Council Rejects Use of House as Homeless Center

A plan to open a daytime homeless center in a Thousand Oaks residential area was shot down by the City Council after homeowners complained that it would tarnish their neighborhood.

The council decided Tuesday night not to consider a zoning change that would have allowed the Conejo Homeless Assistance Program to convert a 61-year-old house at 3046 Crescent Way into a drop-in center. The neighborhood is now a residential zone.

The council unanimously decided that a committee should find other sites in town where the homeless could gather during the day, possibly in an industrial zone.

The decision upset Councilwoman Judy Lazar, who wept as she urged council members against studying other sites.

“I hate to see this not happen,” Lazar said. “We will never find a location where people will unanimously say, ‘Put it here.’ ”

Neighbors criticized the program for selecting the site next to Manna, a food bank that has supplied homeless and poor people for 12 years. They contended that Manna already attracts transients and drug users.

Councilman Alex Fiore said he could not support placing the center in a residential neighborhood.

“I don’t care if you have saints that go there,” he said. “It’s got to affect property values.”

The council’s action effectively kills the first location proposed for the first year-round homeless center in the eastern part of Ventura County.

The Conejo Homeless Assistance Program operates a nighttime shelter from December to March, but has no permanent facility where homeless people can stay during the day. About 100 people, including 41 families, used the nighttime shelter last winter, Chairman Roger Toft said.

After the nearly two-hour hearing, about 20 people who live or own businesses near the house on Crescent Way broke into applause.

“We’re all real pleased,” said Cindy Hammond, 26, who lives two doors away from the house. “A lot of us had the feeling that the city was behind this particular site.”

The center’s troubles began last week after volunteers from the homeless assistance program announced plans to convert the abandoned, two-bedroom house into a place where homeless people could take showers, receive mail and phone calls and get help finding jobs.

The program has a $50,000 grant from the city to buy a building for the center. However, the deal to buy the house would only have gone through if the City Council agreed to change the zoning.

Some homeowners said the city failed to notify them of the deal and accused the city of trying to avoid community opposition by withholding information.

“I don’t want to see drug addicts sitting around and near our playground,” said Shirani Dhawan, a teacher and principal of a Montessori school across the street. “I’m gravely concerned about the safety of my children, and so are their parents.”

Toft told the council that the site was chosen because of its central location next to bus lines and next door to Manna. He criticized the neighbors who said they wanted to help the homeless but said that the presence of a homeless center would devalue their property.

In fact, the blue-collar neighborhood has been run-down for years, and the house that the program planned to buy was an eyesore, he said. Volunteers planned to improve the neighborhood by fixing the house, removing weeds and building a parking lot.

“It was more NIMBY,” Toft said of the community opposition, using the acronym for the expression “Not in My Back Yard.”

“The homeless are a popular cause until you see them up close,” he said, “and then they’re derelicts, drug addicts and perverts.”

Toft said he was disappointed that some council members favor placing the center in an industrial zone rather than among other homes.

“It was an unenlightened decision,” Toft said. “These people are looking for a housing situation, not to be next to a Burger King.”

He vowed to continue putting pressure on the city to help the group find a site where the homeless can get help.

“We’re not going to let them forget. We’re going to hound them to death,” he said.

Nancy Nazario, a social worker who works with the county’s homeless, said she was not surprised that the city bowed to community pressure. The fear of homeless people has caused opposition to shelters in Ventura and Oxnard, she said.

But Thousand Oaks, one of the county’s most affluent communities, cannot afford to ignore its homeless people for long, Nazario said.

Last year, 73 of the 1,843 homeless people in Ventura County who responded to a U.S. Census survey lived in Thousand Oaks. And the recession has increased the number of people living on the streets all over the county, she said.

“It’s kind of like ignoring cancer. . . . The problem isn’t going to go away at this point,” she said.