Lack of Low-Cost Housing Cited in Homeless Survey

Ventura County’s supercharged housing market is putting the squeeze on low-income families and contributing to a chronic state of homelessness countywide, according to a new survey.

More than a third of those questioned during a one-day snapshot of the county’s homeless population identified affordable housing as their greatest need, according to survey results released Monday by the Ventura County Homeless and Housing Coalition.

Others identified better jobs, transportation and counseling and rehabilitation as among their greatest needs.

The survey noted that the vacancy rate is nearly nonexistent in the county and that the average rent for an 860-square-foot home now stands at $1,200 a month, a 55% increase over the last five years.

“Rents are rising dramatically, and it’s pricing a lot of folks out of the market,” said Cathy Brudnicki, a Thousand Oaks-based insurance agent who is president of the coalition. “What we see are people ending up in overcrowded conditions or falling out of housing altogether.”

The survey was conducted Feb. 26 at emergency shelters, transitional housing facilities and residential recovery programs from Ojai to Thousand Oaks.

It was the eighth year the coalition has conducted the head count as a way of providing insight into the homeless population and spurring solutions to the problems that end up pushing people onto the street.

It found 525 people living in those facilities. More than half were women and children, and more than a third had been homeless for two years or longer.

Nearly a quarter of respondents said drugs or alcohol put them out on the street, while 21% blamed job loss and 5% said they were fleeing domestic violence.

Most of those questioned had lived in Ventura County at least 10 years and said they hoped to remain in the county, if they could lift themselves out of homelessness and find places they could afford. More than a third of those surveyed said they could not afford to pay more than $500 a month in rent.

“People of limited means are having to compete [for rentals] against the lower middle class and the middle class, and they just can’t do it,” said Karol Schulkin, head of the county’s homeless services programs.

Schulkin and others said some progress was being made.

In Ventura, city officials are in the process of buying one of eight possible sites to build a facility, mostly for families. It would be run by Project Understanding, a nonprofit agency.

Oxnard officials are attempting to identify property and a service provider for a shelter that would house single women and women with children.

And in Thousand Oaks, a steering committee has been meeting monthly to help identify possible sites and smooth the way for the project at City Hall.

“That’s three different parts of the county experiencing forward movement,” said Brudnicki, who is involved in the Thousand Oaks effort.

“All three would be year-round emergency shelters, designed to get people off the street, get them clean and get them to write a plan about how they are going to take the next step,” she said.