SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—Multiple complaints of FARO Center “mismanagement” — including reports of unhoused individuals urinating in public, trespassing, and yelling — have increased pressure on the city to take action.
City Administrator Kelly McAdoo says the FARO Center was originally designed to serve a specific subset of the homelesspopulation — those actively seeking housing.
She says its purpose was to focus on housing navigation and workforce development. “We had made a commitment that it would be folks who are really on the pathway to housing, and that's a very different client than a pure drop in center,” said McAdoo
Kelly McAdoo says the FARO Center’s current drop-in model — which allows people to come and go freely to access food and other resources — is contributing to neighborhood complaints.
“There are other individuals who are experiencing homelessness who maybe aren't ready for housing at this time, whether they're facing mental health challenges, addiction, other issues that would prevent them from, you know, really being on that direct pathway to housing or they're just resistant to services altogether,” said McAdoo.
McAdoo says that for things to work— SB ACT needs to switch to a referral only program.
But SB ACT Executive Director Rich Sander says that’s not how solving homelessness works.
“The whole point of this as a drop in center in the heart of downtown is to make it easy and accessible to everyone,” said Sander.
SB Act says that they’re still just in the first year of the program. Within that year, they’ve helped over 1,300 people. One hundred of those helped have already transitioned into housing.
“I have heard repeatedly that people don't want housing or they want to be homeless. And I've been in this work for 20 years, and I can tell you without a doubt that is categorically untrue,” said Sander.
The FARO Center says that by canceling their lease and by changing the entire operational model, the city is essentially jeopardizing hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding. “ I just don't think now is the time to stop or have a new operator come in and lose all that funding and all the momentum that we currently have. we have raised over $500,000 around the basis that we are a drop in center, because that's what everyone agreed to,” said Sander.
The city is planning on downgrading the lease terms to a month-to-month agreement while simultaneously looking for new leadership to run the center.
When it comes to homelessness, SB ACT says they’re the experts. They fear that changing the model from drop in to referral only is going to hurt a lot of the people who need their services most.
Future of Faro Homeless Center remains uncertain News Channel 3-12.
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