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Medical Care Program For Ventura County's Homeless Steps Up Efforts During Coronavirus Crisis

A program providing medical care for Ventura County’s homeless is stepping up in a big way to fight coronavirus.

Dr. Tipu Khan is a Ventura County Medical Center doctor who heads “Operation Backpack.”  He says the program takes medicine to people living on the streets of Ventura County. 

Doctors, nurses, and social service workers have been going to homeless camps, as well as other places unsheltered people have been living, to get them essential help.

One of the big elements of the program during the coronavirus crisis is moving some of the most at-risk homeless into motels.  More than 325 people are now being housed at motels in Ventura, Oxnard, and Newbury Park.

The program is working to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the homeless community.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral. 
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