Flood Plain Camping Ban Urged : Storms: City law would be aimed at keeping squatters out of Ventura River bottom. Homeless center will open next week.

Arguing that police need more legal muscle to keep squatters out of the Ventura River, city officials will ask the Ventura City Council on Monday to adopt an ordinance banning anyone from sleeping or camping in a flood plain.

Meanwhile, city and county officials and homeless service groups continued working Friday to find a new home for the 200 residents who lived in the Ventura riverbed before last week’s storms washed away their makeshift homes and caused the death of a 31-year-old transient.

And city officials announced that a social service center conceived solely to assist the displaced river-bottom residents will open Tuesday at the Catholic Charities building on Ventura Avenue.

The center will provide services to get the squatters back on their feet, including job-training programs, food stamps, drug and alcohol counseling and housing vouchers, said Carol Green, assistant to the city manager.

“It’s essential that we establish the assessment center to educate the river-bottom homeless as to what is available to them,” said Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures.

City officials originally pledged to open the facility last Wednesday but backed off at the last minute, saying they did not have a realistic idea of how to run it.

The homeless service providers and city officials who have been working on the plan will present the City Council with a status report on their efforts Monday.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has pledged to provide money to help house the river-bottom exiles, but city officials have yet to learn how much aid they will receive. HUD is expected to announce its contribution next week, Green said.

Ventura officials concede that many of the displaced river-bottom residents will not use the assessment center, but they are confident that many others will seize the opportunity to improve their living conditions.

“We certainly realize that there is a certain portion of the population that would prefer not to take part in any social services and partake in their outdoor freedom,” Measures said. “And we have to respect that right. . . . (But) I think we have some highly skilled individuals down there that would probably be able and willing to jump right into the work force.”

Clyde B. Reynolds, executive director of the Turning Point mental health agency, speculated that most of the displaced river-bottom residents will take advantage of some of the services at the assessment center, but he said the majority are unlikely to change their lifestyle.

Now that the city has pledged to keep squatters out of the river bottom, he said, officials should help find them new homes consistent with their desire to live outdoors.

The proposed ordinance, recommended by the Ventura City Attorney’s office, would help city and county officials achieve its new zero-tolerance policy against camping in the Ventura River bottom, officials said.

“We certainly need the ordinance if we are to enforce the new zero-tolerance policy in an area that is unhealthy and unbearable,” Measures said.

Under the new ordinance, anyone caught sleeping in the area will be taken to jail and brought before a judge.

“The one thing we have learned is that once people settle down there, it’s hard to get them to leave,” City Atty. Peter D. Bulens said. “I’m not sure that there is anyone anymore who thinks the river bottom is a proper place for the homeless to live.”

The Ventura River was designated as a disaster area by the city after the floods and is currently off-limits.

But once the river returns to normal and Ventura officials lift the emergency declaration, authorities would be armed only with trespass laws to keep squatters from moving back into their old homes, and a more specific law is needed to keep them out, Bulens said.

“It’s become really obvious to folks that this is a dangerous place to live,” Bulens said. “This ordinance would allow us to keep people from moving down there, endangering their lives and the lives of others.”

City officials have complained that firefighters and police officers were needlessly endangered during the storms when river bottom residents refused to heed warnings to leave the flood plain.

Authorities were forced to rescue 12 squatters who refused to vacate their dwellings. The death of William Lee Shubert was the second such fatality there in the past three years.

Ventura Police Chief Richard Thomas said the ordinance would provide police officers with an added tool to prevent squatters from settling in the river bottom.

“Our efforts are not to rid Ventura of homeless but to save them from the hazards of living there, and also to prevent our people from risking their lives by having to venture there during storms,” Thomas said. “It will also be beneficial to the environment down there to keep that area uninhabited.”

Although it is squarely in the Ventura River flood plain, the Ventura RV Resort is exempt from the ordinance, said Deputy City Atty. Amy Albano. The ordinance also applies to the Santa Clara River, which also has a smaller population of squatters, officials said.