Countywide Strategy Needed

Thumbs up to the Ventura City Council for agreeing to cut red tape and waive fees so churches and synagogues can do what the city has refused to do: shelter the homeless.

That action should solve an immediate crisis by allowing private groups to provide beds almost immediately.

Now it’s time to redouble efforts to find a fair, permanent, countywide strategy for getting Ventura County’s most problematic and vulnerable population off the streets. Although a bed in a church is a better answer than “get lost,” it does nothing to solve the causes of homelessness and may diminish the quality of life in neighborhoods surrounding the shelters. The burden should not fall unfairly on any single city.

A good next step would be to follow through with a proposal by County Supervisor Kathy Long and Ventura Councilman Jack Tingstrom to form a committee within the Ventura Council of Governments. The goal of such a committee should be to shift the entire countywide strategy for dealing with the homeless. Instead of responding to the arrival of winter as if it were an unpredictable crisis, we need a team approach to evaluate and coordinate the numerous programs and services already available in the county.

The committee should begin by looking at the Regional Plan on Homelessness completed in 1996 by the Ventura County Homeless and Housing Coalition. The coalition estimates that there are 3,000 to 4,000 homeless people in Ventura County. Some are temporarily homeless because of a crisis; others are chronically homeless, in many cases because of mental illness or addiction to alcohol or other drugs.

Its Regional Plan recognizes that, in most cases, homelessness is not so much a problem as a symptom. Treating a symptom is a poor way to try to treat a disease. With the immediate crisis under control, it’s time to work together to treat the underlying causes.