I think the biggest problem we have with the homeless here in Chico are the agencies and individuals who provide for them. That would include our local media. Read these excerpts from the Enterprise Record Hits and Misses column for today:
HIT >> There were two very impressive aspects to an extensive effort Wednesday to help homeless and low- income people in Butte County. One is that 675 people received help. The other is the dozens of people, organizations and agencies that chipped in to make it happen.
Project Homeless Connect managed to get the word out to hundreds of people who took advantage of the opportunity to get things most people take for granted — a shower, food, a haircut, a bicycle repair, a health screening, pet care and much more.
It took a lot of goodhearted people to organize the event and volunteer at it. We applaud them for doing what they can to help.
Well, isn’t that nice? “Hundreds of people who took advantage…” Great choice of words. This kind of enabling is what’s bringing the homeless flocking to Chico. Of course, Dave Little doesn’t live anywhere near the areas most heavily affected by this problem, Downtown, Bidwell Park, and the neighborhoods directly surrounding the creeks – that would include the campus neighborhoods.
MISS >> The statistics on crime in neighborhoods near Chico State University are alarming, even if they’re not surprising.
Most residents know that’s where most crime happens in Chico. But it was quantified at a public meeting last week. Chico Police Department statistics show that in a three- year period ending last Dec. 31, 636 homes and 482 cars were broken into in neighborhoods near the university, and 437 cars were stolen.
There’s hope, however. Increased attention and a new cooperative agreement between Chico police and university police will help. Students and non- students who live in the area can do their part by locking up items, not being so trusting and watching out for criminal activity.
Crime will never disappear in student neighborhoods, but the number is unacceptably high and can be reduced with attention to the issue.
First of all, I see the same old pattern here – blame the victim. That’s good, I hope plenty of parents read this and send their kids somewhere else for college. I know, a lot of people blame the students for everything, but imagine getting a call from your kid, describing the kind of stuff that’s been going on in Chico the last couple of years.
They sure as hell wouldn’t be reporting any events where college students get free showers, food, a haircut, a bicycle repair, a health screening, or pet care.
How many blogs have I written about repeat offenders? You check, I’m busy. The pattern is hard to miss, but apparently the Editor does not read the police reports or follow them up on the county superior court index. I don’t know how many stories I’ve read in his paper about somebody waking up in the middle of the night to find a stranger in their bedroom, hands/arms full of stolen stuff. Less than a week ago a man over at Amanda Place came home to find a guy in his apartment in the middle of the day, and was stabbed by the creep.
I’ve looked up the names on the court index, including the man involved in that break-in and stabbing, and found these people have been arrested and released – “OR”, “own recognizance” – again and again, for increasingly violent crimes.
The pattern also shows most of them are listed without any permanent address – “homeless,” “transient,” whatever you want to call it. That last man was “ward” of the county, “ a person or thing under guard, protection, or surveillance…” . Oh really? Where exactly was Batman when his ward was breaking into another man’s apartment?
Most of these people are able to disappear as soon as they are out of custody, and neither the county nor the city are doing anything to keep track of them. That is, until they are caught in another crime.
County District Attorney Mike Ramsey excuses himself from prosecuting these people, blaming various legislative bills. I think the real problem is, he doesn’t see any money in it. He only seems to go after high-profile cases.
Chico PD makes a lot of fuss – all these meetings they’ve been having lately – maybe they need to form a circle and levitate the police station, shake out the dead beats, make them pay their own pensions, shower and shave at home before they come to work, etc.
Meanwhile, our mayor is busy revamping The Esplanade.
And the media is congratulating the enablers. Good Job!
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Is it any coincidence all this is going on in an election year? An election year when we will are told we need to add a “safety” tax increase to our sales tax? And of course that we must spend more money on the various homeless programs? I would answer that question but I would be accused of being rude.
It’s a broken record, somebody needs to yank the needle!
Unfortunately, people believe that they are helping people, or believe that people are being helped.
There is absolutely no way to unconditionally “love someone” into loving themselves.
Giving food, clothing and a bed to drug addicts—however good it makes the “giver” feel, only makes getting drugs easier.
Of all of the people that receive help that are on drugs, 99.999% will remain on drugs until they either overdose, or get hit by a car or succumb to disease..
Change must come from within.
Whenever I drive on the 99 freeway and see a young, able-bodied man, with his pregnant girlfriend and their pit bull in tow and holding up a “CHICO” sign, I think to myself about all of the money that is being made from their coming to Chico.
Money being made by a very small handful of people. The media is just ignorant that what is happening here and the nice people that believe they are helping, are in fact, just prolonging the misery and suffering and in the process wrecking this once nice small American town.
In essence the well wishers are creating the problem they are fixing, as they are fixing it.
Thanks for commenting.
I was just reading the agendas regarding the conversation between the Internal Affairs and City Council and staff about 24 hour bathrooms Downtown. As I looked back I found agendas with the same conversation from 2013. I don’t like to mention names, but yeah, I know who you mean – a very small handful of people are perpetuating this nonsense because it means salaries and perks for them.
Yesterday I went for a 5am aerobic walk, the mornings are so spectacular these days. As I passed the big church across my street I heard a non-animal rustling in the bushes that surround the church’s heat/air units – it was too big to be an animal. I went on my way, but as I came back, I encountered a man coming away from the church building, heavy, dirty clothing, backpack, the usual. I hate to sound like an asshole, but even if this man was perfectly innocent, in real need of shelter with no other alternatives (blew into town in the middle of the night?), he still provides a cover for the army of criminals that pass as simply “homeless.”
This church does not have any kind of homeless program, they have no facilities for sleeping or going to the bathroom, other than the hedgerow. I called the church and told them about it. We’ve had break-ins and robberies, a car broken into right across the street from my house in broad daylight. People moving namelessly through your town, through another town the next day, and another the next, have a perfect license to steal. And poop in your bushes.