Local businesses, nonprofits partner to help homeless get back on track
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

The concept of community— people lending their neighbor a hand—hasn’t gone the way of barn dances and prairie life but is quietly flourishing in bustling Camarillo.

Alan Hurd knew it was time to act when he had to turn down an applicant for part-time work at the Hampton Inn. The man, laid off from a job in aerospace, was on the verge of being homeless. The position would have been his third job, had the hotel been in need of another staffer. The man would’ve gladly worked for three employers to keep a roof over his family’s head.

At a Chamber of Commerce meeting Hurd, then general manager of the hotel, discussed with business owner Dave Fowble the need for a program that put their community contacts to good use for people in such predicaments.

“A lot of us are pretty much just one check away from financial disaster,” said Hurd, now an executive with the company that operates the Hilton Garden Inn in Oxnard. The Chamber “always taught me charity starts at home. If we can take care of our own backyard, then we can take care of the rest of the world.”

Hurd and Fowble, the owner of Trophies, Etc. in Camarillo and chair of the board of directors for United Way of Ventura County, crafted a 3-year-old program that brings together the nonprofit and the business communities.

Home for the Holidays gives homeless families a place to live for about a week and helps them get back on their feet.

Perhaps they need a job or financial counseling. Or if they can maintain a job, they lack transportation. Or they can pay the monthly rent on an apartment but can’t afford up-front costs. They may have tax or legal problems that contribute to their situation and must be cleared up before they can rent a home.

“Once people hear about (Home for the Holidays), they want to help,” said Fowble of the word-of-mouth network. “Folks step up and they enjoy the opportunity to help out.”

The Ventura County Human Services Agency selects the families who stay in a Camarillo hotel. To be eligible, the families cannot be chronically homeless, must be free from chemical dependency and if domestic abuse is involved the perpetrator cannot participate in the program. This year’s families will be staying through Sat., Dec. 30 at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel where they will be provided breakfast and holiday gifts. The past two years, families in the program stayed at the Hampton Inn.

Usually families have to concentrate on filling their immediate daily needs for food, shelter and clothing, not on coming up with long-term solutions. Hurd and Fowble give families not only the everyday necessities but the luxury of time.

The businessmen meet with families and assess what it would take to make a permanent home a reality. Then they tap into their network of personal, business and service group contacts to make it happen.

In 2004, the year Homes for the Holidays started, the program helped three families headed by single women to find their way out of a shelter and into more permanent living arrangements.

In the second year, five families—two headed by single mothers, another by a single father, the rest by traditional nuclear families—were selected for the program and benefited from the two men’s connections in the community.

Fowble said some people’s stereotype of the homeless as drug addicts isn’t true of these families.

“These folks just need a helping hand to get back on their feet,” he said.

One family was left homeless and twice victimized when winter 2004 floods destroyed their west Ventura County home and business. Although they had insurance, it wasn’t enough to compensate for the entire loss. Unable to run their business, the family lost their car, making it nearly impossible for the father to find other work. Ironically, the mother had a job in the social services field, but it didn’t pay enough to sustain them.

Hurd and Fowble got the father in touch with a job recruiter who helped him find a job, and rounded up enough monetary donations to make a down payment on a car. The family moved in with relatives.

The two men make sure that donations are spent responsibly.

Both have a history of helping homeless families. Hurd made it a habit to allow families without shelter to stay during the holidays at the hotel he managed in Las Vegas. For the hotel industry, the holidays are typically a slow time, so families that would have been separated by gender at shelters, which usually separate men from women and children, were able to spend the time together.

Asked why a man with a family of his own and a demanding career would take on more responsibility, Hurd said, “Because it feels good. It’s doing something right and I would hope if I were in this position someone would do this for me.”

Fowble, who for years has helped out various agencies for the homeless in Ventura County, said he agrees, and finds deep satisfaction in seeing first-hand a family benefit from the pair’s efforts.

To donate unwrapped gifts, gift certificates for restaurants, clothing and/or grocery stores, drop them off at the Hampton Inn or the Courtyard by Marriott, both in Camarillo, through tomorrow, Saturday. For more information, call the United Way at (805) 485-6288.