Santa Barbara News Press
Local News
[includes four file photos, not shown here, captioned:]
Michael Cooper
Downtown Organization
Frank Banales
Businesman
Joe Williams III
Activist
David Crockett Williams
Activist
Saturday, May 8, 1993
Homeless to help economic recovery
By Lori Steinhauer
News-Press Staff Writer
Homeless activists and business leaders vowed Friday to wash away their past
differences and work toward economic recovery for Santa Barbara and all its
residents.
"In general, people agreed to work on the idea," said homeless activist
David Crockett Williams.
"We need to have a new type of relationship," said another homeless
activist,
Joe Williams III.
Twelve people sat around a table and hashed out possible ways to organize an
economic recovery center operated mainly by the homeless.
Ideas varied as to how the goals should be achieved.
The group agreed to unify in seeking help at the City-County Homelss Task
Force meeting Thursday in the county Board of Supervisors meeting room.
The task force is a coalition of government and non-profit providers of
services for the homeless.
Crockett said he would prefer an economic recovery center be operated
strictly with private funds so it can be run like a business, and not be
tied to governmental strings. But he is open to seeing what the government
will offer if others want to pursue public funding.
He has started the concept into motion by renting a 10-foot by 10-foot
office on Upper State Street for $143 monthly. With a phone and a computer
and plans to purchase cellular phones, he is starting up a bicycle courier
service for Santa Barbara businesses and has a couple of couriers handing
out flyers.
Crockett hopes the operation can expand to a full-service economic recovery
center for people with and without a home. Now a businessman who runs a
chemical safety training business, Crockett knows about life on the
streets, having been homeless for a time.
Bob Phinney, past Downtown Organization chairman, said the group could
ask downtown businesses if they are willing to help fund such a center.
Michael Cooper, chairman of the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization
said business leaders and homeless activists should lobby together for help
from local and state government.
The meeting was initiated by Santa Barbara businessman Frank Banales and
Councilman Gilbert Garcia. The two agreed to meet with Williams and others
after Williams on March 20 and 21 led a march on State Street protesting
some business leaders' treatment of the homeless. At Williams' request,
Banales and Garcia agreed to serve as liaisons between the homeless
activists and the business leaders.
Williams has complained that some business leaders have stereotyped homeless
people as panhandling bums and encouraged stepped up police enforcement of
laws designed to harass the homeless, such as the public sleeping ban.
"It is so costly to prosecute people for the act of sleeping," said Nancy
McGrady, a longtime Santa Barbara homeless rights activist.