Call To Action! Support Chico Homeless Solutions Plan

A special city council meeting is scheduled Tuesday, during which city staff and service providers will be presenting the Homeless Solutions Plan. It includes locating appropriate sites for short-term camping and low-barrier shelter, long-term locations that will add shelter beds and incorporate ongoing services, and partnerships with local service providers to get the job done.

It is heartening to see the city and council taking substantive action and dedicating resources to these issues. This has been a long time coming!

Some on the right are already complaining about the proposed solutions; so far it’s the costs that they object to. Let’s be clear - the city is already paying a cost. Paying police to go out and “move people along” isn’t humane or cost effective, and takes away from the time they have to spend solving actual crimes.

The costs for our community are steep in other areas as well; our community hospital, for instance, spends hundreds of thousands treating people who often are only there because they have no place to go and no place to get treatment for what, for a housed person, would be a minor illness.

A stunning and widely covered example of the cost of homelessness to the community is available here: Million Dollar Murray

Help Us Move This Initiative Forward!

You can review the agenda and details of the proposals using the link below. There are two items linked below the description of 2.1 - the staff report and recommendations, and the Homeless Opportunities Plan, both of which flesh out the details of this initiative.

Even if this is approved, there will still be many details to review and address, but it gives us, finally, a concrete starting point, and creates place(s) for people to go who currently have literally no legal place to exist in our community.

Please take a few minutes to express your support on the Engaged Chico site - comments are shared with the council and key city staff. Click on individual agenda items to reach the comment area.

If you are interested in watching the meeting, you can do that here - there will be a link to Video once the meeting has begun.