Helping the Needy Is Always in Season at Ventura Nonprofit

With winter approaching, homelessness in Ventura has once again become a hot-button issue. But at Project Understanding, an assistance center on the city’s west end, the focus doesn’t fluctuate with the seasons.

As it has year-round for two decades, the church-supported nonprofit provides food, hot showers and laundry services to the needy.

It offers message and mail service to those without addresses, healthcare to those who can’t afford to see a doctor and a small block of transitional housing for homeless families.

Now, as city leaders scramble to extend shelter and services to the homeless through the winter, Project Understanding is taking a leading role in establishing a permanent year-round shelter for those struggling to get back on their feet.

Efforts to create the transitional living center have been in the works for five years. Ventura officials are looking at three possible sites to build the Daybreak Center, which will have 40 to 60 beds for families and individuals intent on ending their homelessness.

“Yes, it’s been a long time. Yes, it’s been a difficult wait, but I don’t think it’s for lack of real effort,” said Rick Pearson, executive director of Project Understanding.

City leaders have agreed to buy land for the shelter, and Project Understanding will build and operate it. Officials estimate it will cost $2 million to $2.5 million to acquire the site and build the shelter, with the money coming from public and private sources.

“It will be a struggle,” Pearson said. “But we believe the community will continue to support the needs of those residents who are least able to care for themselves.”

Project Understanding was founded in 1977 by local pastors seeking to fuel social change.

They landed a grant designed to address issues of racism and social justice in communities nationwide. At one time, there were branches of Project Understanding doing such work across the country.

Philip Amerson, president of the Claremont School of Theology, was among those who helped administer the grants in the 1970s while serving as a researcher at Emory University in Atlanta. He said he was pleased to learn recently that Project Understanding in Ventura was still going strong, even though its mission has changed.

“At one level I’m surprised that anything is still around that bears that name, but at another level I saw pretty dramatic things happen with that project,” Amerson said. “I would be disappointed if it were still trying to do the narrow things we were doing in the ‘70s, because the world is much more textured now and more interesting too.”

Indeed, Project Understanding has expanded its mission over the years. Once based in private homes, the group took over an old fire station on Ventura Avenue in the early 1980s and quickly expanded its programs and services.

With an annual budget of about $500,000, the nonprofit serves thousands of people each year with a staff of 10 and a corps of volunteers. It provides after-school tutoring for children in the city’s largely low-income west end. More than 200 volunteers meet one on one with grade-school students struggling with their classwork.

The organization helps prevent evictions, providing money to tenants on the brink of losing their homes. The group also operates a food pantry, handing out groceries three days a week to a steady stream of homeless and hungry people.

In the biting cold last month, a long line formed as the food bank prepared to open.

Ventura native Gabriel Castro was among the needy, eagerly waiting for rations that would hold him over for a couple of weeks.

Driven to the streets by alcohol abuse, the 41-year-old left the pantry with bags of lettuce, squash and blueberry muffin mix.

“It’s really hard times out there,” Castro said. “It would be really tough to try to make it without this help.”

Not everyone is as desperate. Many who line up for groceries have a roof over their heads but need the provisions to help them get by.

That is the case for Amy Sears, 44. She lives in subsidized housing and has been on a fixed income since suffering a work-related injury years ago.

It’s important for people to know that it’s not just the homeless who are struggling and in need of a helping hand, she said.

“It’s a whole bigger picture most people don’t want to look at,” said Sears, waiting her turn at the food bank. “Everyone out there is conceivably just one accident away from being on this end of the line.”

That’s a message Pearson hammers home whenever possible.

While much has been made recently about city efforts to clear squatters from a decades-old homeless encampment along the Ventura River, Pearson is quick to note that the river-bottom population is not representative of most people in need.

Often, the homeless are living in their cars or squeezing into apartments with friends and relatives, Pearson said.

“Ninety percent of the people we serve are not homeless,” said Pearson, who is also an ordained Methodist minister. “They are people living in the community but who are struggling to make ends meet.”

Contributions can be sent to Project Understanding, P.O. Box 25460, Ventura, CA 93002. For information, call (805) 652-1326.