Riverbed Dwellers Face Relocation

About 100 people who call the Ventura and Santa Clara river bottoms home will be booted from their makeshift shanties in an effort to avoid the kind of costly and dangerous rescues that marred the winter of 1995.

A coalition of city, county and nonprofit officials on Friday unveiled an ambitious $225,000 plan that will look to funnel river-bottom dwellers into two emergency service centers and later into temporary housing and jobs beginning next week.

State officials will allow the county to use all winter dormitories at vacant Camarillo State Hospital, where government and nonprofit agencies will offer job-search and permanent housing aid, as well as access to a wide array of social services.

The hope is to get river-bottom homeless people on a path to self-sufficiency.

The effort--dubbed the River-Dwellers’ Aid Intercity Network, or RAIN--is modeled after a successful homeless assistance program launched after devastating floods ripped through camps where about 200 homeless people lived along the Ventura River in 1995.

One man was killed and 12 others rescued by swift-water rescue experts and sheriff’s helicopter crews.

Under the threat of heavy winter rains, county and city officials this year want to clear river beds and put homeless assistance efforts in place before disaster strikes.

“We’re prepared to deal with them with dignity,” said Supervisor Susan Lacey during a news conference at Calvary Chapel in Oxnard. “We don’t want to lose any lives. We want to enhance lives.”

County officials estimate that 40 to 60 people live along the Santa Clara River from the ocean to Santa Paula.

Another 40 or so are thought to live along the Ventura River from Stanley Avenue into the Ojai Valley.

*

In recent weeks, authorities have warned the river-bottom homeless that they risk arrest if they refuse to leave their makeshift--but entrenched--homes.

City and county law enforcement officials, however, say they would rather see a peaceful transition.

“We’re not there to arrest them,” Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Regan said. “We’re there to assist them.”

Officials acknowledge that many homeless people may shun the offer of help, or at least wait for others they know to test the waters.

“A lot of people don’t understand the system,” said Ashley Thompson, 35, who was among the 200 people permanently kicked out of the Ventura River bottom after the 1995 floods. “A lot of people will not trust, and I do believe we’re going to see a lot of that.”

Thompson has effectively become the poster child of the post-flood Homeless Emergency Relocation Operation--or “HERO”--assistance effort in 1995.

After living in the river bottom for nine months, Thompson used the services offered to find permanent housing and work.

She now holds part-time jobs with the county Department of Animal Regulation and the nonprofit Turning Point Foundation, and has been asked to be part of the management effort at the Camarillo hospital shelter.

*

The allure of living in the riverbed is the freedom from responsibility necessary in the mainstream world, she said.

“We were modern-day pioneers,” she said. “I can understand people wanting to live like that. I loved it.”

Carol Mercado, 38, is one of those the effort will target. On Friday, she stood at Wagon Wheel and Ventura roads in Oxnard, panhandling passing cars about 500 yards from her Santa Clara River home.

Mercado said she wants help, but not the rules that come with living at the temporary shelter at Camarillo State Hospital.

“We’re just tired of them getting down on us,” she said of officials who make regular treks through the winding network of trails in the river bottom. “Why don’t they focus on other things?”

But Claudia Martinez, 39, sees it differently. Living at the Santa Clara River for four years with her boyfriend and five dogs, she welcomes the help, and is encouraging her neighbors to do the same.

“Once you get down here, it’s hard to get out,” she said. She noted the lack of showers, phones and laundry facilities, all needed to find jobs and permanent homes.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she said. “It’s a good opportunity.”

For many people like Martinez, the lack of amenities isn’t always the only problem.

Often, pet ownership keeps people from renting homes or rooms they could otherwise afford.

The homeless who agree to stay at Camarillo State Hospital, however, will be allowed to keep their cats and dogs in outdoor kennels.

“In some cases, they are truly homeless because of their dogs,” said county animal control officer Kathy Jenks, who manages the RAIN project. “We take away that impediment away.”

*

The homeless must vacate their camps by Nov. 7.

From Oct. 28 through Oct. 31, and again on Nov. 3, Calvary Chapel, situated just up the street from where most of the Santa Clara River homeless live, will open a special take-in site from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

A second center where Ventura River dwellers can tap into services and shelter will be a police camper parked at the Main Street bridge from Nov. 4 to Nov. 7.

Once the rivers are cleared of human and domestic animal inhabitants, county flood-control officials will move in to clean up the river beds in time for predicted floods.

The cleanup represents a major undertaking, not just because of the people who are there but because of what they will leave behind.

The winding paths along the Santa Clara River bed leading to encampments are riddled with debris. Shanties are made of discarded wood, torn tarps and old camper shells. Many have built themselves elaborate setups, planting flower gardens, powering radios and televisions with car batteries and fueling stoves with propane tanks.

Although some keep their home sites neat and tidy, others live in squalor. Discarded junk, from baby strollers to beer bottles to human excrement, is strewn for hundreds of yards away from the camps.

Flood-control officials will wait for the green light from environmental health officials before moving in with bulldozers, flood-control manager Alex Sheydayi said. The county still must get permits for the work from the federal government because the river is designated a federal waterway.

The county will pay a private contractor to do the cleanup work, which should take about two or three days to complete, Sheydayi said.

The extent of the cleanup depends on how many personal belongings people take with them.

*

Rough estimates are that 15 to 20 truckloads of garbage will have to be removed from the river and dumped in landfills at a cost of $15,000 to $20,000. Equipment rentals and hired crews will raise that cost even higher, Sheydayi said.

In the meantime, county officials are crafting an ordinance to permanently ban the homeless from camping in the Santa Clara and Ventura river bottoms. Although Ventura city officials enacted a similar ordinance within city limits following the 1995 floods, no such law exists on the county’s books, officials said.

“There will be some enforcement of this in the future so we don’t have to go back and do this a few years from now,” Sheydayi said.

Meanwhile, officials are still scrambling to pull together funding for the RAIN program.

The bulk of the cost--roughly $185,000--will be borne by the county in the form of salaries of social workers, mental-health officials and other staff members whose jobs will be transferred to the RAIN effort.

The state Department of Developmental Services Resources is donating the use of 120 beds in Camarillo State Hospital.

But the cities of Oxnard and Ventura, as well as the county Board of Supervisors, will be asked for the $40,000 difference to buy the food and cover laundry, utility and transportation expenses and carry the program through March.

But while the effort may be costly, Supervisor John K. Flynn said, the alternative is worse. A full-fledged rescue effort in the middle of a disaster would not only risk lives, but could cost as much as $1 million, Flynn said.

“The purpose of this is really a humanistic purpose,” Flynn said, “and that is the value of human life.”