How Can We Help When People Don’t Help Themselves?

It is a shame that a man in his 70s gets evicted from his mobile home park. It is a shame that there are no affordable places in our community for him to move without a long wait. But what can be gained from Bill Dickey’s experiences? Well, we can remember that in this country, people still have a right to self-determination, and sometimes in the exercise of that right, people make poor choices.

Mr. Dickey was confronted with numerous requests from his mobile home park to increase the maintenance of his mobile home, but he refused to do it.

When the state Department of Housing and Community Development required Mr. Dickey to clean up the property, he still refused.

When Mr. Dickey was warned that if he failed to comply he could very well face the loss of his housing, he refused to listen.

When the city of Thousand Oaks and Many Mansions stepped in and offered a city grant to pay for the cleanup, he refused it until it was too late.

In June 1997, the Ventura County Superior Court ordered Mr. Dickey to vacate his premises and sell his mobile home, and now he has no choice.

What can we as a community do to help a person who willfully does not help himself? Nothing. I’m afraid Mr. Dickey has made poor choices and that as a consequence he has lost his home.

He and others have said that the city of Thousand Oaks and social service agencies have failed him, but I don’t know what we could have done differently. As a housing counselor for the city, I spent countless hours with Mr. Dickey. I met with the park managers. I wrote several letters on his behalf. I attended two court proceedings. And when the court settlement was reached and Mr. Dickey had to move:

* I found two housing opportunities for him that he could afford and that wouldn’t require a long wait, but they weren’t in Thousand Oaks and so Mr. Dickey didn’t want them.

* I suggested that we find a room for rent in the area, but he didn’t want that either.

* I helped arrange for a grant to pay for a storage locker.

* I helped to find a volunteer group to move him.

* I even brought over moving boxes from my family’s recent move.

Did we make reasonable efforts to help Mr. Dickey? We and other social services agencies bent over backward to try to help this individual.

But the bigger question is this: Have we as a community made reasonable efforts to alleviate the shortage of affordable housing for all of our seniors, disabled and working poor? As our city has grown over the years, the need for affordable housing has continually not been met, and thus we have long waiting lists.

Many Mansions needs support in the next few weeks when the Village Inn project comes up for reconsideration by the City Council. If we receive the zoning we need, we can provide 50 units of affordable housing for those at the lowest income levels of our community.

If members of our community think this kind of housing is needed in Thousand Oaks, our city officials need to hear from them.