AmeriCorps Troops Reach County, Get Mixed Reception

At age 43, Walter McNeil appears an unlikely candidate to spend the next 10 months of his life doing public service.

After all, the Vietnam-era veteran already has put in 20 years of service to his country as a Navy Seabee. And as a single father raising two boys on his own, it’s not that he doesn’t already have plenty to do.

Nevertheless, he started work last week with a Ventura-based homeless-assistance center as part of Ventura County’s first AmeriCorps program, the Clinton administration’s politically controversial national service program modeled after the Peace Corps.

“I want to try to make a difference,” said McNeil of Oxnard, who will earn a stipend equal to about minimum wage during his so-called season of service with the Homeless Employment Resource Operation.

“I’ve always been a concerned person. I’ve always liked to help,” he added. “I know I can probably go out and get other jobs that pay more money. But it’s not about the money; it’s about doing for others.”

Two years after its nationwide launch, AmeriCorps has come to Ventura County.

Half a dozen AmeriCorps members have been assigned to community agencies throughout the county to beef up a fledgling campaign to connect homeless military veterans with a variety of social services.

Administered by the Los Angeles Veterans Initiative (LA Vets), Ventura County’s AmeriCorps program dovetails with a nationwide movement to decentralize veterans’ services, funneling them into communities where needs have long gone unmet.

In addition to Ventura County, LA Vets has launched AmeriCorps projects this year in Long Beach and in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

“There’s a lot of need in those areas, and we’re hoping the program will grow,” said Gail Pruitt, a former AmeriCorps member now doing recruitment for the program. “You have people who have the desire to serve their communities and who are going to carry that out the rest of their lives. I don’t know of anything more important.”

Pruitt’s view, however, is not universally embraced.

While President Clinton has called AmeriCorps one of his proudest achievements, Republicans have largely dismissed it as a “feel-good” program that is poorly conceived and burns up valuable tax dollars.

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Last year, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) joined his fellow Republicans in trying to gut AmeriCorps funding. Through a spokesman, Gallegly said that while it is a noble effort, it is not necessarily a practical one in this time of tight budgets and tough choices.

At LA Vets and other AmeriCorps sites, officials say that couldn’t be further from the truth.

They argue that it is a bold social experiment, one that seeks to apply the altruistic notions of President John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps to root out crime, poverty and other social ills in needy pockets of the United States.

In exchange for a 10-month commitment, AmeriCorps members receive a stipend of about $8,000 and an education award at the end of their service of $4,700, which can be used to continue their schooling or repay student loans.

More important, officials say, members get a chance to pick up some life experience while trying to make a difference in their communities.

“I think AmeriCorps is a real good idea, but I think it has to show that it’s a really good value, that it’s giving taxpayers bang for their buck,” said Stephani Hardy, program director of LA Vets. “I think our program is doing that.”

At a training session last week in Inglewood for the newest class of AmeriCorps members, Ventura native Ryan Garcia, 24, got his first taste of what lies ahead.

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After several hours of classroom instruction, he and fellow AmeriCorps members hit the streets of Los Angeles, visiting homeless shelters and seeing firsthand the plight of the urban poor.

A former altar boy and 1990 graduate of St. Bonaventure High School, Garcia earned a degree in sociology from the University of San Diego before deciding to try his hand at public service.

“I’ve had a lot of help along my way and this is a way to give something back,” said Garcia, who this week joins McNeil at the Homeless Employment Resource Operation, known as the HERO center. “I want to prove to myself that I’m useful and that I can do things for others.”

AmeriCorps is not just for the twentysomething set. In the midst of starting a second career as a counselor, 48-year-old Karen MacPhee decided to earn some practical work experience by serving with Ventura County’s homeless-services program.

A divorced mother of two college-age children, MacPhee will work on her master’s thesis on the weekends and use her education award to help repay student loans.

“My children are all grown, so now I feel I can do something that is really quite a great adventure,” said MacPhee, who will help scour the county for homeless veterans. “To me it seemed like joining the Peace Corps. It’s something I’ll really enjoy and I feel is for a real good cause.”

Advocates for the homeless say it is that kind of experience and enthusiasm that will prove most valuable as the AmeriCorps program unfolds in Ventura County over the next 10 months.

In addition to the county’s homeless-services program and the HERO center, plans call for AmeriCorps members to be placed at the Ventura City Housing Authority, the Samaritan Center in Simi Valley and the county’s Warming Shelter in Oxnard.

For agencies working on bare-bones budgets, struggling to stay afloat while providing services to the poor, AmeriCorps provides a ready work force, free of charge.

“Since we’re not heavily funded and don’t expect to be heavily funded, this is like a godsend to us,” said Bob Costello, the HERO center’s executive director. “These are people we couldn’t otherwise afford, and they’re going to be doing jobs that wouldn’t get done if not for this program.”

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FYI

AmeriCorps is open to people who are at least 18 years old and have earned a high school diploma or the equivalent. For more information, call Gail Pruitt at (310) 348-7600.