mass produced. The poor and vunerable have remained poor and vunerable, and where previously they took pride in their labor and did not care for profit but self sufficiency, they now struggle to live off of meager wages earned in the jobs of today. There is no respect for labor, or the human worker, craftsmanship was replaced by mass production of items thay destroyed local and family owned businesses, people moved away from their homes in tight knit rural and agrarian communities to work in unhealthy and undignified work...
Wage slaves like myself do not benefit from capitalism. It benefits you, because you have wealth, and of course, consumers with money to spend are "happy" with your products but consumer "happiness" translates to nothing for the poor and vulnerable. Profit drives people to do as they please, Hugh Hefner is a prime example, an unscrupulous man who made profit throigh exploitation, dehumanization, and a complete lack of regard for morals. So what if you claim not to exploit others, this doesn't translate into fairness for everyone else.
" Most of this anti capitalism misinformation is spoken by academics, vagabonds and malcontents who have never participated in capitalism."
I am not spreading misinifromation nor do I fit into those grouos you mentioned, though I was once a basic conservative and MAGA hat wearing Trump supporter who previously defended capitalism, as a Catholic monarchist I can see past that and realize that capitlaism and free market style policies are not Christian, traditional, or moral.
When I was in my 20's I had nothing but ambition. I never had your feeling of being a wage slave. I never felt exploited even when working for $1.70/hr at Arbys roast beef is delicious restaurant. I got there at 5:00 AM alone and cleaned the restaurant and bathrooms and set up all of the machines, threw some roasts into the oven and made a batch of horsey sauce. After setup I ran the slicer for the lunch rush. I was in high school and did that for a summer. With the money I bought myself a used 1966 Gibson ES 335 and she was a beauty. My first instrument of quality. I still play every day but I digress. I learned much about work ethic and learned how to rig the time stamp so if I was a bit late it always read 5:00. I feel sorry to hear a young man with his life ahead of him talking such trash as claiming to be a wage slave. If I was your father I would give you a whipping so you could have something real to complain about.
Thank you once again, Bonnie. Your ability to zero in on what's really critical should be taught to our local government who mostly seem incapable of thinking at all - except where their careers are concerned.
Yes, absolutely - locals should come before out of towners for housing. That this even needs to be stated shows how removed from the basics of elected representation too much of our Santa Barbara government is.
Why these politicians keep getting elected by the people they seem least to care about is something I have despairingly wondered since we moved back here. Thank you for addressing it. “This desperate, needy, yearning for a sense of belonging among the public, now that religion has faded, drives the populace to always having to vote for the least-worse option, based on the tenets of false political loyalties.”
Yesterday in comments on Jim Buckley's column, the question of why so many Democrat Party members seem unhinged came up. Your answer above is a profound one about religion. I think you are right about political parties having taken the place of organized religion. However, organized religion may have given people a sense of belonging but that has not always lead to peace or cohabitation or looking out for one's community anymore than belonging to political parties has. We are living right now under a horrific and terrifying example of this: Jews and Muslims.
I think the sense of belonging that promotes the healthiest communities is what Jane Jacobs wrote about in The Death and Life of Great American Cities: knowing who your neighbors are. What she calls “eyes on the street” - where neighbors look out for each other and watch for intruders who might mean harm. This is what is being eradicated from our lives here by our government. They are doing it in every conceivable way from State Street to Old Town Goleta to the STRs and breaking up of neighborhoods, to us not even knowing the homeless the way we did in Santa Barbara when I grew up. Or when I lived in NYC, where my Greenwich Village neighborhood was traveled through daily by thousands of people, but we still knew the homeless by name.
This sense of belonging to our communities and caring about our neighbors is something we can take back and should.
A sense of belonging to anything is corrupted from a young age by single parent families without faith. To have a sense of community requires first a sense of belonging to a family and a faith. Without this foundation, communities and further, all of civil society crumbles.
With all due respect, Jeff, Israel and Iran are not places of single parent families and God knows they have faith. I do not see organized religion playing the cohesive role the way you do. Not in all the years we've been on Earth.
You are right, much strife has arisen between religions. I was thinking within America with a single predominant religion and culture. Isn't the goal of unchecked immigration without assimilation to destroy our culture and pave the path to fundamentally transform America? I still believe that the intact family of faith is the building block of a stable society. That may never be achieved again. I am afraid that strife and division will be forever in our future.
My mom grew up in a single parent family during the Great Depression. Her dad died of TB from WWI when she was 4, her mom had to go to work to support them. Her Granny moved in and took care of her while her mom abandoned her several times, once for five months while she ran off to California with a man. It haunted my mom her whole life. And I think it's why she had such a strong bond with the Democratic Party. She was a very sane, much loved and admired woman, not a loony. A very kind person whose egalitarianism was much more real than her political party's. I attribute that to her Granny.
Nearly all my beloved childhood books were about plucky orphans. Becoming independent and resourceful, even as a child while facing down bullies and peers was the order of the day. There were no messages of victimhood in my entire young landscape. Just the opposite.
Yes, you're right about the Left. Destroying the family means that the state becomes the family. I think the underlying emotion they prey on is abandonment. They undermined the two parent family which created a fear of abandonment in children raised in single family homes where one parent left and showed no interest in them. So it's this collective overwhelming fear of abandonment which the Left manipulates. In my experience abandoned children are more likely to grow up into cult members. Whenever I encounter a loony Democrat who defends their party no matter what I usually find a fear of abandonment.
The most vocal “cat ladies” of Nextdoor also ache for attachment.
Jeff I agree with you here. But there is really no going back. If you want to contibute you need to offer solutions that will work in todays society with declining number of kids being born into a married family and the complete collapse of religion throughout the modern world. Without modern solutions you are just the old white guy in his boxers telling the kids to get off his lawn.
Religion did not collapse. The spiritual remains an integral part of the human experience. May it find new expressions and a new home in our family of man.
Amen
You know nothing of my age, skin color or preference in underwear. That you reveal yourself to mentally picture me in my skivies frankly gives me the creeps. Freedom and individual liberty requires a civil society and a virtuous populous. I used to believe that this was possible without faith but now I realize that faith and intact families are requisite. Otherwise the aspirations of the government to quash our freedoms is inevitable. And this is my opinion.
What? You don't wear boxers on your lawn?
JT pictures Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.
I like Thomas John, we disagree a lot but he's a good guy.
I'm reminded of a comment I received from our Senator regarding support for Veterans.
Instead of answering me, he expounded on his pride in "fulfilling his mission and legacy".
Hey Bud, you work for US. Us as in your constituents as well as the United States 🇺🇸.
I appreciate this article, awaking from Apathy is a start.
"Hey Bud . ." Right on Annie! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzIGfXm_kMI
See above, it's an eye-opener. A documenter has traveled with the immigrants and there's money involved for many people "handlers" of the immigrants ... now I understand why the Biden Administration wants immigration! I remember Biden stating, "I don't see a problem!" It's to make money, of course. Always follow the money trail. Look up the term "NGO" on Wikipedia, too.
Want to know where the money goes for various programs that can't account for where the money went, then follow the money and you'll find some DEM pockets full of $$$.
Just start with the costs of SCOTUS mandated K-12 for all those here illegally, and follow that money.
The Government, the NGOs, the Catholic Church, they are ALL in on it! And those facilities filled with "unaccompanied minors" being delivered to who knows what horrors? How can this be going on ???????
Ya, you know the FBI is not looking into this because it IS a huge horror of events going on by so-called law-abiding entities profiting off of illegals. I presume the Feds are supplying money to the NGOs to perform services in which politicians receive a kickback; especially all the politicians that are pro-immigrant. It's REALLY DISGUSTING those that are pro-immigrants-for-profit could care less of the murders and rapes by these known criminal immigrants.
Excellent point about prioritizing locals who have become homeless. This should also apply to the low cost, or affordable units in fancy new developments. I’ve heard about out of towners bagging those.
Those units also get gamed by those working inside our own local government agencies too. We really need and in depth audit of what we already are providing, before adding even more with no end point in sight.
Remember every year UCSB tosses out approx 5000 new graduates who may have decided they really like living here, but have no skill sets to afford this area’s housing challenges. Are they also “locals in need” of “affordable housing”?
Underscoring how very little we know about this alleged “crisis”.
Hope you folks are sitting down, but the acting Director of ICE letter to Congress was just released indicating there are over 13,000 CONVICTED murderers roaming our streets which entered our country illegally. Add in another 15,000 CONVICTED of sexual assault which ICE has no idea where they are located.
This dereliction of duty by the Biden/Harris administration is no less than a high crime which are grounds for impeachment! Harris is directly responsible for unleashing these criminals on our society, all in an attempt to flood the zone with new Democrats…how treasonous!
I would like to know what our Representative, Salud Carbajal’s reaction is to this massive breach of national security.
Thank you, Bonnie, once again for keeping folks like me who do not make it to the meetings updated and informed. The situations that you have described are outrageous and I would like to think that the November election will be some kind of good turning point. I received a sample ballot yesterday and noticed Salud's opening statement under his qualifications for the job and his mention that his father was a farm worker. After reading it all I could think of was "and so what?" Is that a qualification to constitute being elected.? Fingers crossed for Thomas Cole!
With Democrats, biography trumps skills, competence and acountability.
Remember in 1982 when the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh sent a bus down from Oregon and loaded up all our winos and bums and took them North to their commune Rajneeshpuram? Promised them milk and honey! When they got there they found out they were expected to grow the vegetables and build houses and oh Hell no they all came back.
SB finally admits our homeless population is not all locals. Caught in another lie.
But bigger issue is that we have a housing emergency, according to them despite our population not growing in the last twenty years per the Census.
SB is admitting to using local resources like affordable housing to house non residents. Kind of like the illegal aliens being housed over American Citizens.
Meaning SB does not care about its poor residents, its locals.
SB is millions in debt and they admit they’ve been supporting non resident homeless and illegal aliens. The City alone stated they spend over $750,000/year just on first responders servicing drug overdosed homeless. A SB Grand Jury stated the City spends over $10 million/year on homeless. The County spends $20 million/year.
Very gracious of SB to spend millions on non residents and refusing to help locals at the expense of tax payers and putting us into debt. And they have never ever reduced the homeless population by any significant amount.
The City and County governments simply have to narrow their focus to maintaining the city ... potholes, policing, etc. Let the State and Federal governments fund the homeless. If you feed the birds (homeless) they will stick around, but if you stop feeding the birds (homeless), then they will move on. Got how that works, City Dumb Dumbs! And then maybe you can get back to trimming the palm trees, too.
Aristotle Quote: "It is also a habit of timing to prefer the company of aliens than that of citizens at a table in a society. Citizens they (politicians) feel are enemies, but aliens will offer no opposition."
Aristotle states what is happening today ... the flooding the country with aliens. Patriotic citizens are too disagreeable therefore bring in the aliens to displace you. We are being punished and hopefully eliminated by the bureaucrats.
City does need to get out of the housing business. It is well out of their scope of expertise. Enough already.
You have to ask yourself, "Why are different layers of government doing the exact same thing? Is it because it's a proven source of personal financial gain? Stir the pot of money and it simply overflows into other hands.
Unions gonna union. Sorry, I could not help myself.
When doing a search on money laundering with regards to charities, I got the following result: "It’s a shocking but a truth that money launderers are increasingly using charitable organizations to clean their dirty money. By leveraging the perceived integrity and often complex financial activities of these entities, they manage to mask illicit funds and turn something noble into a tool for criminal activities." So much for the NGO organizations taking care of the immigrants!
What a joke!
Now they want to kick out the non-resident homeless? They, Democrats, said all the homeless are SB residents. So now they’re caught in that lie.
Democrats made it illegal to move homeless off the streets and to send homeless back to their hometowns. Thank you ACLU. But in true Democrat form I’m sure the ACLU will support the removal of homeless despite their previous position.
Idiocracy.
SB government expects you and me to take care of homeless, they are NIMBYs. The City and county have public parking lots that sit empty all night. They remove homeless from the parking garages. But they expect landowners to open up private parking lots to homeless.
Our government does not care about homeless.
Since the 1980s there have been numerous, expensive, reports as to why people are homeless with proposed “solutions. Each time it is called the “first ever” collaboration of its kind. Lies.
Now Newsom wants homeless cleaned and is pressuring cities to hide the homeless. So now SB cares? They don’t care, they’re doing what they’re told to do.
Newsom has not proposed any solutions either.
Funny how our millions in research and the missing $24 billion and still zero solutions proposed.
Three mayors ago, Democrats promised us the 10 year plan to end homelessness right along with the threat we would be inundated under water up to the infamous Blue Line. Elections have consequences.
Once Trump eliminates the Central Bank and utilizes a new currency, Cryptocurrency, there will no longer be this corruption with missing or misplaced or embezzled money which will then be a thing of the past.
Until the first power outage and major systems hack. Poof! Where is the energy source coming from for both crypto and AI?
When my husband was applying for social security in the ‘90s the fellow next to him said he was relocating from Santa Monica because he was told Santa Barbara was more “user friendly”.
Artisan Court at it’s opening’s featured speaker was a guitar playing alcoholic who had only two weeks prior had gotten off the bus from Texas. Also highlighted was an Ace Hardware employee who wasn’t making enough money to pay for an apartment. Guess what that means we’re subsidizing a hardware store!
Also there’s no requirement for sobriety, attending skill training or any other kind of program.
A life left in free fall. That’s not helpful for the person or society.
Time to bring back vagrancy laws. Sleep on the street or relieve yourself in public, you should go to jail. Give the homeless a choice between rehabilitation camps or jail. I realize nothing can be done about this problem unless the courts allow it.
The homeless are being allowed to destroy our communities and those on the left are enabling this as it has become a cottage industry to the tune of $24 billion in California alone. The ability for the state to forcibly commit the mentally ill living on the street is key to solving this issue.
Huge amounts must now be spent clearing brush along all our highways to expose and prevent new encampments. Our public libraries a became unusable for the general public, especially for children.
Public parks for general use are often too unsavory due to vagrants and their paper covered bottle libations. State Street in any iteration will never survive the return of vagrant take-overs as well. Nor gangs using this dividing line street for their own turf wars.
The list of auxiliary vagrant impacts on our public spaces far exceeds even the demands now for automatic tax payer funded shelter.
“fairness and accessibility for residents who have long called the area home.”
This should always be the priority of any government (especially a local city council)
People move all the time, often to be closer to family or to more afforable retirement area. Prior city residency should not be a priority requirement. A consideration, but not an automatic priority.
I disagree, but thats OK. Its a worthwhile discussion to have.
My contention is that the long time residents of any area based community (city/town/country) are who know it best. They have built it and define the look and feel of the area... aka: "the vibe of the thing"
They have watched transients come and go. They want their children and their grandchildren to be able to live near them in what they have built.
Also, long-time residents tend to be older, vocal, and make up a disproportionate percentage of the vote in any area. So the long time residents = majority voters = priority for elected officials.
As for how to best help the homeless. Believe it or not, It may start with semantics and language. It's time to try something different than what has been done for generations. These people are indeed "home"-less; A "home" implies a family of people that have your back and that you have theirs. Family cares about you and makes demands on you and your behavior, and expects the same in return. A "home" is a place where you belong and contribute.
A "house" is just a place, a building, a roof over your head, but it is not a "home"
A "house" does not address the soul of a person.
A "home" is the solution to "house"-lessness.
The state, and well meaning citizens of any area, including our own, can build houses and throw money and appoint "czars" and perform acts of charity and kindness; BUT they can not provide "homes". That is not nor has ever been the purview of the state. That is the purview of religion and religious based outreach programs. It doesn't matter what religion it is, but that is the ultimate goal of any religion. To build and provide a home for the homeless. A family of people who have have each other's backs and are willing to do the hard thankless ugly monotonous work of getting to know the people who are down on their luck, attending to their needs as human beings. Not just write a check and build a shiny new facility that everyone can point to and say "see! we care!".
The late great comedian Sam Kinison once did a skit that like all great comedy, was based in truth. At the time, the issue being discussed was another timeless issue, world hunger. The gist of Kinison's view on the problem was "Do you really want to end world hunger? Then stop sending food! Send people U-Hauls so they can move to where the food is!"
You want to help the homeless? Stop giving them houses! We need to give them "homes".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-4sLvZ1HG8
Eric Gordon, you should be a writer for the current. That was such a wonderful and heartfelt response.
Thanks! I will submit it after a few tweaks to expand on the idea.
Just commenting on others and then retreating back into my own life has been my speed for a while now. Time for a change.
I am trying to put my money where my mouth is by running for Goleta City Council, District#4 this year. :)
Commenting on what others have put out there has been cathartic for me but at some time, I can't just criticize those in power for doing what they feel is best for the community we live in. I have to put myself out there myself and try. Whatever the faults of whoever is in charge right now making decisions, I can not fault them for trying to make the world a better place. I just disagree with the paths they choose sometimes.
Its a corny phrase that dates me to my favorite decade, the 1970's, but I think it applies:
"Be the change you wish to see in the world"
The Homeless Enabling Industry is growing here. These people are incentivized to make the homeless problem bigger not smaller. They have made a career out of the homeless buzzword. If they really solved the problem they would be out of a job. Every incentive and paycheck they get is because they are rewarded only when the problem gets worse. They are attracting vagrants here as we all can see. It’s called ‘job security’.
There now is a demand for five government hires for each “housed” street person in order to provide 24 hour monitoring care. Housing first as a replacement for prior state institutional care, benefits exactly whom?