Letters Archives | Chico Friends on the Street

Solidarity with homeless in Chico a necessary step

April 15, 2018 No Comments

The following letter appeared in the Chico Enterprise-Record on April 15, 2018:

Letter writer Rob Berry quotes my comments from the floor of the City Council in an effort to further his campaign against the homeless — and against those who stand in solidarity with them. However, Berry fails to cite the central message of my remarks, intended to highlight the ugly and hateful statements of Berry’s group.

At the March 20 council meeting, members of Chico First systematically and maliciously disparaged, demonized and dehumanized Chico’s homeless, referring to them as “vagrants,” a “criminal element,” a “problematic lot” and a “poison” to the community. The group even compared homeless people to wild animals and aliens from “Star Wars.” That exhibition was disgraceful.

The honorable solution to homelessness is housing and social services. Short of that, the next best thing concerned citizens can do is affirm the homeless by standing in solidarity in the public space (the only space they have) and to protest laws criminalizing poverty. Hiding the homeless in “navigation centers” or jails is a form of erasure and disempowerment — acts that carry the scent of authoritarianism, which should be of grave concern to those who cherish the Bill of Rights.

Lastly, I would like to note how overjoyed I was to read Berry’s description of my actions as nothing more than a “Power to the People” campaign. “All Power to the People” was the slogan of the Black Panther party. A greater compliment I cannot imagine. I can only hope my actions would have made Huey Newton and Bobby Seale proud.

— Robert C. Jones

Letters

Not feeding the hungry? Is that even Christian?

April 10, 2018 No Comments

The following letter appeared in the Oroville Mercury-Register on April 9, 2018:

After years of criminalizing homelessness in Chico, and the problem only growing worse, our mayor now wants to double-down by making it illegal to feed the hungry in public spaces. Modern Christian practice forced me to seek spiritual comfort elsewhere long ago, yet my values remain largely consistent with the teachings of Jesus, who himself shared much wisdom with so many other radical humanitarians representing all the great religions of the world.

If he remains in good standing while seeking always to pamper the powerful and punish the poor, then Chico Mayor Sean Morgan’s denomination must teach from a different book than my Bible school did. Money grubbing varieties of Protestantism that exalt pastors with luxury while impoverishing the flock are all too familiar, but the mayor looks too comfortable for that tradition. Which church lets you call yourself one of them from a prominent elected office, while so thoroughly opposing all of Jesus’ admonitions on social justice?

Adding to my theological confusion are those Chico Friends on the Street folks. Some of them are almost certainly heathens, but they’re acting suspiciously Christian, out there helping and hanging with our unsheltered neighbors every week in the plaza. I know for a fact a few of them refuse to consume any animal products and some might even think critters have rights of their own. If they’re taking the scriptural principle of mutual responsibility a little too far, does that make them atheists or saints?

— Dan Everhart

Letters

Letters to the Editor 4/5/18

April 5, 2018 No Comments

The following letters appeared in the Chico News and Review on April 5, 2018:

Re “Compassion above all else”

I am writing to thank you for your well-balanced editorial regarding the activities of Chico Friends on the Street (CFOTS) and Chico First.

Several weeks ago, Chico First set up a booth in the plaza on Sunday while CFOTS passed out food. I was at the plaza with CFOTS, introduced myself to Rob Berry, and invited him and the others to come see for themselves what we were doing. Unfortunately, no one took me up on it; it all felt rather silly, as if we were rival gangs rather than concerned citizens in a public space.

My experience has been that CFOTS leaves the plaza cleaner then when they arrived. The claim that an occasional shared meal is keeping people on the streets is specious as well. There are currently around 1,100 homeless humans in Chico. There aren’t enough shelter beds or housing available for all of them. What is keeping them on the streets is not a PB&J sandwich.

I live in Chico and want it to be clean and safe, but I also seek respectful solutions rather than criminalization for those who are living on the streets. I will continue to seek common ground with any group working toward those goals.

— Angela McLaughlin

Editor’s note: For more on this, see Second & Flume, page 5.

Re “Under pressure”

I appreciate your coverage and recent editorials concerning the activities and divergent philosophies of Chico Friends on the Street and Chico First.

Over two years ago, Chico Friends on the Street began a protest in response to the further criminalization of homelessness, implemented through the Offenses Against Public Property Ordinance.

Our protest takes place in Chico City Plaza, where we meet and share food and clothing. This has raised the hackles of landlords and members of Chico First. At the council meeting on March 20, we were pilloried for our activities and the council was asked to prohibit us from sharing food.

I found the testimony to be wildly exaggerated. (Especially with respect to managing litter—which we have consistently controlled.) We were also accused of engaging in “political theater.”

There is theater in protest: We are in a visible public space, affirming the rights of all people to coexist. I agree with Mayor Sean Morgan when he says we are “empowering” the homeless—at least I hope this is true. The homeless have at least some power when present among us, especially as the alternative to exclusion through deprivation, criminalization and “consolidation”—the interdependent devices now promoted by our local authoritarians.

— Patrick Newman

Letters

Shame and disappointment

April 2, 2018 No Comments

The following letters appeared in the Chico News and Review on March 29, 2018, in response to CN&R editor Melissa Daugherty’s criticism of Mayor Sean Morgan’s public mockery of local homeless advocacy groups’ actions.

Shame and disappointment

I have been trying to find the words to describe my shame and disappointment in our illustrious mayor, after viewing the same TV news interview you mention in your column. You mimicked my sentiments eloquently while defining Sean Morgan’s narrow and naive comments regarding his community and constituents.

I would like to believe he represents the few and not the majority; however, he is in a position to represent and his lack of professionalism is an insult to the citizens of Chico. I am more embarrassed for him than I am disheartened he is an elected official in a community that upholds higher education. Sean Morgan does not represent me.

As a social worker, I work with many of these “transients,” advocating for their human rights. While working alongside public defender Saul Henson, we have made numerous attempts to prevent the disenfranchised from being oppressed further. I also work at the Psychiatric Hospital Facility (PHF) where I support treatment for many who struggle with mental illness.

These are people who have families—brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. They are humans who have needs. More criminalization will only lead to funding being misdirected while the homeless—including veterans and mentally ill individuals—go further into the shadows.

— Valerie Sanz

Chico First members and some individuals from the Jesus Center have turned the word compassion into a dirty word, and I resent it deeply.

They say it isn’t compassionate to share food with the hungry, except at designated pit stops, and, of course, the hungry must behave a certain way or “Oh well, maybe if you miss a few meals, you’d be rehabilitated.”

Hopefully, they don’t treat their children this way. They say it isn’t compassionate to hand out sleeping bags or blankets when it is cold and raining—and the list goes on.

These self-righteous, profit-oriented Chico inhabitants should at least be honest enough to acknowledge that they don’t care about the poor. They just want the homeless to disappear from “polite” society, and compassion has nothing to do with it.

— Sandra O’Neill

Letters

You can’t have conversations without the other side

March 14, 2018 1 Comment

The following piece appeared in the Chico Enterprise-Record on March 8, 2018, as part of the column, North State Voices.

You can’t have conversations without the other side

You’d never have guessed he’d been released from San Quentin earlier in the day. Pretty average looking, maybe early to mid 30s, polite and friendly, though clearly stressed.

This was winter of 2016, and I was doing intake at Safe Space Winter Shelter in Chico. He hadn’t been at the shelter before, so I signed him in and did his paperwork.

His story emerged as we filled out the intake forms. He’d been released that morning. Drug offense, didn’t say much else, didn’t justify or deny. He’d been cut loose with enough money for a bus ticket to Chico, and was expected to report to his parole officer on Monday.

He wasn’t originally from Chico but had been living here with his wife at the time of his arrest. They’d divorced while he was in prison and she’d long ago moved, so he no longer had any connection to the area. Some vagary of the justice system dictated he return.

His paperwork was loose, not in a binder or even a trash bag. Everything he was required to take to his parole officer on Monday was literally in a 3- to 4-inch stack of loose paperwork that he struggled to keep together. He had nothing else except the clothes on his back and a few bucks leftover after bus fare.

Mind you, he’d been released on a Friday, so here he was, washed up in a town where he had no connections, in the middle of winter, without so much as a coat or even a bag to carry the papers.

I was outraged. I remain outraged. We found a backpack for him and the shelter scared up a coat, and he was gone by my next shift. I don’t know what happened to him, but I’ve wondered about him many times.

Whatever you think about crime and criminals, how we prosecute nonviolent crimes and drug offenses, the ethics of a for-profit prison system, rehabilitation vs. punishment (and lord knows there’s a lot to unpack and discuss there), surely we can all agree this particular outcome is a recipe for disaster.

There is much to say about all of that, but I’ll leave it there, because I’m headed toward something else.

I’d never have known any of this, would never have bumped up against this possibility, if I hadn’t been involved with Safe Space.

I’m not going to harangue you further about getting involved, but the story serves to illustrate a broader point. I’m as stereotypically white, middle aged and middle class as can be. Nowhere in my usual well-trodden path would I have encountered this man, and even if I had it’s unlikely I’d have spent time with him or heard his story.

It’s valuable to engage with the “other,” especially for those of us who hold power, and there is much to be gained by brushing up against people in situations so different from our own — for them and perhaps even more so for us. These types of encounters temper our judgments, enlighten us, and broaden our perspectives. They’re an opportunity to recognize and reflect on our shared humanity. They are just plain good for our souls.

These opportunities to meet each other (with all the friction that sometimes entails) get lost in the push to force the undesirables out of downtown and away from stores, to make them less visible or drive them out of Chico all together. We may well succeed in getting them out of sight, but doing so won’t resolve the essential issues, only diminish the breadth of our perspective on them.

Like most of you, I want to see my country, state and community live up to our shared ideals. There is so much we can’t control, but we can do better locally. It starts with having these conversations, and that can only happen if we literally see each other, and if we engage.

Our conversations need to include, rather than just be about, those who are less fortunate. They need to include those who are struggling with addiction, who are dirty and unkempt, who were just released from prison, who made dumb mistakes. If we don’t find a way to incorporate their perspectives, we will not only all be more impoverished for it, but real, lasting solutions will continue to elude us.

— Angela McLaughlin

Letters

Was city influenced by homeless consultant?

December 11, 2017 1 Comment

The following letter appeared in the Chico Enterprise-Record on December 10, 2017:

Was city influenced by homeless consultant?

At a recent panel discussion on homelessness, Jesus Center Director Laura Cootsona was asked about the cost and fate of the Robert Marbut “deep dive” study, which was commissioned by the Jesus Center last spring. Cootsona declined to reveal the cost and indicated the study was kept in-house and would not be made public. When pressed on whether the report was shared with Chico city government, Cootsona indicated it was not.

Since Marbut is a controversial consultant, who recommends that municipalities build one central compound and contain the homeless — by means of deprivation (ending citywide food and clothing distribution, etc.) and criminalization (a choice between county jail and a compound) — it’s important to know if his report was in fact held in strict confidence at the Jesus Center.

Since influential Jesus Center board member Mayo Ryan brought Marbut to Chico, is it reasonable to think he would not have shared Marbut’s recommendations with City Manager Mark Orme? If he did share these recommendations, is it reasonable to think it happened without Cootsona’s knowledge?

It’s an interesting coincidence that Marbut was here last spring and a few months later Orme presented the Jesus Center with city property for a compound. What gives?

— Patrick Newman, Chico

Letters

Downtown help center should not be eliminated

October 30, 2017 No Comments

The following letter appeared in the Chico Enterprise-Record on October 30, 2017:

Downtown help center should not be eliminated

Letter writer Greg Cootsona is understandably loyal to his wife, Jesus Center Director Laura Cootsona. But, the question is whether we, as citizens and donors, have sound reasons for supporting Laura Cootsona’s present agenda.

The Jesus Center brand was built on the “hospitality model.” This has meant that a person, in absolutely dire straits, can go to one place in Chico and get a meal and clothing, without judgment. Without being fixed or saved. In the hospitality model, restoration, modest though it may be, is embedded in every act of generosity. (Matt 25:35-36)

In contrast, there is another, paternalistic model, where people are seen as children to be “navigated.” The Jesus Center paid Robert Marbut thousands of dollars to help redirect its mission. In Marbut’s view, facilities in downtown areas, offering food and clothing, are simply enabling the poor. Marbut offers behavior modification camps instead. They segregate and hide the poor — a desirable outcome for many of America’s affluent citizens — but, they don’t get people into housing. (For an honorable alternative, Google: “Lloyd Pendleton housing first.”)

For years I’ve been getting to know Chico’s homeless, in the public space. Our centrally located, downtown facility — offering food and warm, dry clothing — saves lives. It reduces suffering. It should not be eliminated. (This is a complicated subject. Anyone interested in sharing more in-depth information, please contact us at [email protected]).

— Patrick Newman, Chico

Letters

Jesus Center isn’t immune to scrutiny from public

October 29, 2017 No Comments

The following letter appeared in the Chico Enterprise-Record on October 29, 2017:

Greg Cootsona’s exercised defense of his wife Laura, who directs the Jesus Center, against the criticisms of Patrick Newman, falls short. As husband Cootsona is understandably outraged; as advocate he fails to answer Newman’s points, which concern me too.

Half of Cootsona’s letter is an irrelevant demand to help instead of griping — a morally arrogant tactic to disarm instead of answer criticism, and wholly superfluous in Newman’s case. Nobody in Chico doubts that the Cootsonas are good people, but even sainthood gets no free pass.

Cootsona dismisses Robert Marbut as unimportant. Then why was he invited to Chico with such fanfare? A visit to his website put me off. I can’t believe that a multimillion-dollar building project, such as Laura Cootsona pursues near the fairgrounds, will not draw resources away from actually helping the poor. The Jesus Center has been a wonderful means to offer immediate aid to homeless people who understandably congregate downtown, as the rest of us do. Nor can I imagine, that any elaborate new “campus” can begin to solve the problems that cause homelessness. As a local institution we can only relieve the poor.

It ill-becomes me to quote scripture to a minister of the gospel. But Jesus never required the poor to improve themselves; he taught that they were already blessed. Instead he insisted that it was the comfortably-off who were in need of reform. Laura Cootsona says her neighbors on Park Avenue hate her. Did not his neighbors hate him too?

— Carl Peterson, Paradise

Letters

Write a letter to support the Jesus Center

October 27, 2017 No Comments

[Note: The letter below was later accepted for publication.]

Dear Chico and Butte County Citizens,

Having a centrally located, downtown Chico facility, where the most desperate people can get food and clothing, is beyond charitable. It’s a matter of life and death. People will suffer and die without the Jesus Center on Park Avenue.

The notion that a mentally and physically challenged street population can ride buses and zip over to MLK Parkway to get meals and warm, dry clothes is not realistic. We need more centers, not less. (My time in the downtown, meeting with the homeless, has done nothing but reinforce this perception.)

It’s obvious why the Park Avenue location is being targeted for closure: Many people want to remove the homeless from our highly visible public spaces. Short of real housing solutions (addressing the needs of those with severe mental illness, brain injuries, PTSD, addiction issues, etc.) — which are beyond reach in our bizarre political climate — homeless numbers will increase.

I’ve written two letters to the E-R ([email protected]) and one to the CN&R ([email protected]) . My last letter to the E-R was rejected (see below); seems I’m over my quota. I’m writing you to ask if you would be willing to write a letter in support of the downtown facility.

Letter ideas:

The Jesus Center on Park Avenue has reduced suffering for thousands of people, by supplying food and clean clothes.
Because the Jesus Center is centrally located, it is highly accessible to people with mental and physical limitations.
We need more points of contact for the homeless, not less.
Building a Robert Marbut-style compound near the Silver Dollar Speedway is not a solution to homelessness. It’s a way of hiding the poor.
The Jesus Center has spent thousands of dollars on the consulting services of Marbut, but we do not accept Marbut’s vision for the future of social services or housing.
Instead of dedicating city land to a Marbut-style compound, better to establish tiny house communities or other housing.

Please feel free to contact me if you want to explore this issue. It’s complicated. I met with Jesus Center Director Laura Cootsona twice and I’ve heard Marbut speak. There are many layers to this issue — political, cultural and economic.

Letter rejected by the E-R:

Dear Editor,

Letter writer Greg Cootsona is understandably loyal to his wife, Jesus Center Director Laura Cootsona. But, the question is whether we, as citizens and donors, have sound reasons for supporting Laura Cootsona’s present agenda.

The Jesus Center brand was built on the “hospitality model.” This has meant that a person, in absolutely dire straits, can go to one place in Chico and get a meal and clothing, without judgment. Without being fixed or saved. In the hospitality model, restoration, modest though it may be, is embedded in every act of generosity. (Matt 25:35-36)

In contrast, there is another, paternalistic model, where people are seen as children to be “navigated.” The Jesus Center paid Robert Marbut thousands of dollars to help redirect its mission. In Marbut’s view, facilities in downtown areas, offering food and clothing, are simply enabling the poor. Marbut offers behavior modification camps instead; they segregate and hide the poor— a desirable outcome for many of America’s affluent citizens — but, they don’t get people into housing. (For an honorable alternative, Google: “Lloyd Pendleton housing first”.)

For years I’ve been getting to know Chico’s homeless, in the public space. Our centrally located, downtown facility — offering food and warm, dry clothing — saves lives. It reduces suffering. It should not be eliminated. (This is a complicated subject. Anyone interested in sharing more in-depth information, please contact us at [email protected].)

Letters

E-R LTE / Harm Reduction

August 13, 2017 No Comments

This letter refers to the article located at http://www.chicoer.com/social-affairs/20170811/harm-reduction-center-gathers-community-input

The far-right E-R continues to hype Michael Madieros and that’s no surprise.

One man’s opinion:

Dear Editor,

As Lloyd Pendleton so eloquently argued, you cannot solve the problem of homelessness without providing homes. Pendleton’s “housing first” model prescribes individual housing units for the chronically homeless, because this works best. Once housed, people can be assisted in managing disabilities.

All of the above requires a federal solution and it’s certainly affordable: with 5% of one year’s military budget, we could build housing for every chronically homeless person in America.

As much as we might like to think the Stairways “harm reduction” micro-program is some kind of answer, it isn’t. Stairways Director Michael Madieros has a history of supporting criminalization laws, which ensnare the homeless in the criminal justice system. Madieros and his allies are drawing on right-wing methodology: spend next to nothing, except on police and criminalization, and claim we are on the high road.

The possible harm in an over-exuberant description of harm reduction, is that it leads your readers to imagine wonderful things are being done for the poorest, disabled people. That is, in the absence of adequately funded, real solutions. Consequently, your readers might just continue to make the mistake of voting for social program slashing, trickle-down politicians, thereby abetting failure.

Ironically, those who complain loudest (commercial landlords) about the presence of the visible poor, are those who most vigorously support failing policies. The wealthiest among us get exponentially wealthier, while insisting on disowning failure. Voters should stop enabling them.

Patrick Newman