Time for a new approach to a deadly crisis
What's important to you? I ask this question because of the wide variety of issues brought up in our community's conversations that are called “important.” Recently a new capital project was called “important.” I know that a wide variety of answers to this question is to be expected as we have a wide variety of people and needs.
May I suggest that your life and death are important, as is every human life.
Every human life is a trove of wonderful gifts to discover and share were we to realize their potential, as we might in an ethical community. Ethical comes from the Greek ethos “moral character” and describes a person or behavior as right in the moral sense — truthful, fair, and honest.
You remember, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The number of people dying outside or homeless in our area is unprecedented, it is accelerating, it demands an increased use of expensive emergency services and it is preventable. A homeless friend of mine died on the corner of 5th St. and Main recently. A woman died in a tent at the City Eaton & Cohasset camp the other day. The ACLU Spring 2023 Newsletter declared, Chico's has “… responded to their growing unhoused population with brutality … ”
May I suggest a more effective use of taxpayer dollars is important?
It's way less expensive to provide basic shelter for a person before their desperation becomes an emergency. Basic shelter can be temporary transitional stepping stones, like co-managed campgrounds with case management; tiny home villages (like Opportunity Village and 14 Forward); safe car parks and micro shelters in church parking lots like they do in other towns.
To more effectively address a shelter crisis the first thing that needs to happen is safe and secure shelter for all using a wider variety of shelter options. Experience shows this can be done for a tenth the cost, per person, of our community's current strategy. California Policy Lab's 2019 report showed sheltered people had one tenth the number of police contacts; one ninth the number of jail spells and half the number of ER visits that unsheltered people had.
The last time I was in our Enloe ER it was packed. One ambulance ride and one ER visit for an unsheltered person (unrecoverable costs that are typically passed on to those of us who can pay) is about equal to the cost of a year's stay at Opportunity Village (paid for by participant fees, grants and fundraising).
Instead of emulating programs with success records that we see in Marysville, Eugene, and San Jose, among others, our community sits by and continues to accept a threeyear-old program of three conventional shelters, one chaotic camp and sweep after sweep after sweep that has cost us $7 million taxpayer dollars so far (10 times the cost of alternative programs) and at least 60 lives lost outside or homeless; lives of friends and family members.
May I suggest that our safety is important?
It's safer for a community to shelter people than to leave them in the life-threatening conditions we see at the city's Eaton and Cohasset Camp or on the hard streets of downtown Chico. In addition to the California Policy Lab analysis (above) we have news from San Jose (Evans Lane interim housing project March 2023) that after they opened their tiny homes project “Calls to the police about `quality of life' issues such as drug possession, property crimes and assault — along with complaints about graffiti — decreased overall … ”
We have interviews with the police in Eugene and Medford, Madison, Wisconsin, and Marysville that all say the tiny home villages in their jurisdictions have been no problem. There is the sixmonth research study done by the Guardian of homeless villages in Portland and Seattle that found their presence was not associated with a rise in crime. We have the (April 2021) CSU Chico research, “Using geo-spatial and statistical methods … that Safe Space has no statistically significant effect on arrests or calls for service in 100-500 meter distances from the church hosting Safe Space.” Which begs the question, “Why did the City of Chico disrupt Safe Space operations with a Cease and Desist Order”?
For safety, savings, and ethics sake contact your city councilor or your church pastor.
Do we respond effectively with open arms or expensively with steel bars? We're in the midst of a deadly, yet preventable crisis.
Charles Withuhn has been the president of the North State Shelter Team since 2021. He was also a CHAT Board Member 2017-2023; and a featured hero in the My Hero International Film Festival 2022 Humanitarian Award Wining film on YouTube “A Shower Trailer for the Homeless on a Budget of Love.”