Wayne Mellinger: How a Monthly Lunch Helped Shape Santa Barbara’s Response to Homelessness

Wayne Mellinger: How a Monthly Lunch Helped Shape Santa Barbara’s Response to Homelessness

The meetings did not take place around a conference table. They took place in a large circle overlooking the Pacific Ocean. On the wall of that room, hand-lettered in careful calligraphy on a white-painted brick surface, were names. Dozens of them. The names of homeless men and women who had died on the streets of Santa Barbara. One name per brick. A record kept by the late Ken Williams, a county social worker who spent three decades walking the…