Thank you, James, for the essay. "Hart, Limon & Capps"; let's include Carbajal and the entire City Council. This bunch elected by the ignorant voters who will not hesitate to approve a sales tax increase. It is simply astonishing!
Great article, James. The stranglehold of liberal politicians over the masses needs to be countered by a higher level of education which focuses on "creative problem solving," or a degree in CPS. CPS has little to do with math, but instead a lot to do with thinking about HOW to get out of the messes the city, state and federal government politicians have put us into. A CPS specialist would be a trained problem solver. Someone once mentioned to me that the main purpose of an education was to teach one how to think. It's "engineering" creative solutions to problems and knowing how to implement solutions that's important.
Liberals run on emotions lacking any reality. Their thinking is "just make it happen," no matter the cost. The money will fall out of the sky and pay for all their idiotic goals. Reminds me of when living in a San Francisco guest house during college a food server would always say, when I questioned what was placed in front of me, "Try it, you'll like it." In reality, I knew this meant eat it anyway even if I didn't like it because I had no other choice ... I was stupid to question the food. And in the case with the emotional Dems, they say we've got to do something, and we'll figure out how to pay for it later ... just a fake promise. People are persuaded so easily with BS and figuratively and literally pay for it later. Nearly everything they do turns into a problem. Big thoughts running around in little brains <g>.
About the only thing many Californians have of money value is a home. I presume the reason for "getting out" would be to collect what money value you might have from your home before masses of people decide to leave California. Has it really come to that or is it accurately projected to be the case? I can see perhaps a day will come when the wealthy will be mowing their own grass and fixing their own plumbing.
B.Russell: The only homeowners mowing their lawn, cleaning their home, without paid help never worked for a government affiliated employer: Fire, County, City, UCSB, SBCC, County schools, Cottage, Raytheon, …. The vast majority locally have one or more hefty guaranteed pensions for which we taxpayers are obligated to pay. It’s doubtful CA, the 5th or 6th largest world economy, will go bankrupt any time soon to be reorganized. Rather, the rest of us will pay our last dollars to fund voter approved bonds, taxes and fees that give no ROI beyond providing paychecks to those employed by the government affiliated.
Yes, I believe CA will be around as a powerful state. Time will tell if more of the valued industry sectors move to other states because of regulations and cost of living. Large companies will continue to move more production activities to other states where the cost of living is much lower, and peoplepower is plentiful. Many retired SB engineers move to other states where there's a lower cost of living. There's a lot of "fat" needed to be trimmed from the cost of running the city, county and state. If the SB local governments continue to expand, there will eventually be a mass exodus of people that have had enough. Then how will the retired city workers be funded?
How? Possibly by selling off City owned properties and/or a departure tax on anyone left here. The City of Santa Barbara’s unfunded pension liability, was reported at $344.5 million in 2021, according to Noozhawk. A 2021 Santa Barbara County Civil Grand Jury report cited a slightly higher figure of $386 million for the city’s pension systems.
In 2013, the city’s unfunded pension liability was reported at $226.3 million. The city participates in CalPERS.
The 2018 Santa Barbara County Grand Jury report noted that rising pension costs could force cities to reduce services or raise taxes to maintain solvency. This 2018 GJ Report also highlighted that the pension system, for police and fire employees, has a high “solvency risk” due to unfunded liabilities. The city needs to renegotiate labor contracts or adjust contributions, as it did in 2010 when police officers began contributing 2.266% to their pensions. The latest recommendation was for a 9% Officer contribution.
There are many protections for them, not us. Courts have historically upheld the priority of CA pension obligations like the bankruptcies of Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino, where CalPERS pensions were largely preserved.
The holders of city pensions should complain to those managing the city money and have money placed aside for the pensions. And if that isn't possible, then reduce the pensions. Requiring residents to accept reduced services and/or paying higher taxes for unfunded pension money is criminal. Why are there unfunded liabilities towards pensions? Is it because the city can't manage their budgets? Waste toward progressive projects, etc.? Overpricing their pensions? I'd like to know the whys.
I remember the days when most people did have those basic skills - lawn mowing and fixing plumbing. Self-included. Installing bathroom vanities, wall papering, painting, fixing leaky faucets and replacing commode flappers - all part of the Better Homes and Gardens Home Maintenance and Repairs "cook book", that many started their adult lives owning just a few decades ago. Along with a well-worn copy of Joy of Cooking. One gave starter tool kits at bridal showers back then too, instead of Girlfriend Trips to Tahiti.
Thanks James for a great, but sad, analysis of the housing situation. Opening the border has exascebated the demand for housing, medical care, education and all social services, that will linger for years. The 100 housing laws and the CEQA compound the issue. An example is taking place just down the coast after the fire as the latest estimate is that 17 permits to rebuild have been issued, which at the current pace the reconstruction will not be completed in 2042. From personal experience I can say that the mortgage payments and taxes will continue: how many can pay them plus the cost to continue living elsewhere?
Zillow is the friend of anyone looking for "affordable" housing across this great nation. Even in other parts of California. The great housing disconnect is expecting/demanding "affordable" housing only in premium locations.
City of Santa Barbara took the wrong turn, when it got so heavily into the housing business and abandoned its basic responsibilities to those who actually have been able to afford to live here. Those who now pay increasingly onerous property taxes, demanded now from fewer and fewer privately held property owners, as more properties get taken off the tax rolls for property tax-free non-profit purposes.
We do not have serious people making important policy decisions for us today. But those are the ones this town keeps electing and re-electing. Unregulated development provides equally unappealing outcomes. But developing state policies for purely partisan one party political gain, has been the most ruinous wrong turn this state (the voters) has taken in the past few decades.
J.L. Your post is rationale and true. Perhaps City District voters continue to elect District reps with a third graders mentality and capacity, because if we look at the tested proficiency levels within specific Districts, their chosen reps mirror voters. Other Districts have an overall higher 5th grade voter proficiency level. District elections have destroyed the City of Santa Barbara. Council has no business being in real estate. Rep Sneddon is finally termed out. She needs to study unfunded pension liabilities before her proposed huge give away.
Assume Sneddon will be running for mayor. That is what I have been hearing but nothing confirmed. Oscar Gonzalez seems to be positioning himself for the job too.
The Homeless Industrial Complex ..... that floods our community with people with nothing to lose. So at the street level they steal and act out in public on the influence of the drugs and alcohol that give them momentary surcease from their pathetic situation. At the Government level the profit is made with the kickbacks and levels of bureaucracy and pensions that keep the cycle going.
Affordable housing? Moratorium on building in expensive areas like the South Coast, build new communities inland where it is cheaper and less dense. Encourage businesses, families, and young people to move to new communities where it is cheaper
Homelessness? Mandatory rehab facilities for addiction, Mandatory mental health care facilities for mentally ill, free trade schools for people and families willing to move to new cheaper communities…
Free trade schools will NOT offer anything that does not support a growing young family community. Plumbing, Framing, Welding, HVAC, Pipe fitting, Electrical, excavation, power generation plants, farming, water treatment…etc.
Final exams will consist of building homes in the new community and graduates live in the very homes they build for subsidized loan rates….
This is tried and true. It will work and can be implemented immediately
All housing is affordable when a willing buyer meets a willing seller. What is being demanded using the label "affordable housing" today is something quite different.
We serve the issue much better calling it what it is: taxpayer subsidized housing. For whom and for what specific end goals. With clear audits, have those goals been met and do they continue to offer values to the taxpayers who were mandated to fund them.
And here comes Madam Livingston's mammon apologetics. "All housing is affordable when a willing buyer meets a willing seller" and who dictates fair prices, the market? a godless construct of the liberals and the third estate? The same people who dismembered Christendom?
"Willing buyer meets a willing seller" - sounds like gatekeeping, because we all know this is serving everyone but the poor. But what can we expect from the right, no? They kneel before mammon and get cozy with moloch.
Nice strawman Madam Livingston - "but the Vatican" - is a tiny microstate with non existent infrastructure, unlike America - it can't hold that many people. But of course defending mammon and the third estate trampling on the least among us matters more to you as a "conservative". The Vatican Walls you speak of were constructed in the ninth century to defend against Muslims (Saracens) who controlled North Africa and parts of Europe like in Spain and Sicily, but of course you'd rather liken walls built to defend the Basilica of St. Peter to your free market/reap estate.
Madam Livingston, this is a pathetic attempt at Mammon apologetics, and what's funny is the Basillica of St. Peter is open to all the faithful. Catholic Churches can be freely entered by all regardless of income - there is no gatekeeping of beauty. But you would rather condemn the poor to Trona California, an ugly barren hellscape while gatekeeping Santa Barbara. The Santa Ynez Valley belongs to the third estate and Hell hole Trona to the poor. "But it's cheap!" Because ugliess doesn't elevate - meanwhile the Church never closes her doors to the poor, they may always worship and adore Christ in a beautiful sanctuary.
I'm a poor man, and yet I am free to worship at the Saint Barbara Parish. I am free to enjoy the beauty of the Rose Garden and stand at the gates of the Chapel while gazing at the ocean from the Hill upon which the Mission sits...
If you, Madam Livingston had your way you'd charge me 1000 for it. "Um actually, you have not found a willing buyer!"
You are the type of person who would have desecrated the temple by turning it into a market... and the one Christ would have expelled... and flipped tables in reckoning of your sins.
You keep quoting scripture like it's somehow going to annihilate me, it won't. They are the futile attempts of someone on the backfoot trying desperately to appeal to my faith to get me to surrender, to lay down the rhetorical sabre slicing through error. I need not remind you, "even the devil can quote scripture".
Gordon. Go to school. Because your feigned confusion is sad, you're really telling me you can't understand what I wrote? No - it just clashes with your worldview. The issue is not the number of syllables in the words I use - but your stubborb refusal to let go of your enlightenment idolatry.
Enlightenment is the radical acceptance of what is. It involves a spiritual and intellectual journey to gain understanding, wisdom, and a deeper connection with oneself and the universe.
But; as any devout Hindu would tell you, a person must have a desire to experience an awakened state of being. A state of being that is the actual, harmonious state that the human is meant to live within.
Agreed. I forgot to mention in my post here the most important of all: Because we love and respect our fellow man; we WILL NO LONGER ALLOW ANYONE TO LIVE ON THE STREET OR IN THE OPEN SPACES. If you become homeless your options are as outlined. You do not have the option of being a drunk, drug abuser, living on the street or out of your car. This is love. What is being allowed now is the opposite of love. BTW, the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.
Fate is what one is handed. Destiny is what one chooses to do about it. It all starts and ends with choice. Choices have consequences. Choose your destiny wisely. That principle for too long has been the missing part of this currently unproductive equation.
I don't believe there is a solution to what we call "the homelessness problem." There are only tradeoffs to be embraced or accepted, either affirmatively--by the expressed will of the governed-- or by default without debate or public engagement. The cracks in the floor of modern life have grown so wide that an un-ignorable sea of citizens have found a way to fall through. Courageous debate with articles like this one framing the discussion is long, long overdue.
The only crack in the floor that you claim has created "homelessness is the refusal to move to more affordable areas. And the failure to rebuild state care institutions. New health policy at the federal level, linking addiction to mental health care services, will start closing the gap on "homelessness".
Thanks Lou. RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) also needs to be reformed in tandom. the stackem and packem planned for Sears and the monstrosities already popping up around town will eventually make SB much less of a paradise. We are beginning to get a Studio City vibe…
Thank you for writing. As tenant laws increase, rental housing will diminish and rents increase. Reverse the socialist tenant's rights laws and de regulate property owners laws and return to free enterprise and property rights. Right now, Lois Capps is instituting property inspections in Isla Vista that no doubt will cause many unnecessary problems. Any tenant in this county can complain about habitability and seek remedies with existing laws; more government regulation leads to more socialist leaning votes for more government dependency and anti capitalistic leaders. The irony is they use my taxes to fight me!
The immediate impacts of the recent rent control takeover of the SB city council is now being felt on Next Door - smaller unit landlords admitting they are getting out of the business because the risks are too high now, if they get stuck with a bad tenant. And unknown tenants pleas for housing now going unanswered, since few can afford to take a risk on unknown renters.
Can't even call this the Law of Unintended Consequences, since it was obvious this would be the outcome of these one-sided rent control demands on the private housing market.
Yep, CA needs to quickly create new cities to provide starter homes to those realizing ownership is one way to achieve community stability and individual financial security. End the reckless mandates for high density and builder’s remedy program ‘affordable’ housing requiring neighbors to pay more for their unit to directly subsidize another to make that neighbor’s unit affordable.
In 1970-80s, Grupe Developers created $60,000 single family home ownership opportunities in North Stockton, south of Sacramento, on the Delta or on man made lakes. Many owners commuted to Sacramento for work.
Florida is now creating new communities along the Gulf of America, about 30 miles equal distance North of prestigious Naples, South of Fort Myers. I visited two of these start up cities to talk to various developers; and to a few young owners choosing to buy and commute because ‘these are gorgeous new starter homes for $200,000 on the water between Naples and Fort Myers with multiple golf courses, country club amenities, schools, and a small civic center’.
Ave Maria, FL was initiated by the Catholic founder of Domino’s pizza. He allocated acreage to 5 separate developers to create their own unique subdivisions with club house amenities and CC&Rs. Most included a golf course, a country club community center with gym, pool(s), tennis, restaurant, or other amenities. Some subdivisions included condos, townhomes, in addition to single family and duplexes. One subdivision, Del Webb’s had a one owner age restriction of 55 or over.
Due to Ave Maria’s popularity and build out, other new cities have started both to the North and South. Anything is possible with leadership, revisions to CEQA and end to lengthy, costly project reviews. Added bonus: no state income tax in FL.
Great information and article James! At the core of this issue is a simple but important question: How do we treat the people in our communities who need help the most? This isn’t about politics—it’s about basic human decency. Everyone deserves a safe place to live and a real shot at getting back on their feet. The truth is, the current government needs to either make a serious shift or step aside for new leadership that actually wants to solve this. For too long, voters have been told that homelessness is just a problem we have to live with. That’s simply not true. We’ve been programmed for decades to believe there’s no real solution, but that’s just not the case.
We need fresh ideas and leaders who are willing to break out of the old, failed patterns. The status quo isn't working, and it's time to try something new—something that’s compassionate, rooted in facts, and focused on long-term success. Solving homelessness takes all of us, but it starts with waking up and demanding better. It’s not about choosing sides—it’s about choosing humanity. Let’s stop accepting excuses and start pushing for real change.
Where have you been N.C./ NC47? Many “real solutions” have been presented locally with generous philanthropists offering to contribute millions to create shelter. Overflow crowds have shown up to support these real, sensible, do-able proposals. Government officials — elected and highly paid bureaucrats — have proven the gatekeepers blocking ‘creative problem solving’ plans, turning down millions offered by local donors. Why? My conclusion is because their many family and friends are employed by NGOs and NPOs dependent on their paycheck funded by taxpayers. For decades we refer to this as “welfare for the college educated middle class”. Santa Barbara specifically chose to maintain its status quo.
Well intended CA Voters foolishly keep approving multiple bonds in a redistribution of wealth with no results. In our free country, only the dangerous to self or others can be held or relocated.
Individual responsibility seems to be missing. How do we incentivize today’s ‘entitled’ people to relocate to the interior where they can afford to live whether Bakersfield or Banning or elsewhere?
I disagree N.C. with your statement: “Everyone deserves a safe place to live and a real shot at getting back on their feet.” Last century, we Californians were taught no one “deserves” anything; we “earn” it. We live where we can afford to live. We plan our lives. Californians created and continue to fund a vast community college accessible network to give every resident multiple chances to get “back on their feet”.
A lot of us here were fortunate to have a successful living and achieve many goals throughout our lives. But it looks like the successful people are outnumbered by the less fortunate which provide the votes to the politicians ... we fortunate ones lose. Depending on the reason for being less fortunate to achieve opportunities in the SB area, it will likely be more difficult to make a turnaround, especially in "expensive" cities such as SB. I don't believe "everyone deserves" to live in cities with a high cost of living. Start out in less expensive cities and other states in the country and work your way up. And then you might be able to afford a Manhattan apartment. Living in highly desirable communities is going to be a greater challenge for the "people wanting to get back on their feet." I think this is true of more recent times because of the exponential rise of the cost of living in places such as SB. Earn your place in society and then live within your means.
I will say it is the fault of the people who choose to vote for these policies and those who choose to not vote. Neither of these groups read or hold their politicians accountable for the empty promises of free pizza and no homework.
With that said I agree, “Everyone deserves a safe place to live and a real shot at getting back on their feet.”
After reading the article you realize government has effectively thrown people out in the street. They have chosen to make this state very expensive. They have chosen to allow non Californians to continue to drain resources, they have continued to allow 44,000 illegals in SB alone to occupy housing removing units from legal residents.
You accurately pointed out that the politicians are busy stealing the public money and putting it into NGO pockets.
In SB there are 3 dozen non profits to help homeless? Yet there is no progress in actually curing the roof deprived.
Again the voters choose to not hold their employees, elected officials, accountable.
The voter chooses to not actually learn or know anything they are approving.
Government has gotten their followers to accept a dismal state.
Record homelessness, the worst schools in the country, and huge debt.
Thank you to all those who choose to not vote
Thank you Democrat voters who refuse to choose a candidate and policy over a “D”
Yes our government gets a “D” if not an “F” which directly reflects our education system.
When Giuliani was mayor of NYC, he set in motion viable solutions that worked. I know. I lived there. He managed both times to capture the votes from that heavily Democratic Party controller city. Imagine also, we could go uptown and know we were relatively safe. Time’s Square was a delight.
But then we had the Empathy Industrial Complex-where the ‘homeless coalitions’ screamed brutality, and the moral outrage from the likes of Richard Gere advocating for kindness. The mayor felt, as did the large majority of Manhattanites, on the underlying cruelty of allowing people to waste away and die in the bowels of the subway system. The mayor offered those misbegotten souls two options-go into rehab or a shelter or here’s a bus ticket out of the city. It worked. His ‘broken window’ theory worked, too.
Do we have the political will to solve what’s become an intractable problem, lest we forget the ACLU is hovering nearby? (Hey, I was once one of those card carrying members). Is Newsom’s mandate to bust up homeless camps a solution? Where are these forsaken people supposed to go? Has the thought ever cross his feeble mind that enticing those jumping the border with more goodies like free health insurance crams more people into housing? Yeah, he’s sniffing a wind change so now the state will charge these people $100.00. SMH
Years ago, Ventura implemented a program where anytime a grocery store’s cart was found abandoned-dumped in a river bed, the city ticketed the grocery stores. All of a sudden those grocery store carts were secured. Those whose belongings were in a cart were left alone as long as the city knew who it belonged to. If not, it was seized. Our city wouldn’t dare do this.
I like Caruso. We need more of him. A lot more of him. I do sense a shifting tide turning. I also like Randy if only because he walks a tenuous line. I personally do not know how he stomachs it. Those who sit on the councils are not bad people, but most of them are entrenched in a retrograde mindset that’s been proven over and over-it does not work.
NC47: Why have you chosen to ignore the many options that have already been set out, and continue to use the emotional jugular in order to distort the real arguments? You need to review and analyze all the prior "homeless" programs that have already proven to be failures, instead of first demanding we must do more.
Everyone has the duty to provide for their own welfare needs must be the starting point; not everyone deserves to have someone else provide for their basic needs. Triage the issue first, then explore options for each subset: the have nots; the can nots; the will nots.
Housing is a commodity; not a right. Work up your arguments from that starting point.
''Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.''
I like these proposed policy changes. About California continually electing Democrats, it’s something I’ve been screaming for decades. Many won’t change until some of the results of thees policies smack them in the face.
Thank you, James, for the essay. "Hart, Limon & Capps"; let's include Carbajal and the entire City Council. This bunch elected by the ignorant voters who will not hesitate to approve a sales tax increase. It is simply astonishing!
Great article, James. The stranglehold of liberal politicians over the masses needs to be countered by a higher level of education which focuses on "creative problem solving," or a degree in CPS. CPS has little to do with math, but instead a lot to do with thinking about HOW to get out of the messes the city, state and federal government politicians have put us into. A CPS specialist would be a trained problem solver. Someone once mentioned to me that the main purpose of an education was to teach one how to think. It's "engineering" creative solutions to problems and knowing how to implement solutions that's important.
At one time this was also the goal of a legal education: how to solve problems; not create them.
Liberals run on emotions lacking any reality. Their thinking is "just make it happen," no matter the cost. The money will fall out of the sky and pay for all their idiotic goals. Reminds me of when living in a San Francisco guest house during college a food server would always say, when I questioned what was placed in front of me, "Try it, you'll like it." In reality, I knew this meant eat it anyway even if I didn't like it because I had no other choice ... I was stupid to question the food. And in the case with the emotional Dems, they say we've got to do something, and we'll figure out how to pay for it later ... just a fake promise. People are persuaded so easily with BS and figuratively and literally pay for it later. Nearly everything they do turns into a problem. Big thoughts running around in little brains <g>.
California is bankrupt. Get out while you can. Sal si puede.
About the only thing many Californians have of money value is a home. I presume the reason for "getting out" would be to collect what money value you might have from your home before masses of people decide to leave California. Has it really come to that or is it accurately projected to be the case? I can see perhaps a day will come when the wealthy will be mowing their own grass and fixing their own plumbing.
B.Russell: The only homeowners mowing their lawn, cleaning their home, without paid help never worked for a government affiliated employer: Fire, County, City, UCSB, SBCC, County schools, Cottage, Raytheon, …. The vast majority locally have one or more hefty guaranteed pensions for which we taxpayers are obligated to pay. It’s doubtful CA, the 5th or 6th largest world economy, will go bankrupt any time soon to be reorganized. Rather, the rest of us will pay our last dollars to fund voter approved bonds, taxes and fees that give no ROI beyond providing paychecks to those employed by the government affiliated.
Yes, I believe CA will be around as a powerful state. Time will tell if more of the valued industry sectors move to other states because of regulations and cost of living. Large companies will continue to move more production activities to other states where the cost of living is much lower, and peoplepower is plentiful. Many retired SB engineers move to other states where there's a lower cost of living. There's a lot of "fat" needed to be trimmed from the cost of running the city, county and state. If the SB local governments continue to expand, there will eventually be a mass exodus of people that have had enough. Then how will the retired city workers be funded?
How? Possibly by selling off City owned properties and/or a departure tax on anyone left here. The City of Santa Barbara’s unfunded pension liability, was reported at $344.5 million in 2021, according to Noozhawk. A 2021 Santa Barbara County Civil Grand Jury report cited a slightly higher figure of $386 million for the city’s pension systems.
In 2013, the city’s unfunded pension liability was reported at $226.3 million. The city participates in CalPERS.
The 2018 Santa Barbara County Grand Jury report noted that rising pension costs could force cities to reduce services or raise taxes to maintain solvency. This 2018 GJ Report also highlighted that the pension system, for police and fire employees, has a high “solvency risk” due to unfunded liabilities. The city needs to renegotiate labor contracts or adjust contributions, as it did in 2010 when police officers began contributing 2.266% to their pensions. The latest recommendation was for a 9% Officer contribution.
There are many protections for them, not us. Courts have historically upheld the priority of CA pension obligations like the bankruptcies of Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino, where CalPERS pensions were largely preserved.
The holders of city pensions should complain to those managing the city money and have money placed aside for the pensions. And if that isn't possible, then reduce the pensions. Requiring residents to accept reduced services and/or paying higher taxes for unfunded pension money is criminal. Why are there unfunded liabilities towards pensions? Is it because the city can't manage their budgets? Waste toward progressive projects, etc.? Overpricing their pensions? I'd like to know the whys.
Me too! I’d like to know why city fails to find its pensions that we taxpayers will then be ordered to pay twice. It’s infuriating!
I remember the days when most people did have those basic skills - lawn mowing and fixing plumbing. Self-included. Installing bathroom vanities, wall papering, painting, fixing leaky faucets and replacing commode flappers - all part of the Better Homes and Gardens Home Maintenance and Repairs "cook book", that many started their adult lives owning just a few decades ago. Along with a well-worn copy of Joy of Cooking. One gave starter tool kits at bridal showers back then too, instead of Girlfriend Trips to Tahiti.
Thanks James for a great, but sad, analysis of the housing situation. Opening the border has exascebated the demand for housing, medical care, education and all social services, that will linger for years. The 100 housing laws and the CEQA compound the issue. An example is taking place just down the coast after the fire as the latest estimate is that 17 permits to rebuild have been issued, which at the current pace the reconstruction will not be completed in 2042. From personal experience I can say that the mortgage payments and taxes will continue: how many can pay them plus the cost to continue living elsewhere?
The final paragraph is an absolute truth.
Zillow is the friend of anyone looking for "affordable" housing across this great nation. Even in other parts of California. The great housing disconnect is expecting/demanding "affordable" housing only in premium locations.
City of Santa Barbara took the wrong turn, when it got so heavily into the housing business and abandoned its basic responsibilities to those who actually have been able to afford to live here. Those who now pay increasingly onerous property taxes, demanded now from fewer and fewer privately held property owners, as more properties get taken off the tax rolls for property tax-free non-profit purposes.
We do not have serious people making important policy decisions for us today. But those are the ones this town keeps electing and re-electing. Unregulated development provides equally unappealing outcomes. But developing state policies for purely partisan one party political gain, has been the most ruinous wrong turn this state (the voters) has taken in the past few decades.
J.L. Your post is rationale and true. Perhaps City District voters continue to elect District reps with a third graders mentality and capacity, because if we look at the tested proficiency levels within specific Districts, their chosen reps mirror voters. Other Districts have an overall higher 5th grade voter proficiency level. District elections have destroyed the City of Santa Barbara. Council has no business being in real estate. Rep Sneddon is finally termed out. She needs to study unfunded pension liabilities before her proposed huge give away.
Assume Sneddon will be running for mayor. That is what I have been hearing but nothing confirmed. Oscar Gonzalez seems to be positioning himself for the job too.
The Homeless Industrial Complex ..... that floods our community with people with nothing to lose. So at the street level they steal and act out in public on the influence of the drugs and alcohol that give them momentary surcease from their pathetic situation. At the Government level the profit is made with the kickbacks and levels of bureaucracy and pensions that keep the cycle going.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1116884690200173
Affordable housing? Moratorium on building in expensive areas like the South Coast, build new communities inland where it is cheaper and less dense. Encourage businesses, families, and young people to move to new communities where it is cheaper
Homelessness? Mandatory rehab facilities for addiction, Mandatory mental health care facilities for mentally ill, free trade schools for people and families willing to move to new cheaper communities…
Free trade schools will NOT offer anything that does not support a growing young family community. Plumbing, Framing, Welding, HVAC, Pipe fitting, Electrical, excavation, power generation plants, farming, water treatment…etc.
Final exams will consist of building homes in the new community and graduates live in the very homes they build for subsidized loan rates….
This is tried and true. It will work and can be implemented immediately
All housing is affordable when a willing buyer meets a willing seller. What is being demanded using the label "affordable housing" today is something quite different.
We serve the issue much better calling it what it is: taxpayer subsidized housing. For whom and for what specific end goals. With clear audits, have those goals been met and do they continue to offer values to the taxpayers who were mandated to fund them.
And here comes Madam Livingston's mammon apologetics. "All housing is affordable when a willing buyer meets a willing seller" and who dictates fair prices, the market? a godless construct of the liberals and the third estate? The same people who dismembered Christendom?
"Willing buyer meets a willing seller" - sounds like gatekeeping, because we all know this is serving everyone but the poor. But what can we expect from the right, no? They kneel before mammon and get cozy with moloch.
Not to worry, TA. The new Pope has opened the Vatican Walls to all who need succor, under the umbrella of Christianity.
Nice strawman Madam Livingston - "but the Vatican" - is a tiny microstate with non existent infrastructure, unlike America - it can't hold that many people. But of course defending mammon and the third estate trampling on the least among us matters more to you as a "conservative". The Vatican Walls you speak of were constructed in the ninth century to defend against Muslims (Saracens) who controlled North Africa and parts of Europe like in Spain and Sicily, but of course you'd rather liken walls built to defend the Basilica of St. Peter to your free market/reap estate.
Delusional.
Wedding at Cana, TA. Wedding at Cana.
The Vatican will do nicely and be able take in every single refugee they encourage to travel to them. Ye of little faith.
Madam Livingston, this is a pathetic attempt at Mammon apologetics, and what's funny is the Basillica of St. Peter is open to all the faithful. Catholic Churches can be freely entered by all regardless of income - there is no gatekeeping of beauty. But you would rather condemn the poor to Trona California, an ugly barren hellscape while gatekeeping Santa Barbara. The Santa Ynez Valley belongs to the third estate and Hell hole Trona to the poor. "But it's cheap!" Because ugliess doesn't elevate - meanwhile the Church never closes her doors to the poor, they may always worship and adore Christ in a beautiful sanctuary.
I'm a poor man, and yet I am free to worship at the Saint Barbara Parish. I am free to enjoy the beauty of the Rose Garden and stand at the gates of the Chapel while gazing at the ocean from the Hill upon which the Mission sits...
If you, Madam Livingston had your way you'd charge me 1000 for it. "Um actually, you have not found a willing buyer!"
You are the type of person who would have desecrated the temple by turning it into a market... and the one Christ would have expelled... and flipped tables in reckoning of your sins.
You keep quoting scripture like it's somehow going to annihilate me, it won't. They are the futile attempts of someone on the backfoot trying desperately to appeal to my faith to get me to surrender, to lay down the rhetorical sabre slicing through error. I need not remind you, "even the devil can quote scripture".
God have mercy on your soul, Madam.
TA: ....ummm...wut??? 🤪
Gordon. Go to school. Because your feigned confusion is sad, you're really telling me you can't understand what I wrote? No - it just clashes with your worldview. The issue is not the number of syllables in the words I use - but your stubborb refusal to let go of your enlightenment idolatry.
Enlightenment is the radical acceptance of what is. It involves a spiritual and intellectual journey to gain understanding, wisdom, and a deeper connection with oneself and the universe.
But; as any devout Hindu would tell you, a person must have a desire to experience an awakened state of being. A state of being that is the actual, harmonious state that the human is meant to live within.
So I repeat my query: "LOL Wut??"
Agreed. I forgot to mention in my post here the most important of all: Because we love and respect our fellow man; we WILL NO LONGER ALLOW ANYONE TO LIVE ON THE STREET OR IN THE OPEN SPACES. If you become homeless your options are as outlined. You do not have the option of being a drunk, drug abuser, living on the street or out of your car. This is love. What is being allowed now is the opposite of love. BTW, the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.
Fate is what one is handed. Destiny is what one chooses to do about it. It all starts and ends with choice. Choices have consequences. Choose your destiny wisely. That principle for too long has been the missing part of this currently unproductive equation.
I don't believe there is a solution to what we call "the homelessness problem." There are only tradeoffs to be embraced or accepted, either affirmatively--by the expressed will of the governed-- or by default without debate or public engagement. The cracks in the floor of modern life have grown so wide that an un-ignorable sea of citizens have found a way to fall through. Courageous debate with articles like this one framing the discussion is long, long overdue.
The only crack in the floor that you claim has created "homelessness is the refusal to move to more affordable areas. And the failure to rebuild state care institutions. New health policy at the federal level, linking addiction to mental health care services, will start closing the gap on "homelessness".
Great article, James. It turns out the publisher is also a very good writer.
On CEQA, we might need it to sue the developers building 1,200 units at La Cumbre Plaza, so don't reform it quite yet.
Thanks Lou. RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) also needs to be reformed in tandom. the stackem and packem planned for Sears and the monstrosities already popping up around town will eventually make SB much less of a paradise. We are beginning to get a Studio City vibe…
Thank you, James. Excellent synopsis of the UCSB analysis. Please send a copy of this article to Limon and Hart. Not that anything will change.
Thank you for writing. As tenant laws increase, rental housing will diminish and rents increase. Reverse the socialist tenant's rights laws and de regulate property owners laws and return to free enterprise and property rights. Right now, Lois Capps is instituting property inspections in Isla Vista that no doubt will cause many unnecessary problems. Any tenant in this county can complain about habitability and seek remedies with existing laws; more government regulation leads to more socialist leaning votes for more government dependency and anti capitalistic leaders. The irony is they use my taxes to fight me!
The immediate impacts of the recent rent control takeover of the SB city council is now being felt on Next Door - smaller unit landlords admitting they are getting out of the business because the risks are too high now, if they get stuck with a bad tenant. And unknown tenants pleas for housing now going unanswered, since few can afford to take a risk on unknown renters.
Can't even call this the Law of Unintended Consequences, since it was obvious this would be the outcome of these one-sided rent control demands on the private housing market.
Yep, CA needs to quickly create new cities to provide starter homes to those realizing ownership is one way to achieve community stability and individual financial security. End the reckless mandates for high density and builder’s remedy program ‘affordable’ housing requiring neighbors to pay more for their unit to directly subsidize another to make that neighbor’s unit affordable.
In 1970-80s, Grupe Developers created $60,000 single family home ownership opportunities in North Stockton, south of Sacramento, on the Delta or on man made lakes. Many owners commuted to Sacramento for work.
Florida is now creating new communities along the Gulf of America, about 30 miles equal distance North of prestigious Naples, South of Fort Myers. I visited two of these start up cities to talk to various developers; and to a few young owners choosing to buy and commute because ‘these are gorgeous new starter homes for $200,000 on the water between Naples and Fort Myers with multiple golf courses, country club amenities, schools, and a small civic center’.
Ave Maria, FL was initiated by the Catholic founder of Domino’s pizza. He allocated acreage to 5 separate developers to create their own unique subdivisions with club house amenities and CC&Rs. Most included a golf course, a country club community center with gym, pool(s), tennis, restaurant, or other amenities. Some subdivisions included condos, townhomes, in addition to single family and duplexes. One subdivision, Del Webb’s had a one owner age restriction of 55 or over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_Maria,_Florida
Due to Ave Maria’s popularity and build out, other new cities have started both to the North and South. Anything is possible with leadership, revisions to CEQA and end to lengthy, costly project reviews. Added bonus: no state income tax in FL.
Great information and article James! At the core of this issue is a simple but important question: How do we treat the people in our communities who need help the most? This isn’t about politics—it’s about basic human decency. Everyone deserves a safe place to live and a real shot at getting back on their feet. The truth is, the current government needs to either make a serious shift or step aside for new leadership that actually wants to solve this. For too long, voters have been told that homelessness is just a problem we have to live with. That’s simply not true. We’ve been programmed for decades to believe there’s no real solution, but that’s just not the case.
We need fresh ideas and leaders who are willing to break out of the old, failed patterns. The status quo isn't working, and it's time to try something new—something that’s compassionate, rooted in facts, and focused on long-term success. Solving homelessness takes all of us, but it starts with waking up and demanding better. It’s not about choosing sides—it’s about choosing humanity. Let’s stop accepting excuses and start pushing for real change.
Where have you been N.C./ NC47? Many “real solutions” have been presented locally with generous philanthropists offering to contribute millions to create shelter. Overflow crowds have shown up to support these real, sensible, do-able proposals. Government officials — elected and highly paid bureaucrats — have proven the gatekeepers blocking ‘creative problem solving’ plans, turning down millions offered by local donors. Why? My conclusion is because their many family and friends are employed by NGOs and NPOs dependent on their paycheck funded by taxpayers. For decades we refer to this as “welfare for the college educated middle class”. Santa Barbara specifically chose to maintain its status quo.
Well intended CA Voters foolishly keep approving multiple bonds in a redistribution of wealth with no results. In our free country, only the dangerous to self or others can be held or relocated.
Individual responsibility seems to be missing. How do we incentivize today’s ‘entitled’ people to relocate to the interior where they can afford to live whether Bakersfield or Banning or elsewhere?
I disagree N.C. with your statement: “Everyone deserves a safe place to live and a real shot at getting back on their feet.” Last century, we Californians were taught no one “deserves” anything; we “earn” it. We live where we can afford to live. We plan our lives. Californians created and continue to fund a vast community college accessible network to give every resident multiple chances to get “back on their feet”.
A lot of us here were fortunate to have a successful living and achieve many goals throughout our lives. But it looks like the successful people are outnumbered by the less fortunate which provide the votes to the politicians ... we fortunate ones lose. Depending on the reason for being less fortunate to achieve opportunities in the SB area, it will likely be more difficult to make a turnaround, especially in "expensive" cities such as SB. I don't believe "everyone deserves" to live in cities with a high cost of living. Start out in less expensive cities and other states in the country and work your way up. And then you might be able to afford a Manhattan apartment. Living in highly desirable communities is going to be a greater challenge for the "people wanting to get back on their feet." I think this is true of more recent times because of the exponential rise of the cost of living in places such as SB. Earn your place in society and then live within your means.
I will say it is the fault of the people who choose to vote for these policies and those who choose to not vote. Neither of these groups read or hold their politicians accountable for the empty promises of free pizza and no homework.
With that said I agree, “Everyone deserves a safe place to live and a real shot at getting back on their feet.”
After reading the article you realize government has effectively thrown people out in the street. They have chosen to make this state very expensive. They have chosen to allow non Californians to continue to drain resources, they have continued to allow 44,000 illegals in SB alone to occupy housing removing units from legal residents.
You accurately pointed out that the politicians are busy stealing the public money and putting it into NGO pockets.
In SB there are 3 dozen non profits to help homeless? Yet there is no progress in actually curing the roof deprived.
Again the voters choose to not hold their employees, elected officials, accountable.
The voter chooses to not actually learn or know anything they are approving.
Government has gotten their followers to accept a dismal state.
Record homelessness, the worst schools in the country, and huge debt.
Thank you to all those who choose to not vote
Thank you Democrat voters who refuse to choose a candidate and policy over a “D”
Yes our government gets a “D” if not an “F” which directly reflects our education system.
When Giuliani was mayor of NYC, he set in motion viable solutions that worked. I know. I lived there. He managed both times to capture the votes from that heavily Democratic Party controller city. Imagine also, we could go uptown and know we were relatively safe. Time’s Square was a delight.
But then we had the Empathy Industrial Complex-where the ‘homeless coalitions’ screamed brutality, and the moral outrage from the likes of Richard Gere advocating for kindness. The mayor felt, as did the large majority of Manhattanites, on the underlying cruelty of allowing people to waste away and die in the bowels of the subway system. The mayor offered those misbegotten souls two options-go into rehab or a shelter or here’s a bus ticket out of the city. It worked. His ‘broken window’ theory worked, too.
Do we have the political will to solve what’s become an intractable problem, lest we forget the ACLU is hovering nearby? (Hey, I was once one of those card carrying members). Is Newsom’s mandate to bust up homeless camps a solution? Where are these forsaken people supposed to go? Has the thought ever cross his feeble mind that enticing those jumping the border with more goodies like free health insurance crams more people into housing? Yeah, he’s sniffing a wind change so now the state will charge these people $100.00. SMH
Years ago, Ventura implemented a program where anytime a grocery store’s cart was found abandoned-dumped in a river bed, the city ticketed the grocery stores. All of a sudden those grocery store carts were secured. Those whose belongings were in a cart were left alone as long as the city knew who it belonged to. If not, it was seized. Our city wouldn’t dare do this.
I like Caruso. We need more of him. A lot more of him. I do sense a shifting tide turning. I also like Randy if only because he walks a tenuous line. I personally do not know how he stomachs it. Those who sit on the councils are not bad people, but most of them are entrenched in a retrograde mindset that’s been proven over and over-it does not work.
NC47: Why have you chosen to ignore the many options that have already been set out, and continue to use the emotional jugular in order to distort the real arguments? You need to review and analyze all the prior "homeless" programs that have already proven to be failures, instead of first demanding we must do more.
Everyone has the duty to provide for their own welfare needs must be the starting point; not everyone deserves to have someone else provide for their basic needs. Triage the issue first, then explore options for each subset: the have nots; the can nots; the will nots.
Housing is a commodity; not a right. Work up your arguments from that starting point.
Again, I point to the Democrat voters and those who choose to not vote.
They are to blame for those inept people in our government.
''Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.''
—Henry David Thoreau
I like these proposed policy changes. About California continually electing Democrats, it’s something I’ve been screaming for decades. Many won’t change until some of the results of thees policies smack them in the face.