Council OKs $5,000 for Homeless Shelter

The City Council, maintaining that the city has no homeless problem, voted 5 to 0 Wednesday to contribute $5,000 to a regional shelter operated by the Salvation Army in Oxnard.

Officials from Oxnard and Ventura had asked Camarillo for more money, but the City Council balked at the request.

“We are more than willing to look to see what else may be needed to serve our community,” said Councilwoman Jan McDonald. “We felt that [$5,000] was fair based on several things,” including, she said, Camarillo’s relatively small size in comparison to the other two cities.

Ventura and Oxnard are giving a total of $83,600 to the shelter, and county officials are considering contributing another $53,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

The five-member council agreed that anything more than $5,000 would give the shelter more money than it needs, especially if a grant is issued by the federal government.

Camarillo officials have long contended that most of the county’s homeless live in Oxnard and Ventura and used that argument to justify the city’s contribution to the homeless shelter.

“We felt this was our proportional share,” McDonald said. “We know we had some homeless people in Camarillo, but when you do the math this was what we came up with.”

The shelter opened Dec. 1 and has provided beds for about 60 people each night according to Salvation Army officials. The shelter is the only one available in Oxnard, Ventura and Camarillo.