Category: Housing & homelessness

Shootings at Teichert Ponds encampment alarm activists

DA: Self defense "difficult thing" to overcome
by Natalie Hanson | Posted November 5, 2022

photo by Natalie Hanson
A tent at the Teichert Ponds site.

Shootings at Chico’s Teichert Ponds has some residents worried that unhoused people are facing increasing violence -– perhaps linked to rising levels of “dehumanizing” speech targeting them.

A shooting at the Ponds killed an unhoused man and left another seriously injured last year, and a shooting last month in the same preserve nearly killed another unhoused man. Both shootings involved people entering the Teichert Ponds encampment with the likely intent to “start a fight,” in District Attorney Mike Ramsey’s opinion. read more

Survey designed to build support for sales tax measure produces good response

Trust will be a problem for the City of Chico
by Leslie Layton | Posted April 21, 2022

photo by Leslie Layton
Deadline for returning the “Essential City Services” survey is April 22.

A mailer from the City of Chico with a survey to be returned by April 22 is a piece in a three-phase campaign to win support for a city-wide 1 percent sales tax. The survey asks city residents to rank their spending priorities in order of importance.

Chico is one of about eight “full-service” cities in the state that don’t have a local sales tax; it receives a small portion of state sales tax revenue only. Full-service cities provide public safety and other services. read more

Final steps underway for pallet shelter site

Advocates: Management style may affect outcomes
by Natalie Hanson | Posted April 4, 2022

photo by Karen Laslo
Pallet shelters

The city’s court-ordered pallet shelter project is close to completion, and advocates for unhoused people are hopeful but cautious about its chance for success.

The proposed code of conduct and the operating standards for the site are now being finalized. The city, plaintiffs and the judge must agree on these standards in order to finalize insurance and open the site on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, said Jesus Center Executive Director Amber Abney-Bass. read more

Friends on the Street, confined to a corner, keeps rolling

In its 7th year, volunteers peeved but undeterred by fencing around City Plaza
by Leslie Layton | Posted April 3, 2022

photo by Leslie Layton
Susanne Malloy says the Friends on the Street weekly gatherings help her stay fed – but serve an even more important purpose as well.

Chico’s Patrick Newman and a small cadre of volunteers continue to serve unhoused community members coffee and donuts every Sunday — seven years after the project began — gathering quietly on the southeast corner of the fenced-off City Plaza in downtown Chico.

Some five months after the City fenced off City Plaza to erect a wintertime ice rink, the fence remains even though the rink has been dismantled. Still, Friends on the Street serves coffee, donuts, sandwiches and cheese sticks to several dozen unhoused community members, gathering outside the chain link fence. Newman says Friends ran through $50,000 in cash donations in six years. read more

Settlement ends lawsuit against City of Chico

Vice mayor makes 11th-hour bid to postpone settlement
by Leslie Layton | Posted January 16, 2022

photo by Karen Laslo
Evicted campers leave their site after a sweep.

A settlement agreement in the lawsuit related to the city’s treatment of unhoused people, signed Friday by a federal judge, could end the spectacle of chaotic mass evictions that stranded campers who had nowhere to go.

Early last year, a newly-installed City Council began a series of sweeps in parks, near waterways and on patches of grass on public land.

Journalists watched as workers came in atop tractors, rumbling through encampments where displaced people had pitched tents and had failed to move their few belongings to who knows where – until we weren’t allowed to watch. read more

Project Roomkey extended in Butte County

Some motel space will be available through March 2022
by Leslie Layton | Posted December 17, 2021

photo by Karen Laslo
District 2 Supervisor Debra Lucero

The Butte County Board of Supervisors made funding available this past week to extend Project Roomkey – the state program that utilized federal funds to house at-risk homeless people during the pandemic.

In a 5-0 vote, the board on Dec. 14 approved a proposal brought forth by supervisors Debra Lucero and Tami Ritter that allocates $1.5 million from the county’s General Fund for motel rooms for unsheltered senior citizens or individuals with chronic health conditions who need isolation or quarantine during the pandemic. The rooms will be available until the end of March and the occupants will receive services to help them maintain quarantine, such as meal delivery. read more