Winter Homeless Shelter Gets Funding
Ventura County supervisors have agreed to spend $27,000 to shelter homeless people through the winter at the National Guard Armory in Oxnard beginning next month.
Called the winter warming shelter, the program will run nightly from Dec. 15 through March 15, allowing homeless people to stay in cots at the armory. On days of cold or wet weather, the shelter will open on an as-needed basis as soon as next Wednesday and remain available as late as March 30.
The seasonal effort is administered by Project Understanding, a nonprofit organization that provides services to the poor and homeless.
The 110-night program costs $88,000 and is co-sponsored by the cities of Oxnard and Ventura, as well as with money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
This could be the last year such services are available to the homeless people of west Ventura County, however.
State laws call for excluding the use of National Guard armories because many of them are deteriorating and cannot provide heating, kitchens and bathrooms, said James Isom, director of the county Public Social Services Agency.
“Ventura County staff, in conjunction with other organizations serving the homeless, are developing a plan to address long-range and permanent shelter care for the homeless in Ventura County,” he said.
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