City to Purchase Triplex to House the Working Homeless

The City Council gave its OK to the housing authority Monday night to use a $196,000 grant to buy a three-unit apartment complex to house newly employed homeless people while they save money for housing of their own.

The triplex, in the 200 block of Vince Street, on Ventura’s west side, will house low-income clients of Ventura’s Homeless Employment Resource Operation (HERO) project.

Most of the grant used to purchase the triplex is part of $1.3 million in federal housing funds the city has accumulated since 1993.

The triplex will be modeled after Harrison House, a transitional housing complex for men, said Bob Costello, HERO’s executive director. Each resident pays $150 a month to live there and can stay for up to six months. A portion of a resident’s monthly earnings are deposited into a mandatory savings account, whose funds help cover apartment costs when the resident’s stay ends.

The triplex, which will hold up to 12 people, will more than double HERO’s supply of temporary beds. Harrison House holds seven men. And Costello said the triplex may also accommodate women when it opens later this year.

Costello said Harrison House opened more than two years ago to house men whose makeshift homes on the Ventura River bottom were swept away by powerful winter floods.

The distinctive thing about Harrison House, according to Costello, is that it has been extremely successful without any resident staff supervision, thereby saving money.

“We have been able to monitor it without live-in staff, which is very, very rare,” he said. “Looking toward the triplex, we are trying to model it after that.”