VENTURA : Council to Consider Aid for Homeless

The Ventura City Council--reviewing a plan Monday to allocate federal community block grants--will consider spending about $100,000 on a homeless assistance program.

Ventura receives Community Development Block Grants each year. Officials say the city is slated to get about $1 million for the 1995-96 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The grants are distributed by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which insists that the money be spent to improve urban areas, and particularly to improve living conditions of poor people in urban neighborhoods.

City officials say they can allocate $105,000 toward an assistance program for the homeless. Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures, who has spearheaded an effort to drive transients from the Ventura River bottom, said Friday that the city does not have a specific plan for the funds. Those plans could be developed Wednesday, when the council’s housing committee meets to discuss the matter.

“We’re getting closer and closer to figuring out what’s the long-range plan for dealing with the entire homeless problem,” she said. “We need to look at . . . giving people a hand up, not a handout.”

The rest of the grant money will be distributed to a host of programs, including one to make downtown crosswalks more accessible to disabled people, and a $337,000 item to improve sidewalks, curbs, gutters and underground utility wiring on Ventura Avenue, between Barnett and El Medio streets.