New group chosen for outreach survey
Butte County has selected a new nonprofit — Point Of Contact — to conduct outreach surveys of unsheltered people.
The county’s Housing Administrator, Don Taylor, said Tuesday the group was selected, instead of using county staffers, based on experience.
The outreach efforts are taking place in a year when the Department of Housing and Urban Development Point in Time survey is not taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Homeless Solutions Coordinator Suzi Kochems said recently that at meetings between Chico city councilors, Butte County Board of Supervisors and other staff, it was determined that additional emergency shelter beds “may not be necessary” while more shelter beds are under construction. It was reported at a March 16 Chico City Council meeting that by May, of the reported beds underway, only 120 beds, half low barrier and half “sober,” will have been made available.
To prove a hypothesis of whether unsheltered people “prefer to live outdoors in a nomadic type of environment,” as Kochems said March 23, the county is coordinating an outreach effort surveying people throughout the county to determine the needs of the unsheltered and if people “desire a shelter bed, another type of sheltering environment or want to connect with a family member for support.”
The surveys will be analyzed and will come back to the city and county group, then to the Board of Supervisors and the Chico
City Council for further review, Kochems said.
Taylor said the decision to select Point of Contact for this work fell on the Housing and Homeless branch of Department of Employment and Social Services, which is the administrative entity for
the county’s Continuum of Care. The branch facilitated meetings among stakeholders over the last month.
“They have experience in engaging the unsheltered homeless folks and get a level of information needed to ascertain what
resources these individuals have and what it is they may need,” he said.
Point of Contact Chico was co-founded by Laurie Maloney and Sergio Martinez, and other members are realtor Brandi Laffins and Debbie Adams.
Their approach to outreach
compared to other local providers varies, as Martinez sometimes records conversations with unsheltered individuals and uploads the videos to YouTube, turning the camera on them as he asks questions about their situation and background. On the Point of Contact Chico website, the stated mission goal is to “use outreach to help people on the street get into a shelter, rehab, detox, or mental health treatment.”
According to this mission statement, “The current enabling is keeping people where they are, holding them down in life. We believe the missing piece in our city’s current efforts is the lack of successful outreach based on human connection.”
Maloney declined an interview for the article Wednesday.