Homeless Again : Storms Drive Riverbed Residents to Higher Ground

Hanging from a clothesline outside Troll Hole II, Robert (Red) Clark’s bedding was still damp Tuesday morning from the soaking he and his belongings had taken from a string of rainstorms.

Clark, a former construction worker, moved into the empty shanty beneath the Main Street bridge after the Ventura River’s highest flows in five years forced him from his river-bottom encampment early Friday morning. A fellow riverbed resident, T. J. Atherholt, who earlier was washed out of his campsite, took refuge in Clark’s lean-to with the onset of more rain Monday night.

“The homeless got even more homeless when these rains came. Double homelessness,” said Atherholt, a former machinist who has lived in the river bottom since September. “Mother Nature reclaimed the riverbed.”

While farmers and homeowners facing drought-induced water rationing welcomed the downpours that began last Wednesday, the deluge forced many of the estimated 300 Ventura riverbed dwellers from their tents and hovels, washed away their clothing, cookware and personal belongings, or at the least, drenched them.

In the last week, the county’s homeless shelters have been pressed to capacity. On Monday night, the Ventura County Rescue Mission in Oxnard had to turn away nearly 40 people seeking overnight shelter from yet another rainstorm, said Dave Shaw, operations manager.

Shaw said about 20 residents from the Santa Clara River bed were forced to seek higher ground when the river last week flowed to the ocean for the first time since 1986. The homeless community there is far smaller than in the Ventura River bed, where some have lived for nearly a decade. They eke out a living by panhandling, hunting for recyclable bottles and cans and “dumpster diving” for salvageable food and other items.

Most of the makeshift shelters, some far more elaborately constructed than others, are hidden from view in the 200-yard-wide riverbed by tree limbs and underbrush. Hundreds of empty three-liter bottles of jug wine are piled near several of the encampments. The most popular sells for $4.12, including tax.

Mark Single, 23, was stranded for two days in his two-bedroom shanty on an island created by chest-high water that rose around his encampment in the riverbed. Having earlier retrieved a box of discarded meat, produce and bread from a nearby supermarket dumpster, Single had enough food to get by and entertained himself with a 5-inch portable television powered by a car battery. The water had receded to stream depth by Tuesday morning.

Atherholt, 34, said he awoke at 2 a.m. Friday when his foam-rubber mattress became saturated from water that was 3 inches deep. “I just bailed out, grabbed a wool blanket and went to find another place to sleep.”

While looking for a dry spot with an overhang near Ventura Avenue, Atherholt said he happened on a man who gave him money for a room at a nearby motel. “That was really neat,” he said. “Times like that you realize there is a God.”

Dale Jenkins, a former printing press operator from Mississippi, said he and a friend had to break through a wall of their hovel Friday morning to escape the rising water, which claimed some clothing, shoes and a radio. He set up a tent after retreating up the riverbank.

Clark claimed squatter’s rights last week to the dwelling beneath the bridge dubbed Troll Hole II by the area’s homeless. He placed rugs on its dirt floor and ceded a corner to his dog and her litter of nine pups, seven of which he said he has since sold from a wagon on the street for $15 to $20 each. Troll Hole I is a more sturdily built shanty next door.

Clark, who frequents nearby food kitchens, said he earns as much as $20 a day salvaging recyclables, occasionally hauling in 500 or more pounds of glass a day.

“I’ve got some restaurants and bars that save them for me,” said Clark, 42. “I walk in the bars and they tell me, ‘Just take the empties, Red.’ They’re kind of explicit about that.”

He said the rainfall has “really messed up a lot of the camps.” But the people living in the Ventura river bottom are resilient in their way, he said, and help each other through difficult times.

“Stuff that dried out over the weekend got wet again Monday, but that’s OK. It washes everything out,” Clark said. “If we get more rain, we’ll deal with it as it comes.”