COUNTY LEADERS SOLVE HOMELESSNESS... BY MAKING IT DISAPPEAR!

Noozhawk dutifully reported last week on Supervisor Steve Lavagnino’s groundbreaking discovery: if you clear out homeless encampments, you see fewer homeless encampments! Who knew? Apparently, the county’s vaunted 'encampment-clearance team' is so effective, it's now 'hard to go out and find' the very visible signs of societal failure that once dotted our picturesque landscape. It's a miracle of progressive governance – simply sweep the unsightly mess under the rug, and declare victory.

Now, about the 'math of living indoors' Mr. Mellinger references. Our bet is the county's preferred equation for the unhoused remains stubbornly rooted in zero. As in, zero affordable housing projects that aren't mired in red tape or exorbitant taxes, zero effective long-term solutions, and zero accountability for the spiraling costs of all this 'compassion.' But hey, at least the bike path looks cleaner for our well-heeled tourists. Ignorance, it seems, isn't just bliss; it's also a publicly funded strategy.

While our local overlords pat themselves on the back for making the homeless 'invisible,' perhaps they could spare a moment to calculate the math of living outdoors. It usually involves a lot less bureaucracy and a lot more freedom than the 'solutions' peddled by the very same officials who champion dense, expensive, and government-controlled housing projects. It seems the only thing harder to find than an encampment now is a county official willing to admit their policies are the problem, not the solution. But don't worry, the 'math' will eventually be done for them, likely by those outside the protected Santa Barbara bubble.