City Official Blasts County Homeless Policy

Pushing forward with a campaign to spur county government to action, Ventura City Manager Donna Landeros criticized the lukewarm response of county officials to efforts to hammer out a regional strategy for sheltering the homeless.

Saying the city for too long has shouldered the lion’s share of that responsibility, Landeros is proposing a broader approach that includes identifying homeless people suffering from mental illness or drug addiction and tapping county resources to get them the help they need.

Under the current system, Landeros said this week, those people are lumped into the larger homeless population, and many end up in Ventura because of the availability of social service programs and a county policy that places them in low-rent motels throughout the city.

Landeros said the entire system needs to be overhauled so that the county and other cities start picking up their fair share of that financial burden.

While there is some truth to issues raised by the city manager, county officials say her confrontational tactics aren’t helping solve the problems.

“Finger-pointing is the wrong way to talk about the homeless,” Supervisor John Flynn said.

Landeros traces the root of the conflict to a decision last spring by the county to stop funding a cold-weather shelter for the homeless. The county made its decision after Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a request for $1 million to keep the shelter program alive.