Oxnard Shuts Off Water to Shelter : Homeless: Zoe Center officials protest after action effectively closes the facility. The city finds permanent housing for its residents.

Citing health hazards, zoning code violations and more than $43,000 in unpaid utility bills, the city of Oxnard on Wednesday shut off water and effectively closed Ventura County’s only year-round shelter for the homeless.

Zoe Christian Center officials decried the action as part of a city crusade to thwart their efforts to help the homeless. But some residents of the 11-year-old shelter praised the city for moving them into permanent housing.

“Things have really gone downhill here,” three-year resident Cecille Brown said Wednesday as she packed up at Zoe. “We are definitely looking forward to moving out.”

City officials found permanent housing for all 68 shelter residents before turning off the water at the former labor camp on Rose Avenue, Oxnard housing director Sal Gonzalez said.

“One of the purposes of a shelter is to transition people into permanent housing,” he said. “We’ve been successful in doing that.”

City Manager Vern Hazen said the center’s closure will result in “more practical approaches to dealing with the homeless.”

Although residents vacated the center, Zoe founder Fred Judy vowed to keep it open by bringing in bottled water and portable toilets.

“We won’t have any problems finding people who want to stay here,” he said. “There are many, many people who need our help.”

The Oxnard Housing Department began relocating residents about a month ago, after Zoe’s landlord threatened eviction and a judge dismissed a Zoe lawsuit seeking $35 million in damages from the city.

Because of the emergency circumstances, shelter residents were pushed to the top of a list of 2,000 applicants for low-income housing, Gonzalez said. Applicants usually have to wait six months to two years, he said.

Among the last to leave the shelter were Zoe residents Brown, 57, and her daughter and son-in-law, Sandy and Curt Keeler. An upbeat mood prevailed as they prepared to leave their cluttered, classroom-sized apartment.

“We’ve had a real hard time here,” Brown said. “We are so happy to be able to get out of here.”

The three, who have lived at Zoe since 1990, said they have had difficulty paying the $550-a-month rent that the center began charging about two years ago.

“That’s a lot of money,” Brown said. “Look what we get for it.”

What they got was a one-room apartment with a concrete floor, leaky roof, one working electrical outlet and no telephone or hot water. They used an outdoor portable toilet.

Wednesday night, the family planned to move into a refurbished, federally subsidized two-bedroom apartment in a housing project in Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood. They will pay $185 a month in rent, Brown said.

Zoe’s closure came after a decade during which the city gave more than $100,000 to Zoe while simultaneously tussling with the facility over bills and health and zoning regulations, Gonzalez said.

“We have done everything we can,” he said. “Now it is time to move on.”

Last month, a Superior Court judge dismissed Zoe’s lawsuit charging city officials with conspiring to close the center by preparing a false environmental report. The study had found that the shelter was too close to a fertilizer plant where hazardous chemicals were stored. In the suit, Zoe operators said the report caused them to lose more than $300,000 a year in grants.

In 1989, the city revoked the center’s operating permit, saying that it had not properly applied to operate a residential facility in an industrial area. The center has been allowed to operate while city officials unsuccessfully searched for a new site for the facility.

In an interview Wednesday, Zoe landlord Bernard MacElhenney Jr. of Santa Barbara said he is still seeking $16,000 in property taxes that Zoe was supposed to pay. But he said he never intended to follow through on his threat to evict the shelter.

‘We’ve been supporting these people for 10 years,” MacElhenney said. “We’re not going to stop now.”

Judy called the city’s reasons for wanting to shut the center down “a bunch of garbage,” adding that Oxnard needs the shelter for homeless people. He said that because of the center’s financial problems, he does not take a salary and lives on military retirement benefits.

Zoe also operates a 22-bed facility for women and children on Hayes Street. Gonzalez said that operation will be allowed to remain open if operators pay $4,800 in outstanding utility bills by the end of June.