At least 26 people have died this year while experiencing homelessness in Chico.
Those numbers are not kept by the city, the coroner's office or the Butte County Department of Public Health. Instead, their names are remembered and tracked by organizations who spent time with them.
Charles Withuhn, president of the North State Shelter Team, told NSPR that a significant number of unhoused people who’ve died had been living outside for five or more years.
“They're not keen on four walls and stale air. They need a stepping stone,” Withuhn said. “You can't expect people to go from black to white overnight. We need shades of gray, steps of gray to go from where they are now.”
Withuhn said the city needs more transitional housing.
“The Pallet Genesis shelters, the Torres Shelter, and Eaton and Cohasset camp, and Jesus Center are the main shelters in Chico. And they're all over full. We need more, if we're gonna be successful.”
Currently, there are 33 open beds between the Genesis Pallet shelter, the Torres Community Shelter and the Jesus Center’s women’s and men’s shelters.
But Withuhn said these shelters often don’t accommodate the different needs of residents. Additionally, in previous reporting, unhoused residents have told NSPR they have struggled to get into the Genesis Pallet shelter even when proactively reaching out to try to find a space there.
Safe Space, a low-barrier emergency winter shelter that began for the season on Sunday, is already at capacity, according to reporting from the Chico Enterprise-Record.
This comes as Safe Space received a cease-and-desist letter from the city yesterday. The letter says the nonprofit required a permit to operate its intake center at the former 7-Eleven on Main Street.
Right now, Withuhn said, people have nowhere to go. He said continued encampment sweeps place unhoused residents at an even higher risk of health and safety problems.
“I would say it's a shelter crisis. Saying ‘the homeless crisis’ or ‘the problem with homeless people,’ puts it back on the most vulnerable. The people with the least resources,” Withuhn said. “That's none of the reasons we're having the shelter crisis is the fault of poor people.”
A memorial for the at least 26 people who’ve died while experiencing homelessness in Chico this year will be held at the “Our Hands” sculpture tomorrow from 5 to 7 p.m.
