Leaders Seek Regional Plan to Offer Help to Homeless

Responding to calls for improving services to the homeless, social service providers and city representatives met Tuesday to start developing a new regional strategy for keeping people off the streets.

The meeting was prompted by Ventura officials, who in recent months have started to question why their city seems to be shouldering the lion’s share of the responsibility for caring for the homeless.

City officials have been especially critical of Ventura County government, saying it is falling short of its state mandate to provide services for the homeless, particularly for those gripped by mental illness or substance abuse.

Against that backdrop, more than two dozen elected officials, city and county staff members and advocates for the homeless gathered at the Ventura County Government Center to talk about ways to more evenly distribute the load while providing homeless people with help.

“We could have remained quiet and the status quo would have prevailed without truly dealing with the problem,” Ventura Mayor Jim Friedman told those in attendance. “Ultimately, if we can look back and say because we stood firm and we really made this an issue on a countywide basis--then it will have been worthwhile.”

But even as those in attendance applauded the effort, they agreed that more needs to be done to ensure that the issue is tackled on a regional basis.

They noted, for example, that not a single elected representative from the east county cities of Moorpark, Simi Valley or Thousand Oaks attended the meeting, which was sponsored by the Ventura Council of Governments.

“We’re looking at bringing this to a regional discussion so that we’re just not talking to each other,” said Supervisor Kathy Long, the only elected county official in attendance. “That’s the only way we’re really going to get a hold of this issue.”

Tuesday’s meeting grew out of an escalating conflict between Ventura officials and county government leaders over who should bear the bulk of the responsibility for caring for the estimated 2,000 to 4,000 homeless people in Ventura County.

Last spring, county officials decided to stop funding an emergency cold-weather shelter for the homeless, citing the state’s lack of funding for the temporary facility along with a desire to put money into establishing a more permanent transitional shelter for the down-and-out.

In September, the city of Ventura also refused to allocate money for the cold-weather shelter, saying that the city for too long had carried the burden for what is a countywide problem.

Ventura officials contend that many of the homeless end up in the seaside city because of the ready availability of social service programs and a county policy that places them in low-rent motels throughout the city.

The city did, however, agree to funnel $40,000 toward the creation of a permanent countywide shelter near the Camarillo Airport, on the condition that county officials adopt a regional strategy for keeping the indigent off the streets.

“Nobody was listening until we finally did this giant timeout,” Ventura City Manager Donna Landeros said before Tuesday’s meeting. “Before that there was no motivation to change. The status quo worked for everybody except for Ventura.”

The city’s actions have angered advocates for the homeless, who agree the system needs shoring up but argue that there are kinder and gentler ways to bring about change. But advocates on Tuesday said they were pleased to finally sit down with city and county representatives to start hammering out some of the system’s rough spots.

“I think most of what went on today was a very good starting point,” said Rick Pearson, executive director of Ventura-based Project Understanding, which provides housing and other social services.

“We have had good first steps before,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean this won’t be a good first step for something that really works.”

Ultimately, city leaders would like to see changes that include sorting out the homeless population to identify those with mental illness or substance abuse problems as a first, crucial step to getting them the help they need.

At the next meeting, set for Jan. 11, city officials also want to review the county’s general relief welfare system to see whether payments extend long enough to help homeless people keep a roof over their heads for the entire month.

“Part of what we think is going on is that we have lots of small gaps in the existing system,” Landeros said. “What we’re trying to do is plug those gaps.”