So much has happened in the last week around the issue of homelessness here in Butte County, particularly in Chico. As we reported here in The Real Issue, the Chico City Council rescinded its shelter crisis declaration at their meeting last week, in a vote of 5-2. What the councilmembers who voted for the unagendized motion, did not understand, is that millions of state and federal funding coming into the County and the City to address homelessness, ONLY because of the declaration of a crisis. Chico City Councilmember Alex Brown confirmed here on The Real Issue, that the motion had not been agendized and could be a violation of the Brown Act, no relation to the councilmember.
Then, Brown explained that the Chico City Council received an email from Butte County’s Housing and Homeless Administer, Don Taylor, that confirmed a possible and even probably loss of that funding because the declaration had been rescinded.
Fortunately, as confirmed by Chico City Manager Mark Orme, the vote was meaningless because the council had not actually voted on a resolution, so the emergency declaration remains in place.
Then on Thursday, Legal Services of Northern California filed an injunction against the City, essentially stating that the web of local ordinances essentially criminalizes homelessness, which based on case law, is a violation of the cruel and unusual punishment prohibition outlined in the Eighth Amendment. But because the City had been planning to evict all campers from the last homeless encampment in the City, Legal Services applied for and received a temporary restraining order that prevented the City from evicted those people. The next hearing in this process will take place on April 23rd…
For the first part of this edition of The Real Issue, we will hear form Peter Washington, Chico-based civil rights attorney, about the legal reasoning behind this injunction.
Then we will talk with Santa Rosa Mayor Tom Schwedhelm about how a sanctioned campground changed not only the lives of the unhoused community members but also the lives of housed community members.
