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Quartet warms the battleground for president in power-packed visit By ALAN WOOTEN THE CENTER SQUARE MANAGING EDITOR
KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS
A car is used as a dwelling on Hope Avenue in Santa Barbara. A Santa Barbara City Council committee has stressed the need for emergency housing for homeless individuals.
NEWS-PRESS SPECIAL REPORT
Recommendations on homelessness
Santa Barbara City Council committee stresses emergency shelter, interim housing Editor’s note: This concludes a four-part series on the city of Santa Barbara’s efforts to deal with homelessness. By NEIL HARTSTEIN
(The Center Square) — Audiences and strategy differ as the North Carolina battleground gets a June warming for the 2024 presidential race with nearly synchronous visits by President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. All are in the state and will be creating new sound and video bytes in a roughly 36hour period starting Friday and culminating Saturday night. “It’s a signal that Biden and his campaign still views the state as a potential investment for November 2024, but that investment needs to start now with a ground-game operation beyond the classic ad war campaign that blankets North Carolina,” veteran political observer Michael Bitzer wrote in an email to The Center Square. Mr . Trump, Mr. Pence and Gov. DeSantis headline the state Republican Party’s annual convention in Greensboro, its biggest annual fundraiser. Gov. DeSantis is the keynote speaker Friday evening, Mr. Pence is at noon Saturday, and Mr. Trump is in the Saturday night climax. That lineup announcement has since been followed by
President Biden scheduling a trip to the Old North State. He’ll be in Rocky Mount hyping his Roadmap to Support Good Jobs, “a collaborative agency effort to align on guideposts to build the workforce,” and he’ll also go aboard Fort Liberty, the Army base formerly known as Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville. Carter Wrenn, Raleighbased political consultant and columnist who worked with former President Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and ’80s and was an adviser to U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, said there is an economically advantageous opportunity for the GOP trio and a definite need for their presidential foe from Delaware. “On the Democrat side, we’re a swing state,” Mr. Wrenn said in a phone call with The Center Square. “There’s not but five or six swing states. We’re one of them. How we go in the presidential election next year is a big thing. Every statewide election here, where the candidates spend money, they end up being close. “The Democrat reason for coming here is we’re a swing state. They’re lusting to win North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania – that’s where they’re going to put their attention. That’s it for Biden.” While the audience is in the thousands for Mr. Trump, Mr. Please see RACE on A3
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Santa Barbara desperately needs emergency shelter, interim housing and medical recuperative care beds to address the immediate needs of its homeless population, according to the Santa Barbara City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Homelessness. Those are some of the recommendations made by the committee following 12 months of research into how best to serve the needs of the city’s unhoused population. “Federal and state funding is solely focused on permanent supportive housing,” the committee noted in its final report released at a May 11 special council meeting. “The city needs more emergency shelter beds and interim housing units to address the diversity of needs among our unhoused population,” the committee said. Just as important, the committee said, is its finding that “a significant percentage of the unhoused population have (a) chronic health condition, substance abuse, and/or cooccuring mental health disorder” that require longer-term and skilled care to be widely available. As of January, Santa Barbara had a total of 787 homeless persons scattered throughout the city, including downtown, the waterfront, eastside, uptown and other areas, according to a countywide Point-In-Time Count
Board of Supervisors discusses public health, homelessness By ANNIKA BAHNSEN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
DAVE MASON/NEWS-PRESS
Now that the work is done by the Santa Barbara Ad Hoc Committee on Homelessness, city staff will compile its findings and recommendations in an executive summary, “which will form the basis for where we go from here,” Councilmember Eric Friedman told the News-Press.
conducted by the Continuum of Care. Committee members — Councilmembers Eric Friedman, Kristen Sneddon and Mike Jordan — spent the past year gathering information, listening to homeless experts, talking to key city staff and meeting with various stakeholders. A key finding is that the city should focus on ensuring homeless
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persons are “Housing Ready” by providing the supportive services they need in conjunction with placing them in transitional housing before finding them a permanent place to live. At the same time, however, “housing the most vulnerable requires more supportive services than are currently available,” the committee said. Further, “more interim housing options are
needed for stabilization, physical and mental health care prior to permanent housing referral and placement.” In its report, the committee also noted there is currently a limited availability of daytime shelter locations for people experiencing homelessness, and that the extended winter season of cold, Please see HOMELESS on A4
After a two-week hiatus, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors met Tuesday to discuss issues varying from public health to homelessness. The board also talked about listing supporters and opponents for local measures on ballots as well as the District Attorney’s office’s grant agreement with the victim compensation board. In the first moments of the meeting in Santa Barbara, a report from the Homeless Death Review Team shared data collected over the past year, and explained the importance of this data as well as the cost repercussions this could cause. Additionally, the board discussed recommendations regarding Local Ballot Measure Supporters Opponents Printing. This agenda item specifically discussed adopting a resolution in the matter of electing not to list supporters and opponents
for county, city, district and school measures on the county ballot and future county ballots. Another item on the list had to do with the District Attorney’s office’s grant agreement with the victim compensation board. The board discussed the California Victim Compensation Board Criminal Restitution Compact Grant. The board adopted a resolution permitting the district attorney to execute a grant agreement with the California Victim Compensation Board to accept and expend the Criminal Restitution Compact grant. This money will help victims of crime receive compensation federally. This grant will be allocated for the period of July 1, 2023 through 2026 in the amount of $297,792.00. The next board of supervisors meeting will take place on June 16. email: abahnsen@newspress. com
INSIDE
L O T T E RY RESULTS
Classified................. B4 Life...................... B1-2 Obituaries............... A4
Saturday’s SUPER LOTTO: 7-19-30-37-43 Meganumber: 16
Tuesday’s DAILY 4: 1-4-9-4
Tuesday’s MEGA MILLIONS: N/A Meganumber: N/A
Tuesday’s FANTASY 5: 18-20-25-27-31
Tuesday’s DAILY DERBY: 08-06-12 Time: 1:43.67
Monday’s POWERBALL: 2-31-45-46-49 Meganumber: 20
Sudoku................... B3 Weather................. A4
Tuesday’s DAILY 3: 7-7-6 / Wednesday’s Midday 0-3-5