Grand Unveiling for Downtown Homeless Village
County Teams with DignityMoves and Good Samaritan to Erect 33 ‘Cabins’ in Santa Barbara Street Parking Lot
In what was the best throwaway line of what otherwise was a political high-mass event held this Monday to unveil plans for a new downtown homeless housing project, Santa Barbara County Supervisor Gregg Hart quipped, “Hey, at least we have windows.”
Hart was riffing, obviously, on the infamously window-free Munger Hall dorm proposal to house 4,500 UCSB students that’s sparked a relentless and withering storm of criticism over the past two weeks. By contrast, each of the 33 proposed prefab housing units — each one 64 square feet and described by their manufacturer as “cabins” — come equipped with two-foot-by-three-foot windows on the outer door; glass windowpanes on the front door; and tiny, pillbox-slat windows that admit natural light on the interior walls.
Monday’s event was the public coming-out party for plans — to install 33 transitional housing cabins for people experiencing homelessness into a public parking lot on the 1000 block of Santa Barbara Street now owned by the County of Santa Barbara — that have been gestating in the murmuring and whispering stages for the past four months.
