I would like to call attention to City Councilmember Neal Andrews and his consistent support of the 10-year strategy to end homelessness in his city.
Some 85 percent of homeless people are our neighbors in poverty who lived "one paycheck from the street." Neal volunteered, along with the Ventura Social Services Task Force, to work through developing new projects: the nationally acclaimed Ventura Homeless Prevention Fund, which has kept more than 200 men, women and children from eviction to the street; the anti-panhandling campaign to stop the few aggressive "defiant homeless;" and the safe-sleep project for those who must live in their cars until they can again afford housing.
The remaining 15 percent are mentally ill and/or physically handicapped and need professional care. Neal's work on the board of the Turning Point Foundation has furthered TPF's clinical work and their River Haven experiment in self-governing transitional living and rehabilitation of these chronic homeless.
This month, United Way of Los Angeles released the result of their four-year commissioned study by USC, reinforced by new American Medical Association findings, showing that the City of Los Angeles can save $40,000 in taxpayer dollars per person per year through supported shelter, similar to Turning Point's River Haven. Many other such studies have shown similar taxpayer savings.
Isn't it amazing that Neal offers to continue giving Ventura his unusual combination of hard-headed, businesslike fiscal discipline, coupled with humanitarian concern for "the least of us," plus thoughtful balancing of the needs of housed Venturans? We are indeed lucky.
-- Karl B. Keller, Camarillo