Effort Underway to Relocate Homeless From Riverbeds

From their little huts made of wooden crates and tarps, the people of the river bottom drifted into Calvary Chapel in Oxnard on Tuesday morning.

They waited to be interviewed by social workers, and a few shared a hand-rolled smoke made of tobacco scavenged from discarded cigarette butts.

It was the first day of a weeklong effort to move the homeless out of the Santa Clara and Ventura riverbeds before winter rains and runoff flood their makeshift home sites.

Next week, the homeless will be loaded onto a bus and taken to the now-vacant Camarillo State Hospital, where they will be assigned beds in a dormitory. The shelter will be open until March, giving the homeless time to find work and alternative permanent living arrangements, officials said.

The interviews this week are meant to find out just what people need to get back on their feet.

“We’re just looking for a place to stay,” said James Pettit and his pregnant girlfriend, Kelly Iozia.

Pettit, 30, and Iozia, 28, have been living in an abandoned camper shell under the Santa Clara River bridge near Wagon Wheel Road for seven months. Now that Iozia is pregnant, the two figure that they need a decent place to live.

“We’re tired of people coming down there and bothering us,” said Pettit, who works part time at a liquor store near Wagon Wheel. “It’d be nice if we could get a job too.”

The interviews will also help social workers determine if those who take advantage of the services need special medical attention--like Iozia--or have other special needs, said Karol Schulkin, coordinator for Ventura County’s homeless services program.

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Schulkin’s agency is one of about half a dozen that make up the River-Dweller’s Aid Intercity Network--or RAIN. The network 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.

The coalition includes such county agencies as social services, public health, behavioral health and animal control.

“Some of these people have pets and they will be able to take them with them,” Schulkin said.

Jeff “The Snake” Green, 43, came by the temporary RAIN headquarters at Calvary Chapel to find a home for his cat Pest and her five kittens. But Green, who said he has been living in the river bottom for 10 years, had no plans to relocate to the dorms at Camarillo State Hospital.

“I’ve got a friend who I can stay with,” he said.

Green, like many of those in the river bottom, has built a makeshift shelter complete with a front porch. He said his home is “the best one down there,” and has a small kitchen with propane stove, as well as a television powered by a car battery.

Most of Green’s neighbors said they liked living in the wild shrub-covered river bottom, but realized that their time in their shanties was almost over.

“It was great for four years,” said Carol Martinez, 40. “But they made it clear we’re not going to be able to stay there.”

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Officials decided to boot out those living in the river bottom in an effort to avoid costly and dangerous rescues from the area during the winter.

One man was killed during flooding in 1995 and 12 others who had encampments in the Ventura River bottom had to be plucked by rescuers from the rising waters.

The ambitious $225,000 plan to relocate the more than 100 homeless people who have made the two river bottoms their home was unveiled last week.

It is cheaper to relocate them now rather than stage costly rescues during winter flooding, officials said.

John Henry, 38, said he was less worried about flooding and more concerned about what exactly was being offered as an alternative living arrangement.

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Henry and others from the river bottom said they have been told numerous times by Oxnard police officers and county officials that they would be moved out and their shelters removed before this winter’s rains.

“I’d rather stay where I’m at,” said Henry, who has been living in the river bottoms since 1990. “But I guess I don’t really have a choice.”