Tiny Houses Open Doors to Santa Barbara Homeless Guests

After hosting three gala ribbon-cutting events since last November, DignityMoves finally began admitting the first homeless clients into its groundbreaking new tiny-home village located at 1016 Santa Barbara Street early this Monday, August 8. As openings go, this one was softer than cats’ paws.

As of day one, six residents had been moved off the streets or out of vehicles and into what’s alternately described as “cabins,” “tiny homes,” or, more bureaucratically, “interim supportive housing.” Whatever one chooses to call this tightly packed, intensely designed community of prefabricated homes — each one 64 square feet with windows, a bed, a chair, a desk, heating and air conditioning, and a door that locks — it ranks as Santa Barbara’s boldest effort to address the needs of Santa Barbara’s chronically homeless people. Each day for the next two weeks, a handful of new residents will move in. When there are 35, capacity will have been achieved.  

“Nothing like this has been tried here before,” said Jeff Gaddes, project manager. That, if anything, is an understatement. Never before has such a concentration of homeless housing and services been placed in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara. The project’s immediate next-door neighbor is the investment firm of Morgan Stanley. The police station is half a block away, with the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s annex and the fabled courthouse almost spitting distance.