It’s a New Year and a new life for Gigi Schneider, one of six people chosen in 2017 to move into El Carrillo, the only apartment complex in Santa Barbara exclusively serving a formerly homeless clientele.

Schneider is one of only 123 homeless people in Santa Barbara County who were placed in permanent housing in 2017 by county and city housing authorities and Peoples’ Self-Help Housing, a nonprofit group. That’s out of a total homeless population of 1,860, or about 1 out of every 15. The population count is tallied by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), based on a “point-in-time” survey that was conducted last January 26 by the Central Coast Collaborative on Homelessness (C3H), a countywide program.

Now, under the direction of United Way, a national nonprofit organization, a new initiative called Home for Good is underway in Santa Barbara County. A major goal, organizers said, is to speed up the placement of the chronically homeless in permanent housing, complete with onsite mental health services and a live-in property manager.

The move to Home for Good was approved by the C3H policy council of elected officials in December. The annual C3H budget of $400,000 has been transferred to Home for Good, Taylor said; the council will be expanded with representatives from nonprofit foundations, hospitals and city and county housing authorities and renamed the Home for Good Santa Barbara County Funders Collaborative.

To read more of Melinda Burns' article, http://www.keyt.com/news/home-...ara-county/681148074