Nonprofit demonstrates temporary homeless shelters
CHICO >> Temporary homeless shelters were demonstrated on Monday by local nonprofit Caring Choices along with Pallet, a company specializing in construction of the shelters.
The demonstration took place at two locations. First in the morning in the parking lot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at 2430 Mariposa Ave. and then into the evening at Jack’s restaurant at 540 Main St..
Caring Choices began in 1993 providing housing assistance and case management in Northern California. The organization looks to improve the health and welfare of residents in areas where support may be nonexistent or severely limited through community services, with their services primarily completed through volunteer work.
Pallet is an Everett, Washington-based company building temporary housing shelters. The company’s shelters are known for their quick construction. One of their standard shelter models can be constructed in roughly thirty minutes.
Caring Choices and Pallet said Monday’s demonstrations were intended for the public, elected officials, and local homeless services to see the ease of setting up
a temporary shelter and discuss the benefits of having them available in the community.
Hilary Crosby executive director of Caring Choices said in the nearly 30 years since the nonprofit was founded, the organization has never stopped looking at different answers.
“About a year ago, we started talking with the city of Chico on how we could be a part of solutions for those experiencing homelessness in our community and we wrote various different proposals that we submitted to the city,” Crosby said. “While we haven’t been directly involved in sheltering, we have really good partners in our town so we were like, ‘We can do this.’”
Crosby said with the resources Caring Choices has available, the organization believes it could help. To begin, the nonprofit began looking at companies providing temporary shelters.
“Getting people into permanent housing is an issue. Maybe we need something in the middle to solve that,” Crosby said. “The microshelters servers came to our attention and we started doing a lot of research on them. There’s various different brands out there, but Pallet was one we had seen a couple different places in our state.”
Caring Choices looked to success seen in Sonoma County where 60 Pallet micro-shelters were built in 10 days to form Los Guilicos Village. Similarly in Riverside, 30 Pallet micro-shelters were established in four days.
“We started looking into them. The county had also looked into them before so that was kind of something that was on our radar,” Crosby said. “We just continued these conversations and had different proposals. (Pallet) seemed like a cost effective option for a project like this.”
Crosby said 50 units installed would cost roughly $380,000. She added she hoped Monday’s demonstration would be a good stepping stone to introduce the community to the benefits the shelter’s could provide.
“We just want to introduce into the community, kind of take the temperature, and see what people are thinking. The community also gets to see what solutions are out there,” Crosby said. “These aren’t intended for permanent housing but they are an option for transitional housing.”
On Monday afternoon, Caring Choices and Pallet held demonstrations downtown with the hope of gauging the perception of people without homes, Crosby said prior to the event.
“This is for them so we’re hoping to get a lot of the unsheltered to come and check it out for themselves. We want to make sure that they’re comfortable with this option. That’s really important to us,” Crosby said. “
Crosby added the proposal includes services and case managers to follow residents as the unhoused work towards transition to permanent living situations. She said with the ongoing crisis, now is the time for action.
“We’re not going to end homelessness in the near future. So we need to have something that can actually be workable and usable for years to come,” Crosby said. “Now is the time for us to kind of dig in and do the work.”
Ben Simons of Pallet said on Monday the company sits in between the lines of a for profit and nonprofit organization.
“We are a social purpose company. We do have to sell shelters to keep our lights on and keep our doors open. We can’t take donations either,” Simons said. “But we do have the mission of providing employment opportunities to people with lived experience in homelessness.”
Simons added the design of the shelters are influenced by those previously living on the streets. By doing so, the company can better match the needs of those living temporarily in the units.
“Folks that have lived on the streets and live in shelters need to have a strong impact on the design and production,” Simons said. “At this point we have about 35 communities across the country. All shelters are made from inorganic materials and they’re all mold, mildew and rot resistant and they come with climate control, bunks and mattresses. We provide the deployment services and they can go anywhere there’s flat ground.”
Simons said response to the company’s shelters has been overwhelmingly positive. He noted running into persistence from some members of the community is normal but many have been swayed when positive impacts begin getting noticed.
“There’s always pushback when a community is first going in but what really sets aside individual shelter communities like this is it really gets people off the streets on a permanent basis. It’s not designed to get people off the streets for two or three days, and then say, ‘OK, I’m going to leave now,’” Simons said. “The average stay is about three to six months and we have had incredible success of actually getting people transitioned into housing. That’s obviously the key here.”
More information on Caring Choices can be found at http://www.caring-choices.org/home.html.
To read more about Pallet visit https://www.palletshelter.com.