Panel Backs Away From Proposed Homeless Campground : Ventura: Members decide to concentrate on how to legally remove squatters from the polluted river bottom. They agree housing alternatives need to be provided.

Catching some homeless advocates by surprise, the Ventura City Council’s three-member housing committee shifted support from a homeless campground idea Wednesday, focusing attention instead on how to legally kick squatters out of the Ventura River bottom.

“Could we . . . start now?” Councilman Jack Tingstrom asked City Atty. Pete Bulens.

Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures, who championed the idea of moving Ventura’s river bottom homeless into a new campground throughout the spring and summer, was among the first to back away from the idea Wednesday.

Measures had earlier formed an informal task force of social service providers and Ventura police officers to study the campground idea.

The group was set up to devise a plan for cleaning out the polluted, crowded river bottom while providing those who now live there with reasonable, alternative housing and immediate access to crucial social services.

But ultimately, Measures said Wednesday, she realized that the city does not have the money to pull off the project.

“I see it now as a long-range opportunity for the city,” she said.

In the meantime, she told her committee colleagues, Ventura needs to offer the homeless some housing alternatives so the city will not be sued for forcing them to move.

“It appears that we have enough services,” she said, “if we don’t go too far.”

At least one homeless advocate who has worked on the campground idea issued a call of warning following the morning meeting.

“Personally, I think it would be unwise for the city to move in this direction,” said Clyde Reynolds, executive director of the Turning Point Foundation, which provides services and shelter to the homeless mentally ill.

“If it did, I think legal action would be something that has to be considered.”

The housing committee--made up of Tingstrom, Measures and Councilman Jim Monahan--will eventually make a recommendation on the river bottom matter to the full council, which will make a final decision.

For the moment, committee members said, Ventura needs to do an inventory of all the housing available to the homeless countywide.

Any available funds, committee members say, should be targeted at a police enforcement effort that would shut off the river bottom to the homeless once and for all.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Ventura Police Capt. Randy Adams laid out a three-phase plan for removing the homeless from the river bottom. The first phase, which includes advertising available services and notifying river bottom residents that they must soon move out, could begin as early as January, Measures said.

“I really see this as an outreach to the homeless,” she said. “I hope this will inspire them to want to help themselves.”

The city attorney warned the council members that they could face serious legal challenges if they are not cautious.

“If we were to go on a substantial enforcement mission,” Bulens said, “and disrupt all of these homeless folks down there in the river bottom, and provided some facilities but not enough, I think a court would look at that with some degree of skepticism.”