VENTURA : Church Gives $5,000 to Site for Homeless

The Church of the Foothills in Ventura has donated $5,000 to help operate a transition center at Camarillo State Hospital that opened after winter floodwaters uprooted squatters who lived along the Ventura River bottom.

Tapping into funds collected for flood victims by the Southern California Conference of the United Church of Christ, the Ventura church earlier this month awarded the grant to Project Understanding, which runs the Camarillo facility.

Church officials had previously donated $5,000 to assist former river bottom dwellers.

“Our church has been very highly involved in that from the beginning,” said Meredith Wilder, a Church of the Foothills spokeswoman.

“I think that everyone knows the perils of the river bottom people, but this is an opportunity to try to do something more than cosmetic.”

In January, floodwaters ripped out encampments erected by the homeless along the river bottom. Since then, city and county officials have teamed with nonprofit agencies to aid the squatters, including creating the transition center at the hospital.

Since the center opened in early February, more than two-thirds of its 30 residents have found work. The money donated by the church will help keep the center open until the end of July.

Project Understanding, the Ventura County Homeless and Housing Coalition and the city and county of Ventura are trying to make the center a long-term regional facility available to homeless people countywide.