Ministry Accused of Safety Violations : Social services: The county plans to file criminal counts against the outreach program over conditions at its center.

Victory Outreach of Oxnard, a Christian ministry widely praised for its work with drug addicts and gang members, is facing criminal prosecution for unsafe conditions at a drug rehabilitation center that it recently opened near Santa Paula, county officials said Tuesday.

Leaders of the religious-based program say that they are ready to make the required building safety improvements, but that county officials have made it impossible to continue operating the program while repairs are made.

County officials have issued Victory Outreach a notice of violation, accusing the ministry of illegally converting a barn at the 34-acre farm into a dormitory, and housing 20 clients there in violation of health and safety codes.

On Monday, the county informed the ministry’s leaders that it will soon file criminal charges against the group for failing to initiate a plan to correct the violations.

The Rev. Bob Herrera, who started Victory Outreach in his Ventura home seven years ago, said the ministry intends to comply with the law, but needs more cooperation from county officials. He said the county’s insistence that he evict the clients while repairs are made is cruel, since the men have no other place to go.

“We’re willing to bring everything up to code,” Herrera said Tuesday. “What we’re not willing to do is to allow these men back into the streets.”

Furthermore, Herrera said, officials won’t allow Victory Outreach to erect a temporary shelter on the farm property while repairs are made because it lacks the proper use permit to operate a rehabilitation center.

Among the problems cited at the center are a lack of adequate windows, exits, smoke alarms and the presence of unsafe electrical wiring. Water from a shower now drains into an orchard, presenting a health hazard, said Bill Windroth, the county’s top building and safety official.

“The only thing that’s been converted is they’ve put people in the barn instead of horses,” Windroth said.

Victory Outreach would have to spend between $100,000 and $150,000 to correct the code violations, or expand an existing farmhouse to accommodate all the clients, said architect W. Gayle Daniels, who has assisted the church program.

But beyond the issue of cost is whether the property’s zoning as open space can permit Victory Outreach to operate a residential rehabilitation program, said Todd Collart, a county planning official.

Part of the problem is how to define the Victory Outreach program. Seminaries and retreats are permitted in the open space zone, but rehabilitation centers are not, he said. “We’re not saying you can’t put people there, but it requires a special permit to do it,” Collart said.

But county officials will not issue a permit until all issues are resolved and they insist that Victory Outreach immediately move out of the barn.

“We’re at a bureaucratic impasse unless we kick everybody off the farm, and shut down the program for a year while we get the permit,” Daniels said.

None of the county officials dispute the success that the ministry has achieved in turning around hardened drug addicts through a program of prayer and hard work. Sheriff John Gillespie and Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, as well as a number of elected officials, have commended the ministry for its work.

Phil Dunn, an assistant public defender who supports Victory Outreach, said he has seen the results firsthand. “I’ve put my clients through every imaginable program, and this is the only one that works,” Dunn said.

Herrera started the nondenominational church in his Ventura residence, but regularly moved to larger facilities as his congregation grew. The church now rents space from the United Methodist Church in south Oxnard.

After the residential drug rehabilitation program outgrew the Oxnard residences that the church had rented, Herrera leased the rural farm on South Mountain Road that has become the center of a planning controversy.

Initially, Victory Outreach drew protests from some neighbors who circulated a petition opposing its opening. But in recent months the program has won at least a few converts.

“Out here in the country, when somebody’s new and they’re not like us, there’s some resistance,” said Mark Wintz, a neighboring rancher. “But the results I see are really fantastic. These guys have a great attitude.”

County officials have met twice with Victory Outreach leaders, but describe the church as unresponsive. “We gave them an ultimatum two months ago to relocate temporarily until the situation can be rectified, but they have been waltzing with us,” Windroth said. “We have gotten nowhere.”

Herrera said Victory Outreach hopes to gain the support of the county Board of Supervisors to resolve the impasse without forcing its clients to move. “We’re going to stand for what we believe in,” he said. “That place is going to stand as the Victory Outreach training program.”