Working Harder at Raising Children : PARENTING: Living in one of the state's wealthiest counties means there's a precarious trade-off between having a two-paycheck income and making time for the kids.

By MACK REED

Sept. 24, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Martha Bolton is one of the people in Ventura County most familiar with the price that parents pay to raise their children here.

She sees the high cost of parenting reflected in the sacrifices families make just to be able to live in one of the state’s wealthiest counties.

There are more families here where both parents work, and day-care is a problem. The cost of housing is among the highest in the state. Commutes are often time-consuming. And the list of social problems--from gangs to drugs--is getting longer.

At the same time, the county’s support system for families struggling with parenting problems faces troubles. Money is one of them. The need for more community support is another.

Bolton is the crisis services director of Interface Children, Family Services, the county’s largest social service agency dealing with family problems.

For the most part, she thinks the sacrifices pay off for parents and their children here. But not without some stress and struggle. And casualties along the way.

“There’s a whole lot of monsters they have to fight, but I truly do believe the majority of parents do care, and they’re trying and they’re doing their best.”

Among the biggest problems facing families in Ventura County are several basic bread-and-butter factors that are interrelated and combine to hit straight at the pocketbook:

Housing

The biggest drain on the family budget in Ventura County is housing, with the costs of renting or owning a home here much higher than the regional or statewide averages.

The cost of a home in Ventura County was about $229,000 in the first seven months of 1995. That was second only to Orange County in Southern California. The statewide average was about $202,000.

The average two-bedroom rental in Ventura County costs $913 a month. That is the highest in the region and sixth highest in the state, according to U.S. Department of Housing estimates.

Jobs

Both mother and father work in 62.5% of the two-parent families in Ventura County. That compares to only 53.9% in Los Angeles County.

According to the 1994 Ventura County Community Profile, a broad study of social conditions in the county, both parents must work here more often than elsewhere in the state because of the high cost of living.

“In order to meet the income requirements . . . in Ventura County, parents spend more time working and less time with their children,” the study found.

Commuting

To make ends meet, many county parents still commute to Los Angeles County each morning, especially those who live in the white-collar communities of the east county.

About 51% of Simi Valley workers commuted to another county to work in 1990, 42% in Thousand Oaks and 38% in Moorpark.

While those numbers are dropping as the east county lures more large businesses, the average Simi Valley worker now spends about 32 minutes on a one-way commute. And one-fourth of all Simi Valley workers have a two-way commute of at least 1 1/2 hours a day.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments says Ventura County working parents must spend more time commuting and drive even longer distances to work than the average in Southern California.

The Southern California average commute was 22.76 minutes and 12.79 miles in 1994, compared to 23.23 minutes and 14.77 miles for Ventura County commuters. The association of governments expects that in another 25 years, the average Ventura County commute will be 30.72 minutes and 18.14 miles.

Day-Care

Because the county has a higher percentage of women in the work force--60% of those with children under 6 and 76% of those with school-age children--the need for child care is high.

“Many feel this is an area of increasingly critical need . . . due to both parents working and more single-parent households,” the 1994 Community Profile concluded.

The same study found only 222 licensed child-care spaces for every 1,000 children of working mothers. And child care availability was lowest in cities with greatest need, those with the highest percentage of poor residents: Fillmore, Santa Paula and Oxnard.

The cost of day-care adds to the financial burden of working parents. Home care can easily cost $800 or more a month, and some centers charge up to $650 a month per child for all-day care.

The issue facing the county, experts say, is what this means for children left on their own while parents work. What is the effect of being a latchkey child at an early age?

In many cases, the combination of economic pressures--housing and day-care topping the list-- adds up to a tricky high-wire balancing act for many of Ventura County’s parents, requiring them to juggle time against money.

“Families come here and see it as somewhat ideal,” said Jerome Blesener, a deputy director of the county Public Social Services Agency. “And they stretch themselves to make it and have everything that is helpful to their children.

“But they sacrifice basic things like spending time with the child, or arranging proper child care or being consistent in discipline.”

Private family counselor Susan S. Hardy agrees.

“I see parents having less and less time with their kids, and time is a big issue,” Hardy said. “Children also have no time. They’re in day-care after school. . . . They come home at 6 at night, and then it’s dinner and homework and bed and they get up and do it all over again.”

There are more than 93,000 families raising children in the county today. And a Times Poll has found that both the parents and their kids are overwhelmingly happy with their lives here.

But that same survey showed that concerns are growing about problems like crime and drug abuse and gangs. And almost every other social indicator points to even more parental stress and potential trouble for families in the years ahead.

Parents who shortchange their kids to work and pay the bills sometimes wind up paying at the other end, too, family counselors warn. While Ventura County has less crime and rampant drug usage than other areas, its children remain vulnerable.

In fact, criminal drug charges against juveniles have jumped tenfold in Ventura County since 1991 because of lower drug prices, more arrests and kids who have begun rejecting the “just-say-no” philosophy.

Child-abuse cases also are on the rise. Ventura County social workers investigated 3,700 cases of abuse and neglect in the past fiscal year, up more than 25% from the 1988-1989 total of 2,953.

In just three years, requests for counseling at Interface have doubled.

“We’ve seen an incredible increase,” said Bolton, whose organization holds the county contract for such work.

Interface, which provides parenting classes, counseling and crisis intervention for troubled families, is just one of many organizations that are part of a support system for families stretched across the county.

Key elements of that support system include Child Development Resources of Ventura County, the YMCA and Boys & Girls Clubs, all geared to day-care programs. Community groups such as El Concilio also provide help for children who stray into gangs and drugs.

And county government aid for families runs the gamut: from the daily sustenance of welfare and food stamp programs to the lifeguarding Child Protective Services and job-training programs such as GAIN Employment Services.

But the existing support network for families is not sufficient, experts agree.

Like the families they serve, the support system is stretched thin.

County budget cuts this year included $1.5 million from the Public Social Services Agency budget for programs that had helped disabled children get social security benefits, distributed free clothing to foster children and provided free adoption services for stepparents, said Deputy Director Helen Reburn.

The county cuts also took $225,000 from the Casa Pacifica shelter for abused and neglected kids, said Steve Elson, its director. Casa Pacifica managed to absorb the loss without compromising service.

The Department of Mental Health Services’ $5-million budget for children was cut by 10%, added Don Kingdon, chief of children’s services. But officials avoided trimming actual service for kids by juggling staff and instituting cost-cutting measures, Kingdon said.

Although most agencies managed to avoid actual reductions in service this year, many believe that additional government budget cuts expected next year--particularly at the federal level--could take some large chunks out of programs.

At Casa Pacifica, Elson warns that welfare reform and the next round of federal budget cuts will doubtless force staff layoffs. And Kingdon says more cuts in county mental health services next year will mean “we would have to cut line services.”

Government budget cuts also took $155,000 of Interface’s $3.3-million budget last year, said Executive Director Charles Watson. Despite that, Interface served 107,000 people, an increase of 35% over the previous year.

The agency survived by overloading its workers, Watson said. Even so, one Interface program that provided child care and budget counseling for 35 to 40 mothers in a county job-training program was killed.

Instead of cutting funds, says Beverly Viola, vice president of Ventura County’s United Way, government in Ventura County needs to increase its support for agencies set up to help families in trouble.

One crucial need is for more after-school care programs, she said, noting that groups like the Boys & Girls Clubs and the YMCA already offer inexpensive after-school care.

“I’d like to see all the school systems collaborate with the Boys & Girls Clubs and have an effort made to utilize these [school] buildings for after-school activities,” she said.

And city councils need to get more involved in helping parents with the difficult job of raising kids, she said.

“It’s going to take money, but it’s also going to take collaborative efforts, a number of organizations coming together,” she said.

She quoted a saying that has become popular among child-care workers: “It takes the whole village to raise a child.”

“If it takes both the husband and wife to work, the school system has an obligation to educate them, and there have to be other organizations to come together with the politicians,” she said. “There has to be a commitment that you want to improve the quality of life for the children. . . . I believe that with people committed, these issues can be resolved.”

Kate McLean, president of the Ventura County Community Foundation, agreed with Viola that an increased focus on adequate day-care programs is a key to the future of the county’s families.

“There’s continued need for more child care,” said McLean, whose organization administers charity gifts to social service agencies. “And that one issue is truly getting in the way of some of the other services that women and families could get if they had better child care.”

Lack of somewhere safe to leave the kids often keeps Ventura County parents from seeking marital counseling, from getting an education, from going through retraining that could give them better jobs and higher pay, McLean said.

In addition to government aid, McLean said, the county needs to generate more private support for family groups.

“Ventura County is really extraordinarily philanthropically poor,” she said, adding that neighboring regions such as Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties have hundreds of private charitable organizations compared to only three in Ventura County.

And the largest of those, the Livingston Foundation, has assets of $6 million--about equal to the smallest of Santa Barbara’s 28 private charitable foundations, she said.

The Ventura County Community Foundation has been working hard to teach social service providers how to reach beyond Ventura County for gifts, McLean said. And it is trying to educate the county’s largest givers on the need to give more money to agencies that could serve families.

“The case hasn’t yet been made well enough to the donor community,” she said.

One of the greatest needs for the family support network in Ventura County is better organization, added Carol Hurtt of the county’s Child Development Resources.

Ventura County’s parents and family support systems are going to have to stop treating child care like someone else’s problem, she said.

“What this community needs to do is to form a partnership of local government, state and federal government, plus the business sector, nonprofit sector and the church,” she said.

“If we as a society believe that old cliche, that children are our most important resource, let’s get together and strategize how we make sure our dollars say that. And that that’s absolutely our first and primary goal, to make sure our children are healthy and they’re well-educated.”

* Next Sunday: Youth recreation programs are strong in most communities, but the rising cost keeps some Ventura County children from participating.

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A Snapshot of County Families

Ventura County families are wealthier, less crowded and more fully employed than the statewide norm. A family household is defined as at least two relatives living together.

HOUSEHOLD BREAKDOWN

Ventura County

Family: 76.7%

Nonfamily: 23.3%

State

Family: 69.4%

Nonfamily: 30.6%

WHERE THEY ARE

Family households as % of total:

Moorpark: 85.3%

Simi Valley: 81.0%

Fillmore: 80.9%

Oxnard: 79.8%

Santa Paula: 78.9%

Thousand Oaks: 76.9%

Camarillo: 76.6%

Port Hueneme: 70.2%

Ventura: 67.6%

Ojai: 66.4%.

WHAT THEY EARN

Median family income by city in 1990:

Thousand Oaks: $62,641

Moorpark: $62,131

Simi Valley: $56,756

Camarillo: $53,295

Ventura: $46,361

Ojai: $41,547

Oxnard: $38,700

Fillmore: $36,204

Port Hueneme: $36,112

Santa Paula: $35,788.

HOW THEY LIVE

Overcrowded housing, by city:

Oxnard: 25%

Fillmore: 23%

Santa Paula: 21%

Port Hueneme: 14%

Moorpark: 9%

Ventura: 6%

Ojai: 6%

Simi Valley: 6%

Camarillo: 5%

Thousand Oaks: 4%.

EDUCATION

Percent of adult population without high school diplomas:

Fillmore: 53%

Santa Paula: 40%

Oxnard: 39%

Port Hueneme: 21%

Ventura: 16%

Ojai: 16%

Moorpark: 15%

Simi Valley: 13%

Camarillo: 12%

Thousand Oaks: 10%

EMPLOYMENT

Percent of population over age 16 that works:

Moorpark: 79%

Simi Valley: 78%

Thousand Oaks: 73%

Pt. Hueneme: 72%

Oxnard: 71%

Ventura: 68%

Santa Paula: 66%

Fillmore: 66%

Camarillo: 65%

Ojai: 62%.

VOICES: Where do you think Ventura County falls short as a place to raise a family?

“The cost of living. It’s pretty well impossible for a mother to stay home and raise children here in Ventura County. If there are two parents, both parents have to work in order to maintain the ability to raise a family. A lot of single parents I know have two or three jobs, and they don’t have the time to spend with their kids.”

--Jane Goldschmidt, director, Boys & Girls Club of Ventura

“It is very, very difficult in Ventura County to raise a family if you fall into a low-income level. . . . We don’t have enough social services out there to pull the lower socioeconomic levels up so that their kids can have all the enrichment programs that are out there . . . such as Little League and some of the soccer programs at the schools.”

--Beverly Viola, vice president, Ventura County United Way

“A public university, greater accessibility to public transportation and housing prices that don’t consume the majority of a family’s income would increase our county’s quality of life. As our community’s rapid growth continues, it is also important to build on our sense of community before it is gone.”

--Kate McLean, president, Ventura County Community Foundation

“There is a sense here that somehow, where children and families fall through the cracks, it is someone else’s responsibility. [We don’t] look at the long-term impact on children who fail in school, parents who cannot provide adequate child care. . . . It sounds kind of negative to say that it’s no one’s fault, and perhaps the resources aren’t here to deal with the problems.”

--Carol Hurtt, resource and referral manager, Child Development Resources of Ventura County

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BY THE NUMBERS

Statistics that reflect on family life in Ventura County:

Median Family Income: 6th Highest

- Among the state’s 58 counties.

People Living at the Poverty Level: 4th Lowest

- Among the state’s 58 counties.

Families with Incomes Less than $25,000: 18.3%

- (Statewide: 28.1%)

Families with Incomes Greater than $75,000: 23.1%

(Statewide: 17.4%)