Officials See Hope for Area’s Homeless in RAIN Program

As city and county leaders work to lift people out of homelessness, they are looking to a year-old shelter and social service program to lead the way in a reinvigorated campaign to get the down-and-out back on their feet.

The Ventura County RAIN project, initially created to provide temporary assistance to homeless people endangered by winter storms, is expected to become a cornerstone in the development of a new regional strategy to help get indigents off the streets.

The transitional living center, temporarily housed in an old Fire Department building near Camarillo Airport, has helped dozens of homeless people land jobs, find housing and escape the stranglehold of substance abuse and other problems that so often derail the drive to self-sufficiency.

In fact, the effort has been so successful that county officials have been searching for ways to expand the program and turn it into a permanent social service network for those trying to piece their lives back together.

That effort received a significant boost late last month when federal housing officials awarded $750,000 to the city of Oxnard to support the transitional program over the next three years.

Project officials hope to parlay that money into a larger pool of local, state and federal grants to allow the center to move to a permanent facility with enough space and resources to care for as many as 150 homeless men, women and children.

“I think this could be one of our best models for helping to solve this problem,” said Kathy Jenks, director of the county’s animal regulation department, which oversees the homeless-assistance project.

“There is, in my experience, no quick answer,” she said. “But if we can get this up and running on a permanent basis, then we’ve got a good foundation to start from.”

Although city and county leaders have long talked about the need to boost shelter and social services for the homeless, whom county officials estimate number between 2,000 and 4,000, the issue has taken on greater urgency in recent weeks.

In an escalating conflict over who should bear most of the responsibility for caring for that population, Ventura officials have complained that their city has been forced to shoulder the lion’s share of the obligation.

City officials have been especially critical of Ventura County government, saying it has fallen short of its state mandate to provide services to the homeless, particularly those struggling with mental illness or substance abuse.

County leaders have responded by agreeing to review those issues as part of a broader push to plug the gaps in the current system that delivers services to the homeless.

But they also are quick to point out that they have poured more than half a million dollars into keeping the RAIN project afloat, and in the process have created a program likely to serve as the prototype for future efforts.

“We’ve been doing as much as humanly possible,” county Supervisor John Flynn said. “I’ve just never seen anything like what we have been able to put together. It’s the model for everything else we are going to do.”

The RAIN program--officially known as the River-dwellers Aid Intercity Network--was created in late 1997 to assist people who lived in the shantytowns that once dotted the Ventura and Santa Clara river bottoms.

It was patterned after a successful assistance program launched in early 1995 after violent storm waters ripped out homeless encampments along the Ventura River, displacing more than 100 people. One man was killed during the flooding and a dozen other river dwellers had to be plucked by rescuers from the rising waters.

To prevent a similar occurrence, officials started the RAIN project in November 1997 in an unused wing of Camarillo State Hospital, which is now a Cal State University campus. And they expanded it from a shelter program to one aimed at helping people make the transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency.

It initially came under the auspices of the animal regulation department because so many homeless people owned dogs and refused to relocate unless their animals also were taken care of.

The program moved to its location near Camarillo Airport last June. It currently serves 50 clients, including 12 women and 27 children, with a range of services that includes drug rehabilitation, parenting classes and job training.

A dozen hold steady jobs, and project employees shuttle those without transportation to and from work. Although there is no limit on how long people can stay in the program, project officials aim to have people on their feet within a year.

The ambitious program offers anger management courses, adult literacy classes and after-school tutoring for kids. It also requires regular drug tests for substance abusers and a mandatory savings program to ensure that participants are putting aside money to eventually move out on their own.

Those who don’t comply with the rules are promptly ushered out of the program. The waiting list is too long to waste time with people who aren’t taking the program seriously, say those involved.

“We’ve learned a lot of things since we first started,” said RAIN counselor Bob Costello, who through another agency was part of the initial push in 1996 to match the river residents with shelter and services.

“I’ve switched my position a little bit and now take a little bit more of a hard-line approach,” he said. “You can’t just expect to get, get, get your whole life and not take some responsibility along the line. People have to be willing to meet you halfway.”

It took years of drug use and abuse at the hands of husbands and boyfriends for Tracey Florez to be ready to meet anyone halfway.

Florez, 32, and her four children came to the RAIN project several months ago with all their belongings. She has since gone through parenting classes and drug and alcohol counseling. She now works part time at Oxnard College where she is also involved in a job-training program.

She’s saving money to move out when she’s ready. But until then, she’s taking advantage of all the tools the program has to offer.

“This is going to work, I know it is,” she said. “I can’t fail. My kids need it. I need it.”

It’s stories like hers that fuel efforts to move the program to a permanent location where it can expand and help more people. While that search continues, Jenks said she is also working on finding more money for the project.

Because the first installment of Oxnard’s $750,000 grant won’t come until after July, Jenks said she plans to ask the Board of Supervisors in coming weeks for another $60,000 to keep the program going.

“We can set up a warehouse and just have a place for people to flop, but then we’ll never get to the root of the problem,” she said. “If we do this right, we should have several years of funding. If we can’t make some real headway in that time, we have no right being in this business in the first place.”