Rain Fills Shelters With the Homeless : Social services: Three havens recently opened. Only 160 beds are available for a population of at least 1,850.

As chilly rains arrived in Ventura County on Thursday, the county’s homeless population flocked to the three shelters that offer a meal, a bed and some warmth during the cold winter months.

A county-run shelter at the Oxnard National Guard Armory and two others that rotate among churches in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks have opened for the season and are already drawing crowds as a homeless population estimated at 1,850 to 4,000 vie for the 160 beds available.

Carol Robinson, 47, arranged her blanket on a folding cot in Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Simi Valley on Wednesday and considered her alternatives to the warm room equipped with a TV tuned to “Family Feud.”

“I’d be just hiding at the park or something,” she said. “You definitely have to hide, because you get bothered by people or the police.” Robinson, whose 16-year-old son lives with her on the streets, said she doesn’t know how she would survive without the Simi Valley shelter, which is open from Nov. 1 through March 31. A collective effort of the city and 14 Simi Valley churches, it has space for about 20 guests each night.

“I don’t know how we’d make it without them,” she said. “It would be nice if we had them year-round, because we do have to survive over the summer.”

In Thousand Oaks, the Conejo Valley Winter Shelter runs from Dec. 1 through March 31 with the support of 25 churches and synagogues. It rotates between seven host churches and has a nightly capacity of 20.

The program had four overnight guests Tuesday and nine on Wednesday, and coordinator Karen Ingram said she expected a larger crowd Thursday because of the rain.

Conditions can be tougher in western Ventura County than in the east because the shelter there, the National Guard Armory in Oxnard, opens only in particularly oppressive weather.

Operated by the Red Cross under contract with the county, the 120-bed armory opens on evenings when temperatures are expected to fall below 40 degrees or when there is at least a 50% chance of rain and the temperature falls below 50 degrees.

However, the county will open the armory every night from Dec. 15 through March 15 if the Red Cross can raise enough money to support the operation, which cost an average of $603 per night last year.

County officials said that only 42 people bedded down in the armory on Thanksgiving, the second night it was open, but they expect the number to build steadily while the facility is in operation through March 30.

On Thursday, the shelter had drawn 39 people by 8 p.m., when a dinner of ravioli, rice, salad and vegetables was served, said shelter manager Danny Quolas. Among them were a man and woman who brought their 6- and 8-year-old children, he said.

“We expect 40 to 50 tonight, and if the rain continues, the number will probably increase some more tomorrow,” Quolas said.

Nancy Nazario, coordinator of the county’s homeless ombudsman program, said the winter shelters provide a needed service but cannot begin to address the county’s homeless problem.

“I have no doubt that they save lives,” Nazario said. But “it doesn’t address the basic problem of affordable housing, and until we as a community start looking at that, we’re going to have the problem of homelessness.”

Colin McVicker, 53, quit his job as an accountant four years ago to open a small art gallery in Moorpark. But the business failed, and he was evicted from his apartment. Wednesday night, he found himself happy to trade another night in his cold Chevy Nova for a warm cot in Our Saviour Lutheran.

“I can stretch out in here, it’s warm and, if it’s raining, I don’t have the water beating down on the roof,” McVicker said.

“It relaxes my mind that I have someplace to go. Just someplace to sit down and play cards, watch TV, instead of sitting in my car and watching people go by.”

Some in the community have pitched imaginative ways to open up more space for the homeless.

A shipyard worker suggested that mothballed battleships might be used. Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez says the idea is worth exploring.

“This may be a good idea,” he said. “Some of those things hold up to 900 people.”

Lopez said he plans to have city staff call Ventura County representatives in Washington to see whether a battleship shelter is possible.

“I’m sure there are a lot of unknowns,” Lopez said. “But you can’t leave people to die out in the cold.”

Times staff writer Fred Alvarez and correspondent Patrick McCartney contributed to this report.