Exceptional Civilian Award

Sharon Byrne Awarded for Her Work with Hands Across Montecito and the MA

by Eileen Read

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office awarded its Exceptional Civilian Award to Montecito Association Executive Director Sharon Byrne , citing her “extraordinary dedication to others and her collaborative work” with the Sheriff’s deputies, primarily in creating and managing the Hands Across Montecito project to address homelessness. The award described Ms. Byrne as “an accomplished neighborhood advocate who has dedicated her career to supporting the people and improving the communities in Santa Barbara County.” Sharon sat down with journalist and Hands Across Montecito Founding Board Member Eileen White Read to discuss why it appears to be so difficult to get unhoused people to leave the streets, and whether she believes new projects and policies will help reduce homelessness in our village and our county – particularly as soaring apartment rental prices have cut many working people out.

Q. Sharon, the Sheriff’s award is so well deserved, and it’s fitting that you are receiving it as we’re almost at the three-year anniversary of the Hands Across Montecito project – as well as five years at the Montecito Association. You have made such strides in persuading Caltrans and, more recently, Union Pacific, to help us clean out camps from the wooded areas between the freeway, and the railroad tracks, and the beach. But I remember we got started because you organized a meeting after several of us called to complain about vandalism in our gated beachside communities, electric bikes stolen from garages, and evidence of drugs and stolen bicycles that we found in the wooded areas along the tracks. We called you because we thought it was criminal gangs, and I remember being shocked at our first get-together when you used the words homeless and Montecito in the same sentence. You were already very on top of this issue.

A. What you didn’t know was that I had already connected your ‘crime wave’ to the homeless because I had been walking the railroad tracks with Luis Alvarado from the County’s Behavioral Wellness department and Lt. Butch Arnoldi. I knew there were homeless young people staying near the beach because I chaired the county’s Behavioral Wellness Commission. It was when you folks from Bonnymede and Montecito Shores and Sea Meadow came to me that I connected your location with foot crimes and with who was likely committing them. It wasn’t a pickup truck going past the guard at the gatehouse to get those bikes! We also found evidence of ramExceptional Civilian Award Page 234