COUNTYWIDE : Oxnard Armory to Open Tonight

The Oxnard National Guard Armory will be opened to the homeless at 6:30 tonight, even if weather conditions do not warrant operating the 100-bed facility, officials said Wednesday.

The shelter is generally opened when the temperature is expected to drop below 40 degrees or when forecasts call for a 50% chance of rain combined with a low of 50 degrees.

The facility was opened Wednesday for the first time this winter, and about 30 people had moved in by 9:30 p.m., Red Cross volunteers said.

National Weather Service forecasters predicted that temperatures would dip into the mid-40s.

Nancy Steinhelper, chief of adult services for the public social services agency, said earlier this week that the Oxnard Armory at 351 South K St. would offer homeless people a warm place to sleep on Thanksgiving Day because it is the right thing to do.

Last month Gov. Pete Wilson announced that homeless people could sleep at the shelters every night this winter, regardless of temperatures.

But Mike Goth, an American Red Cross official who runs the shelter program at the armory, said there is not enough funding to keep the shelter open all winter.