alternate site Archives - ChicoSol News

North State Shelter Team hits landmark 2000th shower At City's Alternate Site for the homeless, volunteers provide relief

photo by Karen Laslo

Alternate Site residents Robert and Brenda Sallee.

photo essay by Karen Laslo
posted May 25

Every Friday, the North State Shelter Team (NSST) hauls its shower trailer out to the homeless camp on the corner of Eaton and Cohasset roads.

Along with a team of caring volunteers, NSST founder Charles Withuhn attempts to relieve some of the misery of living unhoused by offering hot showers. Withuhn built the shower trailer two years ago. On this Friday (May 24) the team was celebrating the marker of providing some 2,000 showers with cupcakes and coffee for the residents. read more

Unhoused people say they’re targeted, misunderstood A BB gun shooting interrupts an autumn morning

photo by Leslie Layton

Campers believe the hole was caused by gunfire aimed at them.

Sidebar to part II in ChicoSol series on homelessness in 2023.

On a Friday morning in September, North State Shelter Team (NSST) volunteers keep the mobile shower unit running during their weekly visit to the alternate site campground. Hope Commons Church has brought coffee and rolls for unhoused campers. Suddenly, a ping ping ping interrupts quiet conversations.

Then, a tide of irritation and indignant anger rolls through the encampment with the realization that there has just been a BB gun shooting aimed at the group from a passing car. No one was hit, but any of us – from the unhoused to the community volunteers to a pair of ChicoSol journalists on assignment – could have been. read more

ChicoSol was awarded first place in the Community Focus category in the statewide newspaper contest run by California News Publishers Association (CNPA).

ChicoSol competed with major California newspapers for the award, announced by CNPA July 14.

ChicoSol won a third place in the Youth and Education category, fourth in Investigative Reporting, fourth in Health Reporting, and fifth in Housing and Land-Use Reporting.

Read more here, and thank you ChicoSol donors and readers for making possible our independent and in-depth reporting.

Chico Police Department said a deceased person was found at 6:40 a.m. today (June 20) on the Silver Dollar Way sidewalk.

“Employees from a nearby business located the deceased person, who appeared to be sleeping,” the police statement says. “Unfortunately, the decedent could not be saved.”

The person’s identity has been withheld pending notification of next-of-kin.

Today’s press statement was the sixth “Death in Public” press release this year.