A black-and-white kitten emerged from a makeshift fence made of blue tarp and wooden posts as Chris LaBossiere announced her arrival.
“Hi … it’s Chris and Claire from C.A.R.E.4Paws,” LaBossiere said as she walked toward the encampment. Fellow volunteer Claire Sheehy stayed a few steps back.
The resident pushed the tarp back as she came out to greet the two C.A.R.E.4Paws volunteers with an orange-and-white cat trailing behind her.
“Do you need cat food?” Sheehy asked.
“Yeah, yeah, I do,” she replied.
“Super! I brought some, and I think Chris has some, too,” Sheehy said as the two unclipped and set down their backpacks to retrieve canned food. “So, are you going to have to be moving soon?”
The resident Sheehy and LaBossiere are visiting lives in the Santa Maria Riverbed, which held more encampments earlier in the summer, before cleanups began to clear out the estimated 110 to 150 people living there. Caltrans spearheaded the most recent cleanup under the Highway 101 bridge.
So far, the coordinated effort has cleared more than 50 encampments, Santa Barbara County 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson estimated, but he said it’s difficult to pin down an exact number.
“We’ve been after it. We are going to continue to provide services out there as we help people move beyond the riverbed,” Nelson said. “We’re in it for the long haul. This is not a half measure.”
The county has spent $2.3 million so far out of its $6 million allocation of state grant funding to address encampments.
“Pets is a complicated one because, you know, pets come in many shapes and sizes and species, and that’s a challenge in housing,” Nelson said. “One of the challenges is working with our outreach workers to help in the cases the pet can’t be moved to the housing option.”
After completing the portion under the bridge, the county and its partners are shifting to the west, toward this encampment. The resident said she’s scared to enter Good Samaritan or other shelter options because she doesn’t want to be separated from her five cats; she plans to move elsewhere in the riverbed instead.
“When you’re in a situation like this, and all you really have is your animal for your love, companionship, and support, you know it’s in our best nature to take care of them, to keep them together,” volunteer Sheehy said.
The resident told Sheehy and LaBossiere that she hasn’t received notice for when a cleanup in the area will happen yet, but she’s getting ready just in case. A shopping cart stacked high with her belongings sat nearby, and the black-and-white kitten played with a dangling piece of shredded tarp.
Sheehy and LaBossiere promised to check in with her in a few days—with an extra carrier in hand to help her move her cats. The three exchanged phone numbers to stay in contact, but she wasn’t sure how long her phone would stay charged. She’s sharing a car battery with a few other folks in the riverbed, but she doesn’t know if they’ll be able to keep it when they move.
The volunteers strapped their backpacks and carriers in place and departed from the encampment, falling into an easy rhythm with one another.
“I’m new to it. I’m about a year into it, volunteering. Claire’s been involved a lot longer than me,” LaBossiere said. “We’ve just formed a really good working relationship and friendship and trust each other.”
“You’re my best sidearm I could have,” LaBossiere told Sheehy. “She’s my partner.”
The longtime Santa Maria residents and retirees followed their passion for animals by volunteering for C.A.R.E.4Paws. They help families in the Santa Maria Riverbed every Tuesday alongside other organizations that have set up services since the cleanups began.
They’ve now been in the riverbed five or six times together, distributing food, flea treatments, and working to build trust with the folks who have been living there—some as long as 12 years.
“I think we’re still relationship-building. … It’s going to take time with this particular population to gain that trust,” Sheehy said. “That’s why we need to be down here on a consistent basis, and I think it’s important for them to see two people they recognize, and they may know we’re here for animals. We’re not trying to get them out. We’re not threatening them. We just want to help their animals.”
The C.A.R.E.4Paws mobile veterinary clinic has spayed/neutered about 20 cats and two dogs in its two visits to the riverbed, Executive Director and Co-founder Isabelle Gullo said. She estimates that there might be more than 100 animals in the riverbed.
“I am glad that we’re able to provide boots-on-the-ground support to pet families in the riverbed because it goes beyond the pets,” Gullo said. “We are able to be there to provide support to families living in the riverbed and building relationships we didn’t have before, getting to know new people, and just seeing how much people love their pets, and we want to help as much as we can.”
The mobile clinics have one full-time veterinarian and a veterinarian who works on a contract basis with an eight-person veterinary team of vet technicians and assistants. It costs about $5,000 to roll out the clinic each time.
The nonprofit has hosted two mobile pet health care clinics to provide veterinary and licensing services to residents in the riverbed, with an upcoming clinic on Oct. 11, but they hadn’t yet found a place to park the vans as of Sept. 26.
The clinics provide spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations, food, water, flea treatment, and licensing and chipping services. The work in the riverbed has added at least $15,000 of unbudgeted expenses, Gullo said.
Volunteers or clinicians will often start working with a pet family and suddenly lose connection with that person after a cleanup because they’ve moved, Gullo said.
Moving through the riverbed after visiting the first resident, C.A.R.E.4Paws volunteers Sheehy and LaBossiere searched for another resident they’ve come to know and his dog, a sweet black-and-white cattle dog mix they’ve cared for in the past. But they couldn’t find the right encampment.
“See, things change,” Sheehy said. “It’s also another interesting thing. These people are constantly changing along with the riverbed itself—you know, the sand, the soil, the seasons, all of that. So, each time we come down here, it’s different.”
The two finally found the encampment and learned that the dog recently cut her paw on a piece of glass. The resident said he tried to clean it out as much as possible and cover her foot with a bandage, but the dog shook the covering off.
LaBossiere asked if they could bring his pet to a vet to look at her paw, but he said no, fearing that she would be taken away from him. LaBossiere promised that he would be with his dog the whole time, but he still declined the offer because he was scared that his stuff would be gone if he left the riverbed.
In the meantime, LaBossiere helped him clean the wound with hydrogen peroxide and left him with the bottle—instructing him to reapply it every few days.
When the volunteers and the resident parted ways, the dog followed close to him, limping with her injured paw in the air as she walked.
“It will probably be never-ending,” Sheehy said about their work. “But we do what we can.”
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at toconnor@santamariasun.com.