County Panel Formed to Target Homelessness

In the first formal step to tackling homelessness as a countywide problem, the county’s panel of city representatives has formed an ad hoc committee that will meet next week to begin hammering out long-term solutions.

The committee was created by the Ventura Council of Governments after homeless people in Ventura were left without an emergency warming shelter this winter.

Last winter, county officials announced that it was the final year they would help provide a countywide winter shelter. The county made its decision after Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a request for $1 million that would have kept a 10-year-old armory program in Oxnard alive for another year.

Saying that homelessness was a regional problem and that the county should provide sufficient funding, the city of Ventura in September refused to allocate funds to open an emergency shelter within the city this winter.

The lack of a cold weather facility touched off a larger debate among city and county officials about which level of government should shoulder the responsibility for caring for homeless residents throughout the county.

The government council’s Homeless Committee--comprising city officials from five west county cities, county officials and representatives of several countywide nonprofit groups--will discuss the cold-weather shelter issue and other matters at its first meeting on Tuesday, from 3 to 5 p.m. at the county Hall of Administration.

“Homelessness is simply too large an issue for any one entity to take on alone,” said Supervisor Kathy Long, who will chair the new committee.

“By calling together this committee, we can deal with the short-term needs and the long-term transitional needs so we’re not in this predicament next year,” she said.

Long added that she hoped the committee would open up constructive dialogue among the politicians and the nonprofit groups.

“Frankly, I think that the county’s been doing a good job, but there are areas where we can improve too,” Long said.

But Ventura City Manager Donna Landeros questioned whether the committee was truly a countywide effort. She asked why only officials from cities in western Ventura County--Ventura, Port Hueneme, Oxnard and Ojai--have volunteered to participate.

“Our concern is that it’s not really a countywide committee,” said Landeros, who notes that Long’s 3rd Supervisorial District stretches from Piru to Camarillo. “Only west county cities have volunteered to be on the committee. That’s nothing different from what we’ve done in the past. I’m a little fearful of this, that we would be just rearranging problems in west Ventura County.”

Long, however, said that numerous representatives from the eastern county have volunteered to be on the panel. Among them are Karen Ingram of Lutheran Social Services, based in Thousand Oaks; Dan Hardy, executive director of Many Mansions in Thousand Oaks; and Doug Tapking of the Newbury Park-area housing authority.

She added that she invited officials from all cities to participate in the effort.

“I’ve invited them, but I can’t make the east side people participate.”

Simi Valley Mayor Bill Davis, however, said he was unaware that the committee existed. He added that he might not join because he is busy developing a homeless coalition in Simi Valley to address that city’s problem.

Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez, who has agreed to join the committee, said the county and cities should take a team approach in providing for the homeless.

“We in Oxnard are willing to do our share, and more if we have to,” said Lopez, whose city reserved $48,000 for a warming shelter in Oxnard this winter. “We have a moral responsibility to do whatever we can to help.”