Poor See Ugly Side of Santa Barbara Face Lift

SANTA BARBARA —  The Hotel Virginia reopens Wednesday as a new Holiday Inn featuring original artwork in freshly decorated rooms that will cost $75 to $170 a night. The four-story hotel will be a far cry from the seedy flophouse it was just a year ago.

Many civic leaders welcome the change as further proof of resurgent tourism in downtown Santa Barbara. But not everyone is celebrating in this oceanside city that has had a difficult history of dealing with a sizable homeless population.

In its former life, the Virginia rented dingy rooms for $350 to $500 a month, mainly to the poor on various government assistance programs. Although the hotel needed major repairs, social workers and the homeless mourn its gentrification and similar changes at four other downtown hotels that all in all provided more than 300 low-cost beds.

“Homeless encampments have been blamed for polluting the beaches. But people don’t just disappear because you’ve gentrified downtown Santa Barbara,” said county social worker Ken Williams. “You just can’t close down where the homeless live. They still live.”

He complained that the city did little to keep the rooms affordable to the poor or to help former residents of the hotels during the changes that began two years ago.

City and business leaders deny those charges. They emphasize that the old hotels needed seismic repairs, and that gearing them toward tourism was the only way to pay the huge construction bills.

“Would it have been a good idea to let those hotels stay for general relief and not require seismic updating?” asked city planner Don Olson.

The city helped relocate former hotel residents, although many were moved to Goleta, Isla Vista and elsewhere in the county because Santa Barbara housing is so expensive.

The officials also cite a $1.8-million city grant about 10 years ago that saved the 125-bed Faulding Hotel as what is now the last downtown hotel that is affordable for the poor. The city is also helping finance a 100-unit assisted living center for low-income senior citizens and other projects for the poor.

Business leaders are thrilled about what the hotels’ rebirth means for the State Street district, which is lined with department stores, boutiques, upscale shops, bars and restaurants. The switch to more upscale clientele at the hotels is an unavoidable change, some say.

“There’s always a problem with redevelopment, the displacement of lower-income residents in those areas,” said Steve Cushman, executive director of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce.

In the past, the homeless have hurt trade, Cushman said. “The negative effect on a retailer is someone standing outside their door panhandling. An alcoholic person displaying aggressive behavior in front of the store will tend to make shoppers cross the street,” he said.

Officials estimate that 3,000 to 6,000 homeless live in Santa Barbara County. Social worker Williams said those numbers include people on various forms of aid who are in and out of low-end housing.

The hotel changes began about two years ago when the Schooner Inn stopped taking the very poor and was remodeled into the Hotel Santa Barbara. Then the Carillo Hotel was torn down to make room for a still-unbuilt convention center hotel. The Californian Hotel, which had always served a combination of tourists and aid recipients, stopped taking people on county general relief within the last year. The Adobe, which stopped taking poor residents this year, is also undergoing remodeling.

Mandate From City

Marc Recordon bought the Hotel Virginia a year ago when the city was pressuring the former owner to retrofit for earthquake safety.

“There were no ifs, ands, or buts from the city,” Recordon said. “They said, ‘Empty that hotel and retrofit yesterday.’ ”

Recordon considered trying to keep it for low-income customers. “I looked at the numbers for turning it into studio apartments,” Recordon said, recounting expenses for such improvements as fire sprinklers and a new electrical system. “They just didn’t pencil out.”

Recordon gutted the 83-year-old building in a remodeling job that was supposed to cost a “couple million dollars,” but will end up costing more, he said.

Joel Jacks is general manager of the Hotel Santa Barbara, which family members have owned since 1975 when it was still the Schooner Inn. Facing extensive repairs, he lobbied his family to convert it to a more upscale “boutique” hotel. Rooms now rent for $89 to $149 a night.

All the refurbished hotels either hired relocation experts or worked with the city to find housing for those displaced.

“These people were like family. My parents got really involved in finding people apartments,” Jacks said.

The homeless are more negative on what has happened to what they considered “their” hotels.

“Closing them just puts more people on the street, simple as that,” said Mark Edmonds. He has lived for 25 years in Santa Barbara, staying at various times at the Virginia, Schooner Inn, the Californian and the Faulding hotels. He now sleeps at the National Guard Armory, which provides 200 free cots during winter months.

Sue Adams heads a coalition of city, church and business leaders that was formed in May 1998. It recently received a $468,000 federal grant to start a day center where the homeless can receive services, eat meals, get mail, take showers and do laundry. She would like to have an overnight shelter available before the armory ends its winter program in mid-March.

“We know there is a low-cost housing crunch here. This is something we’re very sensitive to. It’s not something where we feel we’re a country club and want to keep people out,” Adams said.

Adams, now retired, had owned a State Street business for 19 years. Unlike many other business leaders, she was never against the old hotels. “I was glad they were there for those people,” she said.

All sides agree exorbitant rents and a vacancy rate of less than 1% for rentals make it difficult to find cheap housing in the city of Santa Barbara. Studio apartments start at $800 per month and three-bedroom houses approach $2,000 per month, ads show.

Isabel Blagborne, outreach coordinator at Project Recovery for substance abusers, said it is not even an issue whether her homeless clients can find housing. “It’s whether my employees can,” she said.

Many of the older homeless talk about a connection with the old hotels, a connection now lost.

Jimmy “Pop” Wimberly, 66, was drinking a 40-ounce bottle of beer one recent morning in a grassy park near the city’s historic Stearns Wharf. A Korean War veteran, he used to live at the Carillo and was among those given Section 8 federal subsidies to move, he said.

“My life got all screwed up when they closed the Carillo,” he said, telling of personal problems and eviction from a Goleta apartment.

Wimberly is back in Santa Barbara staying in the armory at night, and sleeping on the beach during the day.

“I do have an address,” he said. “Mine is bush No. 3 over there.”