Area in Line for $3.7 Million to House Mentally Ill

Ventura County and six cities are expected to receive more than $3.7 million in federal grants to help house hundreds of low-income families and the mentally ill as part of a new five-year plan to address special housing needs.

A proposal by county officials recommends distributing about $2.04 million in unincorporated areas to provide more affordable housing, while dividing the remaining $1.66 million among six cities, with Santa Paula, Ventura and Port Hueneme receiving the largest sums. Moorpark, Ojai and Fillmore would also receive a portion of the money.

Competition for federal funds has increased significantly as the availability of affordable housing dwindles, Ventura County Area Housing Authority Director Doug Tapking said. As part of the county’s federal grant application, officials for the first time have put together a comprehensive plan that projects the area’s housing needs through 2005.

“We’re more ambitious and it’s much more expensive,” Tapking said. “We are having to put together more applications and go through more process to get fewer dollars.”

The spending proposal comes just a week after county officials declared housing for the mentally ill in a “crisis state,” saying the region has fewer than half the beds needed to house the mentally ill. An estimated 20% to 30% of the county’s homeless are mentally ill, according to county government estimates. A Behavioral Health Department report found that Ventura County needs 550 more beds for the mentally ill and increased supervision of daily activities.

The county’s spending plan proposes creating 400 emergency shelter beds and 41 residential beds for the mentally ill next year, while increasing outreach to the homeless with referral and other services for at least 1,800 people. In the next five years, if the county meets its goal, another 1,600 emergency shelter beds and an additional 39 residential beds will be available for the homeless mentally ill.

The plan also recommends stepping up enforcement of building codes in at least 800 cases next year and ensuring more home improvement loans, two essential elements in the efforts to preserve affordable housing, said Christy Madden, county analyst and author of the proposal.

“We’re just trying to maintain our current housing stock,” Madden said. “It’s cheaper to try and maintain what you’ve got than try to build new.”

County supervisors are expected to approve the spending plan Tuesday.

Then the decision goes to officials with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Federal officials have 45 days to consider granting the $3.7 million to fund the first year of the five-year plan. But county staff members consider the approval a formality.

“We’ve already been told [by federal officials], ‘This is how much you can expect to get,’ ” Madden said. “We’re telling HUD how we intend to spend it.”

Most of the county’s money will support existing nonprofit groups that build affordable housing and support the homeless, leaving very little to build new housing, Supervisor Frank Schillo said.

With building costs high and the county’s needs so great, Schillo and housing officials have proposed purchasing 16 houses on the grounds of Cal State Channel Islands, formerly Camarillo State Hospital. The houses would be moved to a county-owned site where Schillo has proposed housing more than 200 seriously mentally ill patients.

But the supervisor said an extra $3 million would be needed to pay for such a project.