Social Action News – September

Lift Up Your Voice (LUYV) To End Homelessness
Strike while the iron is hot is good advice for blacksmiths. But I think it also is advice we who have been working so long to make progress on issues of homelessness need to follow. Ventura City Council is finally getting the advice from staff we have been waiting for, and Council at long last appears to be ready to heed it. They move at a glacial pace, however. Council has asked staff to report back in March 2017 with recommended changes to zoning that will make a year-round shelter with services possible and with processes by which exorbitant fees on service providers could be reduced or subsidized. Bravo and hallelujah!
Oxnard is moving ahead with a winter warming shelter and plans for a year-round shelter with services in the future. Downtown business supports the idea.
We need to rally advocates in churches and service clubs in Oxnard to support these plans. Watch your email for meeting dates and plan to come whether you live in Oxnard or not, to support a Council that wants to do the right thing.
Affordable housing is the true solution to homelessness, yet some on Ventura’s City Council continue to resist it. The latest attack will come at Ventura City Council on Monday, Sept. 12, at 6pm, as a proposed General Plan refinement eliminating affordable housing from the Montalvo area. We contend upward mobility is enhanced when affordable housing is throughout the city, and those living in affordable housing can attend better schools and count those who are better off among their friends and neighbors. Though we want to make this point on September 12, our bottom line must be, Council must provide for affordable housing sites elsewhere in the city BEFORE they eliminate them in Montalvo. Mark your calendars and plan to show up.
Finally, mark your calendars for Sunday, October 23. when SACC will host an all-church luncheon at which the congregation will set their priorities for social action moving forward. Should the church continue its current areas of focus on homelessness, the environment, women’s issues, and education? If so, what aspects most appeal to you? Are there other causes you want to put your time, talent and treasure behind? Think about these questions and plan to come to be part of the decision making. If you can’t come, please send your ideas with a friend or email them to suebrinkmeyer@earthlink.net .