Tucked into a rural corner of Ventura near Harbor Boulevard and Olivas Park Drive, the River Haven tent community is remarkably entering its 13th year at the site. In fact, Ventura County’s first sanctioned homeless camp has been such a quiet success that it’s easy to forget it’s still there.
Fortunately, a group at Buena High School, members of Temple Beth Torah in Ventura and others in our community have not forgotten about River Haven. They banded together to devise and complete a project to install much-needed solar lighting at the camp, finishing the job last week. Everyone involved deserves much praise for literally brightening the lives of some of the less fortunate among us.
River Haven was created by a group of homeless people in 2004 after they were forced from illegal encampments in the Ventura River bottom in anticipation of heavy winter rain and flooding. They formed a self-governing community at Emma Wood State Beach, then bounced from campground to campground before Ventura agreed in 2005 to let them stay on the city property near the harbor. It was supposed to be a one-year solution but has become a semi-permanent camp overseen by the nonprofit Turning Point Foundation.
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