Last Stop Paradise: six short stories of the homeless in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, California is a beautiful coastal city of around 100,000 nestled between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Its Spanish colonial heritage is marked by white buildings with red tiled roofs. Most people count themselves lucky to live here. But there are those whose luck has run out. They are the homeless of contemporary society: the war veterans with PTSD, the runaways from abusive relationships, the addicted and the discarded. For many of them, Santa Barbara is a last stop on a long disheartening journey. Yet, these homeless are above all individuals with full, complex life histories. This collection of stories imagines six of them.