By Emerson Malone

The Organic Soup Kitchen (OSK), a nonprofit organization based in Santa Barbara, is now offering a complimentary soup lunch every Wednesday from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Veteran’s Memorial Building.

OSK has garnered a reputation for its philanthropic acts of feeding those in need, particularly on big family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Anthony Carroccio, OSK’s executive director, has been offering this new lunch service for the past month. The service is not limited to veterans, however, and many of its patrons are homeless.

“How do you say no to someone who’s not a veteran?” Carroccio asked. “I’m doing as much as I can with what I’ve got to work with given the whole operation. If anyone came in that wasn’t a veteran, we would still accommodate them  . . . I don’t treat anybody like they’re homeless.”

Carroccio is not a veteran but he respects their service.

“I wasn’t going to go to Vietnam,” he said. “I felt bad for the guys that did. That’s why I feed them.”

So far, there has not been a high turnout of veterans because the program is still relatively new. Carroccio is somewhat wary of repeating OSK’s previous tradition of offering a free meal to the homeless.

OSK occupied the Veteran’s Memorial Building every Sunday morning for nine months in 2010 and part of 2011, feeding Santa Barbara’s hungry and homeless residents. The program became extremely popular. But it reached its end after homeless people began to camp in sleeping bags outside the building on Saturday night.

“Since there are no toilets outside, it wasn’t too pleasant for the nearby hotels,” Carroccio said. “Now they’ve given me the green light to use it again. We’ll see what happens . . . We just got to start getting the word out there. We’ll take our chances. If people don’t behave, we’ll figure something out.”

Other programs offered by OSK include “Baby Carrots,” in which low-income pregnant women are given food during their pregnancy and while they’re breastfeeding. OSK also offers “Wise Elder” a program designed to provide nutritious food for housebound elderly people.

OSK is especially busy during the holidays. Their Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts at the Veteran’s Memorial Building are by now famous events, drawing almost as many volunteers as diners, and creating a venue for residents of all varying socio-economic brackets to mingle.

The weekly soup lunches heat up every Wednesday from 12:00 p.m. and to 1:30 p.m. at the Veteran’s Memorial Building on Cabrillo Boulevard.

For more information on the Organic Soup Kitchen, visit organicsoupkitchen.org. or call (805) 568-0020

After being closed down for eight days, Marks House homeless shelter in Lompoc reopened on Wednesday, January 25th.
The City of Lompoc still holds ownership of the Marks House’s property, but Good Samaritan, Inc. is providing shelter services at the location, including drug and alcohol treatment and detox.
In fact, two Lompoc homeless shelters, Marks House and Bridgehouse, received eviction notices from Lompoc Community Housing Development Corporation (LHCDC) on January 12th. The night after the notice was served, residents were told they would have to leave.  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 16th, was the last day of operation for the two shelters. .
“When they woke up on the 17th, they weren’t allowed to live there anymore,” said Mike Foley, the executive director of Santa Barbara’s Casa Esperanza homeless shelter.
LHCDC reportedly served eviction papers three days before a holiday weekend.
“There was almost nothing we could do,” Foley said. “It was really the last slap in the face from LHCDC to that community.”
The displaced residents were given the option of going to the Lompoc warming center at New Life Christian Church. Some were relocated to Casa Esperanza, while others dispersed to parts unknown.
Warming centers typically open only when there is a 50% chance of rain or temperatures are expected to drop below 35 degrees. But the Lompoc warming center has agreed to stay open on a nightly basis for the displaced homeless until Bridgehouse reopens.
“It is a quick fix,” said Sylvia Bernard, the Executive Director of Santa Maria’s Good Samaritan shelter. “It is not a long-term solution.”
A homeless shelter, as opposed to a warming center, usually has rules that prohibit alcohol and drug use.  Individuals with addictions often refuse to use shelters for this reason, but will avail themselves of warming centers.
“[People who use the Warming Centers] often don’t like to mix with the more focused people who are experiencing homelessness and want to be in a structured environment [like a shelter],” Foley said.
“It was simply a design to keep people alive rather than dying of hypothermia in the cold,” he said. “It’s an alternative to dying on the street.”
Pastor Doug Conley, of New Life Christian Center, is making sure his warming center guests are fed nightly, a privilege those who lived at Bridgehouse did not receive before their shutdown.
“[Bridgehouse managers] were in a desperate situation, and they stopped giving people food,” Foley said. “People who came to live there who typically got fed dinner did not get fed anything. They got a cup of soup if they were lucky.”
The reopening of Bridgehouse may take up to a month, because the property is not on city-owned land but county-owned land. Good Samaritan, Inc. was the only applicant to manage it.
The proposed budget from Good Samaritan estimates the cost to operate Marks House will be $90,000 annually.
Good Samaritan will host a “Hearts for the Homeless” fundraiser to help maintain Marks House on February 14th at the New Life Christian Church at 816 North C Street in Lompoc. The event will include a raffle and dinner catered by Pastor Conley.
Tickets for the fundraiser are $25 each, and can be purchased by calling (805) 698-1174, or (805) 737-9536.
To help donate for the shelters, you can visit goodsamshelter.org, or call Good Samaritan, Inc. at (805) 246-8185.

By Emerson Malone

There has been the closing of the two main homeless shelters in Lompoc, Ca because of apparent mismanagement and lack of revenue.  This is another example of extreme stress on the County’s publicly-funded mental health system and programs for homeless residents. The responsibility for the failure of the shelters lies partly with the misguided approach they, and other programs, have employed.
The management method described below has shown its effectiveness in a number of locations recently, but usually where public money hasn’t been available to “throw at the problem”. For example, there is the new family homeless shelter in Williamsport, Pa. This 501(c)(3) charity earns its operational costs by having a collection center for used goods and a series of outlet stores where discounted goods are sold after being refurbished and cleaned by the people who are receiving care and housing of the shelter. (This is Similar to the Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Centers). In this case, residents were allowed to regroup and save money to begin rebuilding their lives. That County government’s funds weren’t involved, though  planning and zoning codes were enforced. The results of this program are highly promising, with a success rate of over 70% in the stable re-housing of its participants.
With this example in mind, let’s explore the following project as an alternative method for addressing the needs of homeless residents here and creating programs  for helping them.
The goal of my new program is to provide a sanctuary for people that are homeless and animals who have been abandoned or lost; that is, unwanted or unacceptable companion animals that were once out of options would potentially be given years of live at this sanctuary, which could be called Rebound Ranch.
To generate operational revenue, there would be short-term boarding care and adoption opportunities for adoptable animals at reasonable rates.
The care of the animals on the ranch would be a year-round, 24/7 process. Dogs could have outdoor play all day long, according to the weather; they would sleep in oversized indoor areas and  old-timers would get special homey care in one of the two residences. Cats would be in free-roaming, totally indoor areas with plenty of beds, toys, and shelves to hang out on. And the large four-legged animals would be offered acres of their own and with shelters in abundance. All farm critters would  have safe and comfy spaces.
The Animals would be known personally to the live-in volunteers, workers who would be on call 24/7. There would be a sense of calm and predictability in the established routine of caring for the animals. This concept is different from the majority of animal welfare groups; it helps human animals also. In the coming years, homeless caregivers would come to the ranch seeking shelter from homelessness due to eviction, domestic abuse, or substance abuse issues. They would stay as long as the “fit” works; some will be there for weeks or months; or for a lifetime in cases of terminal illness.
In addition, there would be an opportunity for an on-line sales of products produced at the ranch, proceeds of which would support the shelter. (This would provide training in e-commerce and online analytics)
The program would have a low profile, intended to keep the multi-objectives of the program from attracting an over-abundance of needy applicants, and thus overloading the system. Yet word should be out regarding this no-kill sanctuary, spread by other animal welfare groups, corporations, and individuals.
The shelter can expect to receive a deceased parent’s loyal old dog or cat from family members unable to care for it, or a lame horse from an owner no longer able to ride, or the chickens, ducks and geese from a homeowner facing foreclosure. The reasons why people give up animals is as diverse.
The shuttering of the Lompoc Shelters offers a perfect opportunity to rebuild the failing social-service system of Santa Barbara County and else where in our troubled nation.

Joshua Hall currently lives in Lopmoc with his family. He has worked in homeless shelters in several American cities and is currently unemployed.