City discussions about the future of State Street miss the mark unless they focus on the homeless problem. Making State Street a walking mall, promoting mixed-use commercial-residential, lowering rents, and expediting permits for new business are all very good ideas. However, until we figure out how to deal with the incredibly difficult and tragic problem of the homeless, the decline of State, I’m afraid, will continue.
Cities throughout the U.S. are experiencing an increase in people without homes who are interacting with fellow citizens in the “commons” (common areas). The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development statistics showed nearly 554,000 homeless across the country in 2017 (134,278 in California, with some 55,000 in Southern California), up one percent from previous years. Of these, approximately 193,000 have no access to nightly shelter and are living in vehicles, doorways, tents, on the streets, beaches, and adjacent to railroad tracks.
In Santa Barbara County the numbers fluctuated between 1,536 in 2011, to 1,489 in 2017. The most recent survey found 790 homeless people in Santa Barbara, with 363 living unsheltered and 427 living in nonprofit or government shelters. Unsheltered or sheltered, the homeless have become our neighbors. They are not going to disappear. Unless and until we resolve how to integrate these citizens into the commons, i.e., State Street and its environs, the city will continue to experience lost tax revenue from State Street stores (needed for such public services as education, parks, police, and fire) and declining participation by residents and visitors in the State Street experience.