[Mase]

"When I lived in Santa Barbara in the late 70's,we had many homeless as well."
______________

Santa Barbara was just about as perfect a place anyone could live during the late 70's when I attended school there. The huge homeless problem was the only major (along with home prices/rents) drawback to what was otherwise a wonderful city.

Living in Isla Vista was an eye opener for someone who had never heard of SSI and had never imagined so many people could be content sleeping in a field at night and drinking beer in a park all day.

Last visited there in 1997 and the problem had only become worse. The number of homeless had grown exponentially and their aggressiveness was scary. How a moderately conservative city, so reliant on tourism, could continue to treat this problems with kid gloves for so long amazed me.

[annyokie]

Isla Vista! Gad! You poor thing. I lived on Olive St off of Micheltorena. I could walk to work at the El Presidio.

Santa Barbara is indeed a beautiful city, and is the only city in the USA to have completed their landscaping project. The big concerns when I was living there, was the development of East Beach and the Futures Foundation which at that time was headed by Fess Parker.