More Homeless Used Shelters, Survey Shows

More people slept at Ventura County warming shelters this winter than at any other time in the past five years, underscoring the need for permanent shelters, advocates say.

Before winter emergency shelters closed in March, advocates estimated the county’s total number of homeless people at more than 3,000, a substantial increase from last year’s estimate of 1,300.

A team of volunteers with the Homeless & Housing Commission surveyed 295 homeless adults at the county’s seven shelters on the night of Feb. 22.

Highlights from that report, released last week, include:

* One-third of the shelter population were women and children.

* Nearly two-thirds were staying at a shelter for the first time.

* Nearly half had been homeless for six months or less.

* Job loss and lack of affordable housing were leading causes of homelessness.

People not staying in shelters sleep in doorways or under bushes, the report noted. More than 100 of those surveyed had regular monthly incomes but were unable to find affordable places to rent.

“These are real people with real faces and stories,� said Karol Schulkin, coordinator of the homeless services program at the county’s Human Services Agency.

Schulkin and other social services advocates reiterated a hope that publicity about the survey would bolster efforts to establish a permanent, year-round facility for the homeless.

For eight months of every year, according to the report, no emergency shelter beds are available for families or single women. Seventy beds are available for men and the mentally ill at two sites in Oxnard and Ventura.

The facts frustrate advocates.

“I had a terrible year,� said J.R. Jones, director of Lutheran Social Services in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Jones oversees the Conejo Valley Winter Shelter, where 46 adults and children were staying the night of the survey. Jones said he had three families, one with a terminally ill child, for whom he struggled to find temporary housing when the shelter in Thousand Oaks closed.

He said he “begged� local church groups for money for motel rooms and contacted Los Angeles County shelters where room was available.

“We sent those people out of the area to Los Angeles or the Antelope Valley,� Jones said. “Some wound up in bad neighborhoods.�

According to the report, most homeless people surveyed in Thousand Oaks are white and between the ages of 36 and 56, as is true at most Ventura County shelters.

Nearly one-third surveyed said they suffered a mental disability, and one-fifth reported problems with drugs or alcohol.

In 1997, the survey’s first year, 18% of shelter users were from Ventura, compared with 24% this year. In Thousand Oaks, the number jumped from 8% to 12%, but in Oxnard it dropped from 40% to 35%.

“Homelessness is not a very sexy issue. It’s very difficult to get people to pay attention to it,� said Cathy Brudnicki, president of the coalition that conducted the survey.

In her job as an insurance agent, Brudnicki said she recently had a female client who was living at the home of family members until an argument forced her onto the streets. For two weeks, the woman lived in her car until she found temporary housing.

“There needs to be a permanent emergency facility in each community,� Brudnicki said. “If such facilities existed, they wouldn’t need to be large. Just places where people could stabilize and have services available.�