Safe Space Fined and Intake Center Shut Down by City of Chico
In case you are not familiar with the critical work Safe Space Winter Shelter is doing in the community, they offer overnight shelter that rotates to different churches during the coldest months of the year. Because the shelter rotates between different churches, the organization needs a set location to do intake, where they bag up folks property and then bus them to the church where they receive a hot meal and a matt on the floor for the evening. Safe Space also performs the important service of registering people in HMIS, which is a system used by service providers to prioritize and connect people with housing and other services. Intake starts at 6 each evening and ends at 8PM.
This service Safe Space provides quite literally saves lives – without it, people on our streets have no way to get out of the cold and wet and are at risk of hypothermia and even death. We’ve had 27 homeless individuals die on our streets in the past year, including at least one, Jason Merced, on the sidewalk downtown.
The City of Chico (City Manager Mark Sorenson, Principal Planner Brandan Vieg, and the conservative council members) has decided that this temporary use is a code violation, despite the fact that this block has several vacant storefronts and all the businesses are closed prior to the start of intake.
Today they escalated their attack on this worthy organization and chose to cite Safe Space for using the vacant 7-11 downtown for intake. The initial fine is $300, but it will go up to $1200 per day if they continue to use the site - something a small, mostly volunteer run organization simply cannot afford.
It is worth noting that the city has often chosen to work with property owners and lessees who are in violation of city code, granting them years in some cases to come into compliance – see picture for a list of blighted properties where enforcement has been stalled for years. In fact, a building on the same block has been boarded up since before the pandemic, and only now has the city decided to levy actual fines.
Allowing extensions for businesses to work on issues is perfectly normal, but because of the punitive approach the city takes to homelessness, they have no interest in working with Safe Space to rectify the situation – they intend for unhoused people to suffer. In fact, Councilmember Morgan said as much during a radio interview a few years ago, when he said (referring to evictions), "we are just going to keep moving them and moving them ... until they leave." Of course this ignores the reality that the vast majority of the people on our streets, here as elsewhere, became homeless in the community they were last housed ... they don't have somewhere else to go.
From Left to Right: Chico Councilmembers Deepika Tandon, Dale Bennett and Kasey Reynolds, City Manager Mark Sorensen, Pettifogger Rob Berry, City Councilmembers Tom van Overbeek, Andrew Coolidge, and Sean Morgan
Safe Space needs your support now more than ever. Their work is vital to our community and to preventing more deaths on our streets. Please contact the city to demand they rescind this citation and allow the use until such time as a new location for intake can be found.
Email the council and let them know you prioritize a solution that allows Safe Space to continue to use this space for intake. Demand the city do the right thing … for once.
You can quickly send an email with a few clicks here: Send an Email to the Council Use the template or edit to make it your own.
Other ways to help this critical effort:
Donate or Volunteer for Safe Space
If you know of an alternative location that might be available for intake if the city does not reverse this decision, please contact them directly.
