Santa Barbara County 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson has supported efforts to resolve homeless encampments since he took office in 2021.
However, he said that because multiple jurisdictions oversee portions of the Santa Maria Riverbed—including Caltrans, Santa Maria, and SLO County with the majority—it’s been difficult to facilitate any cleanup of the area.
“It’s been really discouraging for me to see this problem persist in the Santa Maria Riverbed and this problem grow in the last two years,” he said.
An estimated 110 to 150 people were living in the riverbed with a majority in SLO County’s jurisdiction; however, most in the riverbed consider themselves Santa Barbara County residents. As part of $6 million in state grant funding aimed at cleaning up encampments, Santa Barbara County pledged to spend about half of the funding in SLO County on cleanup efforts.
Those cleanups began on July 25.
“I am grateful for the partnership between our two counties as we work together to clean up these problematic encampments,” SLO County 4th District Supervisor Jimmy Paulding told the Sun in a statement. “We still have a long way to go, but we now have a clear plan in place to restore order while helping those who have been living in the riverbed to get back on their feet.”
Nelson said that residents were given notice about the cleanup last month and again on July 22—starting a multi-phased approach of cleaning up several encampments in the riverbed, he said. As of July 25, Nelson said the cleanup had tackled some of the encampments.
“This is about a fourth of them. We’re juggling some different things. We’re going to be working with Caltrans with jurisdiction under the bridge,” Nelson said. “From the bridge, there’s quite a bit more there, so we are going to peel those layers back, methodically clear a property, and declare that property off limits moving forward.”
As the county and its partners do enforcement, if somebody occupies the cleared property, they will be automatically removed from the site.
“It’s a good, measured approach; it might send a signal. [Many] were probably in denial that we were going to act even though we told them this day was coming,” Nelson said. “We’ve been working heavily on this for the last nine months or so, and it’s finally coming together.”
Cleanup plans formed before Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order for local jurisdictions to address homeless encampments following the recent U.S. Supreme Court Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling that gave local governments more authority to address and disband encampments—shifting gears from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 2019 Martin v. Boise ruling that governments couldn’t enforce anti-camping ordinances if they didn’t have enough shelter beds.
“For Santa Barbara County, the Grants Pass decision has zero impact. We were already becoming Boise compliant. We did the hard work to comply with the Ninth Circuit,” Nelson said
There were initial complications when trying to plan with SLO County about building more shelter beds, Nelson told the Sun previously. However, the Grants Pass decision could give SLO County and its other partners “more comfort legally,” when taking action, he said.
“We know simply disbanding encampments without providing housing solutions just moves the issue elsewhere. Our goal is to address encampments, not shuffle people around,” Linda Belch, deputy director of the San Luis Obispo County Homeless Services Division, said in a statement regarding Newsom’s executive order. “Using all the tools at our disposal, the county is adding more housing and sheltering capacity to give people a place to go as encampments are cleared. This way, we know our response is both humane and effective.”