Thousand Oaks sees 48% increase in homeless count




BAGGING IT UP—Harbor House volunteer Mike Lynch adds food to sack meals while preparing for lunch services on June 1 at Holy Trinity Church in Thousand Oaks. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

BAGGING IT UP—Harbor House volunteer Mike Lynch adds food to sack meals while preparing for lunch services on June 1 at Holy Trinity Church in Thousand Oaks. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

Thousand Oaks’ homeless population is larger than it’s ever been, according to preliminary numbers from January’s annual point-in-time count.

The count was taken Jan. 29—long before layoffs and furloughs were handed down as a result of the COVID lockdowns and some homeless people were provided shelter by the county in local motels.

Overall, the number of homeless people counted in Ventura County was 1,743, an increase of 74 (4.4%) from last year. Meanwhile, volunteers counted 152 homeless people in Thousand Oaks, up 49 from 2019, a 48% increase.

While the count only reflects those people reached by volunteers on a single day and doesn’t match higher numbers reported by the Thousand Oaks Police Department, it gives a ballpark idea of the homeless situation.

Regardless, those organizations in T.O. that service people who are homeless have had their hands full.

Even with a large number of its clients living at the Motel 6 in Newbury Park—one of four motels in use by county government—Lutheran Social Services said the number of people turning to it for aid in recent weeks is as high as it was before the pandemic began.

HELPING HANDS—Thousand Oaks resident Tamy Sloboda delivers bottled water to Harbor House before lunch service on June 1 at Holy Trinity Church. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

HELPING HANDS—Thousand Oaks resident Tamy Sloboda delivers bottled water to Harbor House before lunch service on June 1 at Holy Trinity Church. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

“Since the crisis started, we have about 30 people placed at Motel 6, and we still have about 30 people dropping in,” said Dichele Harris, area director for LSS, which provides referral services to mental and physical health, housing and other resources; case management; and emergency aid such as hotel vouchers, gasoline vouchers and rental and utility bill assistance.

LSS has seen an increase of about 50% in requests for rental or utility bill assistance; qualifying individuals may have a portion of or even their entire bill covered.

Helping with such expenses is an important piece of the homeless puzzle, Harris said, because it’s easier and less costly to keep a family housed than to seek new housing.

Though the organization has received some COVID-related aid that it plans to use for that purpose, it’s not enough to help everyone who needs it, Harris said.

 

“Essentially, what we’ve been doing is putting people on a waiting list,” she said. “We haven’t been able to address that need as much, especially because we’re just coming back with staff onsite ourselves.”

At Harbor House on E. Avenida de Los Arboles, another organization that works with homeless people, staff has had to work remotely while scrambling to refigure the city’s shelter and meal program, which it oversees.

“We had to shut down the shelter (which includes the meal program), so we said, ‘OK, let’s just do a lunch program because that’s easy for people to do,’” operations director Sheri Groenveld said. “That first day, it poured down rain and we had paper lunch bags that were getting wet.”

Things got smoother, especially as members of the community stepped up to help provide the 50 lunches Harbor House began distributing.

“We put out a call and wham, wham, wham, people just started signing up—so many we asked people to make 10 lunches each,” Groenveld said. “It was tricky though, because remember, you couldn’t find bread or bottled water.”

With the help of the program’s regular meal providers and the new volunteer sandwich makers, the program has continued, first at Anthem Church near Thousand Oaks High School and now from 2 to 4 p.m. daily at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church near the campus of Cal Lutheran University.

Like LSS, Harbor House has about 30 clients at Motel 6, where the county provides three meals a day. Even so, the demand at the lunch program has grown.

“In the last couple of weeks, we’ve been running low, so we’ve upped our request to 70 lunches,” Groenveld said.

Even while businesses begin reopening, the number of people needing help continues to grow as bills come due, said Denise Cortes, executive director of Harbor House.

“I talked with a family the other day where a dad was working two jobs—landscaping all day and in a restaurant at night—and the mom worked in a hotel, and they both lost their jobs,” Cortes said. “There are so many people on the lower end of the income scale who have just lost all of their income, so we’re finding there is more need.”

The one good to come from the current crisis, all the providers said, is the affirmation that the people of Thousand Oaks will come through in times of need.

“This community is extraordinary, and people really do care,” Cortes said. “People are really just wanting to do good and wanting to lift up those who are most vulnerable.”

Her hope is that the vulnerable population won’t be forgotten when the headlines disappear.

“The road back to stability for these families is going to be a long haul, and we don’t want people to forget about them,” she said. “We don’t want kids living in cars.”