Wayne Mellinger

My name is Wayne Mellinger. I live in Santa Barbara, California, where I have worked as a social worker for the homeless for a variety of agencies including WIllBridge of Santa Barbara, Transition House, Casa Espeanza and New Beginnings Counseling Center.

I have a particular passion for helping chronically homeless and dually diagnosed individuals transition into permanent housing. and gain self-sufficiency. A certified drug and alcohol counselor, I have done street outreach, personal counseling, dual diagnosis groups and case management. I also teach sociology, social psychology, human service and social justice classes at Antioch University Santa Barbara.

I am a sociologist by training, and have spent much of the past twenty years teaching sociology at various colleges, including the Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Berkeley campuses of the University of California, the Fielding Graduate University, and Ventura College.

I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from UC-Santa Barbara. Back then my interests were in Ethnomethodology / Conversation Analysis, and the Sociology of Work and Organizations. I have done research on these topics, and others including cultural studies, media studies, race relations, drug and alcohol studies, everyday life.

I am an anti-oppression educator, interested in the intersectionality of race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. I bring a social justice orientation to all of my work.

My publications are listed here:

http://www.getcited.org/mbrx/PT/99/MBR/11104788

I am an avid blogger. One of blog is called "Doing Modernity: Using Critical Interactionism to Study Everyday Life". In it I explore topics concerning creating a "Critical Interactionist" account of modern social life. Find it here:

http://doingmodernity.blogspot.com/

My other blog is called "Our Neighbors on the Strets" and it concerns news about those on the streets, anything concerning homelessness in Santa Barbara, particularly from a social justice orientation.

http://ourneighborsonthestreets.blogspot.com/

I am active as a Social Justice Advocate, especially for our neighbors on the streets. I was appointed by Santa barbara Supervisor Doreen Farr to sit for a second three year term for the South Coast Homeless Advisory Committee. I was one of the founders of the Freedom Warming Centers. I founded the Santa Barbara Homeless Foot Washing in 2007 and have been active in that for the past five years. I also worked on the team responsible for Survival Santa Barbara in 2011.

I have active in the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara since 2005, and seek to mobilize interfaith communities on social justice issues. In that regard, I am a board member of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), a non-profit mobilizing our local faith communities around issues of economic inequity.

I am also a columnist for Noozhawk, where I write about social justice issues. An archive of my articles in found here:

http://www.noozhawk.com/wayne_mellinger