To the well-to-do residents of the oceanside resort city of Santa Barbara, Calif., they are known as tree people, after Fig Tree Park, a place many of them call home. Palms outstretched, the scruffy men and women beg from pedestrians on the main shopping artery. They urinate in alleys, rummage for food in supermarket dumpsters, snooze on store stoops. Their beer cans and assorted flotsam dot the lush green parks. They are Santa Barbara's homeless, perhaps 2,000 displaced people in a population of 75,000. The city's mostly retired, wealthy, conservative Establishment, although resigned to their presence, is determined to contain their...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
