Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara

"I could cite other drawbacks to residing in subsidized housing but will limit myself to one, the threat of violence. Shortly after I moved in the boyfriend of a neighboring tenant was tasered outside her door by the police. I had never heard anyone yell out like that before, a disturbing welcome. The first time I was threatened was when I confronted the tenant downstairs over his television. I had complained since he moved in about the noise he and his barroom guests were making but to no avail. When I reported the incident, I was reprimanded for not being able to deescalate the situation. An alcoholic, he died before another year was out. As an aside, I’ve been told that if I was dissatisfied with my housing I was welcome to take my voucher to a private landlord. I was threatened by a tenant from a neighboring apartment during a food distribution, not once but twice. He filed a complaint along with a witness claiming that I had hit him while grabbing something. Later, after a stint at anger management, he followed the same playbook. I would’ve faced repercussions if both hadn’t been contradicted by surveillance footage. Previously, I learned the tenant had threatened two others, narrowly having missed hitting one. Despite evidence that was provided to the police, he was allowed to remain without remediation. Back to the beginning. I was told the tenant was being relocated after her boyfriend threatened a neighbor in a dispute over noise. I’ll point out the obvious in saying that doing so will subject her next neighbors to the same problem. Soon after she was relocated her ex-neighbor answered his door to the police. They demanded to know where she was. I’d be remiss not to state that I’ve found most of the staff are sincere in trying to be of help."

"Don't ever let the nasty beggars of santa barbara County use your information to collect public money. The city has repeatedly tried running me off my job and force me into housing. A lot to do with racial bias and favoritism towards Latin people. Support gang members with our tax dollars while harassing disenfranchised people like me who have no family."

"As a resident I can say this place does not feel like home after you are here for a while. The office staff people are very rude, inconsiderate, they don't care if you have a request and write it out suggesting that I put a nice flower here and there turns out to be a liability. Every request I've ever made is a liability. Now I know why a lot people out on the street don't want to come here to these places. Cuz of the way they shackle you up and put cameras all over the place to spy on you. And claim it's for your safety. 48 cameras 50 cameras in a small little apartment complex with 16 units? Something really wrong with the power to weight ratio there. Any process you enter with these people is a nightmare in terms of the amount of time it takes the rudeness the inconsiderate this the lack of attention to detail and basically caring about doing a good job are all not present here. I had better I had better receptions in Middle Eastern hotels back in the war.don't get me wrong I am truly grateful for having a place to live but all this other hoopla the mom and dad rules we are adults we're military veterans were being treated as something totally different. It doesn't feel like home. That's the federal government for you."

"For renters, they offer lots of housing program options, not just section 8. Low income and elderly is definitely a focus for them, but there are also some options for the local working class. I'm rating 5 stars because they really do try to offer a variety of services and take good care of their managed properties. For owners, so far everyone I've met from this place have all been normal good people trying to help other people. I think the reviews are skewed a bit by what, 6? 7? Out of hundreds of landlords who have been successful with the Housing Authority, so keep that in mind if you're using Google reviews to guide your decision making on whether to join as a landlord or not. Take the bad reviews as information about some of the challenges you may face and realize that if too much paperwork or a receptionist having a bad day is the worst thing people have to say, it's probably not that bad to be a landlord at all."

"Tons of paperwork, disclosing much private information is required. Ten to twenty pages of documents I had to print, sign, scan, and send. I received no help when tenant violated the terms of the rental agreement. I will never deal with them again."