Guest Commentary: In Santa Barbara homeless and vagrants are not the same

In an article for the Montecito Journal, Lang Martinez, who has experienced homelessness as a former addict, argues that chronic vagrancy and homelessness are two different sets of problems and should be treated as such. 

He claims that the government's Housing First Model and programs like Project Room Key have had a less than desirable outcome for sustaining an individual in long-term permanent housing solutions. Millions of dollars are being spent on these programs, but the funds lack public scrutiny and transparency, and outcomes are not measured effectively. 

Lang suggests that the public should question how and if their tax dollars are being allocated to reduce the overall impacts of homelessness and vagrancy, and a formal ad hoc committee should be convened to evaluate local government funding for homeless services. The committee would provide the public with the transparency needed to know why the current funding practices are not fixing the problem. 

Lang believes that services today should be focused on aggressive treatment practices and relieve law enforcement and emergency medical responders from having to redundantly care for the chronic vagrancy issues that the public faces on a daily basis. Source: Montecito Journal