Ventura Proposal Would Put Homeless to Work

Homeless people could be hired to clean up Ventura’s downtown under a proposal the City Council will discuss Monday.

The idea, part of a larger project to put homeless people to work, could kick off as early as January with a work project employing 25 people, “screened for ability” and assigned to small crews, city officials said. Wearing special badges or vests, the crews would sweep, steam-clean sidewalks, clean windows and trim bushes and trees. Under the plan, each worker would earn $6 an hour and work eight hours a day.

The program would be planned and supervised by Bob McElroy, who has won nationwide attention for his success in putting the homeless to work in San Diego.

Downtown merchants have complained for months that the transients loitering on their streets look bad, smell bad, and disturb their customers. Many of the city’s homeless dwell in the Ventura River bottom, a situation that has also troubled environmentalists because they say it disturbs the riverbed.

Ventura Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures invited McElroy to town last week to discuss his work in San Diego. Measures, who chairs the council’s housing committee, has been on a drive to rid downtown of panhandlers and vagrants. Together with McElroy, she proposed the plan now before the council for consideration.