Chico News & Review Archives | Chico Friends on the Street

Latest CN&R Coverage

April 5, 2018 No Comments

The Chico News and Review covered Chico Friends on the Street’s presence at the April 3, 2018 meeting of the Chico City Council.

Between Melissa Holmberg’s challenge to Mayor Sean Morgan’s callous sentiments, Carol Eberling’s recollection of days gone by when the government supported impoverished citizens in need of housing assistance, and Professor Robert Jones’ unflinching criticism of a homeless demonization narrative popular in the community, the diversity of voices all spoke to the core beliefs of Chico Friends on the Street.

Read the article here. View the video of the above speakers—and more not mentioned in the article—here. For your viewing convenience, check out the timestamps for each speaker in our April 4 blog post.

* * *

In her April 5 editorial, Chico News & Review editor Melissa Daugherty calls on Sean Morgan to account for cruel words he was quoted as saying in reference to homeless folks in Chico, as well as for the hostility he directed toward the cities of Redding and Oroville.

Kudos to the CN&R for holding our elected officials accountable. Read the editorial here.

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

Musings

Chico News and Review Editorial: Compassion above all else

April 3, 2018 No Comments

Amidst a flurry of news coverage of Chico Friends on the Street and the mounting opposition to its actions by local groups and city officials, the latest Chico News and Review editorial, “Compassion above all else: Efforts to further criminalize homelessness solve nothing and make people more miserable,” contextualizes homelessness in Chico and takes a stance against criminalization of homeless folks.

The editorial notes the systemic causes of poverty and invites cleanup groups like Chico First to recognize and support proven solutions, rather than ineffective, punitive non-solutions:

We get Chico First’s frustrations with the side effects, including panhandling and litter. We understand wanting to keep the environment “clean and safe.” But we also know that demonizing this already marginalized population isn’t the answer. Nor is making their lives more difficult by codifying laws targeting them, such as the proposal to outlaw food giveaways in the city center.

Indeed, Chico First members would be wise to expend their time and energy on efforts that are proven to mitigate homelessness. At the top of that list, based on a growing body of research, is housing first. That’s the model in which people are immediately placed into stable living environments—it’s at that point they are more likely to successfully address the underlying issues that led to life on the streets.

Read the editorial here.

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

News

CN&R: What Chico Friends on the Street does

March 31, 2018 No Comments

The Chico News and Review covered Chico Friends on the Street’s weekly protest and food distribution to homeless citizens last Sunday, and captured a sense of what CFOTS stands for.

Newman has a blunt response to any ordinance banning public feeding: “It’s unconstitutional.” Homeless people have a right to use public spaces to meet their survival needs, especially when nothing else does, he says.

He is among those who see homelessness as a symptom of the social dislocation that has resulted in large measure from the inequality in wealth in America that was exacerbated by the Great Recession. With housing costs at historic highs, even people with good jobs have trouble paying for shelter.

Newman and many others believe the necessary first step toward ending homelessness is the obvious one: find or build housing for the homeless. Once they have roofs over their heads, they can deal with the personal problems—alcoholism, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, debilitating poverty—that put them on the streets in the first place.

Where “housing first” has been implemented—Utah, for example—it has been successful.

Many cities, however, are going the route the Chico City Council has taken: criminalizing the behavior of the homeless in order to force them out of downtown and, even better, out of town.

Though it wasn’t mentioned, we’d like to note that Chico Friends on the Street formed in early 2016 in response to the passage of the Offenses Against Public Property ordinance in September/October 2015. One of the founding principles of the organization is to protest and resist unjust criminalization of the poor and homeless. (See Homeless Watershed Dates here).

Read the CN&R article in its entirety here.

News

Chico News and Review Slams Mayor’s Attack on Homeless Advocacy Group

March 22, 2018 No Comments

Chico News and Review editor Melissa Daugherty today rebuked Chico City Mayor Sean Morgan’s performance in a recent Action News piece in which he mocks local homeless advocates (like Chico Friends on the Street) for providing sustenance to poor and displaced Chicoans (a spectacle that included a revealing and bizarre tirade against public feedings). Admonishing the Mayor’s views as “the very worst type of provincialism,” the editorial chronicles a number of the many “lowlights” of Morgan’s tenure on the City Council, including his role in pushing through anti-poor ordinances like criminalizing lying down in public while legalizing the confiscation of whatever meager belongings the poor might carry. Kudos to Melissa Daugherty for speaking truth to power in calling out the Mayor for his regressive politics, disenfranchisement of the poor, and callousness toward the plight of the city’s poorest. Fortunately for Morgan, the City Council has yet to pass an ordinance criminalizing public displays of idiocy. Read the editorial in its entirety here.

Musings

Chico News and Review Editorial: Jesus Center Plan “Lacks Transparency”

December 10, 2017 No Comments

A recent editorial at the Chico News and Review titled “Plan lacks transparency: We have more questions than answers about the Jesus Center’s efforts to centralize homeless services” criticizes the Jesus Center for it’s lack in transparency both in it’s planning and decision-making procedures surrounding the proposed moving of the Center away from the downtown and in revealing the cost of hiring homeless-consultant/hater Robert Marbut. The editorial asks

“How much was Marbut paid by the Jesus Center? We don’t know, because [Jesus Center executive Director Laura] Cootsona refuses to tell the CN&R. We do know that he was paid more than $100,000 for his work in Sarasota County, Fla., where, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the region ‘ended up with very little direct benefit.’ We should note that this isn’t the only instance in which the Jesus Center has been secretive about its budget. This newspaper’s attempts to simply report on the success of its annual Run for Food event has been met with a refusal to share that information as well.”

The editorial concludes that “[b]efore the city agrees to a lease of the taxpayer-owned property, there needs to be a much more thorough vetting of this potential project.” Kudos to the CNR for shining a light on one of many suspect aspects of this proposed Jesus Center move.

Letters

Madieros is back…

July 17, 2017 No Comments

I’m sad to see Michael Madieros (faux-homeless advocate) back in the news, after a more than year long hiatus. Because: 1) Madieros loudly supports criminalization as a “tool” for reaching the homeless. In fact, Madieros has been a tool of the Chico Police Department for years. 2) He fails to support realistic/humane proposals for downtown restroom access. 3) I’ve heard report after report of substandard conditions at Stairways (the housing program run by Madieros)–along with substandard/abusive management. (This is well known to the social workers of Chico.)

Madieros was mentored by mega-landlord Wayne Cook and Joe Montes–both right wingers. Cook led the charge on kicking the Orchard Church off the plaza. Montes is another believer in the authoritarian/fascist idea that we can fix poverty and dysfunction with tweaks by the criminal justice system. Insane.

In his latest incarnation, Madieros has teamed-up with attorney Ron Reed to offer legal services to the homeless–three hours a week. Sounds good, but I don’t trust these people at all. Reed has gone to bat for Madieros on criminalization, in the past. If the long arm of the law can help, why not? It’s a way of making the “velvet gavel,” “nudge from the judge” and all that bullshit seem credible and Christian (Reed again). Madieros is on record, ad nauseum, as supporting this approach to “reforming” people. It’s a shitty, cheap, trickle-down, neo-liberal substitute for housing and decent social services. All popular with the morally bankrupt masses. Hence, Madieros is the kind of advocate the public wants to hear–someone who rubber stamps current policy. He has a lot of traction in the local media.

Two letters referencing this new development:

Sent to the CN&R today:

“A lot of homeless people have warrants because they didn’t go to court for whatever reason…” says attorney Ron Reed. True, but without laws criminalizing sleeping, leaving carts/bags unattended, etc., there would be no warrants. (Also, our city is locking restrooms 10 hours each day, while arrests are made for urination and defecation.)

So, where are Reed and his partner Michael Madieros on the subject of criminalization? Madieros is a strong supporter of criminalization. And, when I took Madieros to task, in the pages of this paper, Reed called my objections “cow flop” and offered what appeared as a mealy-mouthed endorsement of criminalization–complete with references to God Almighty.

Those pushing the medieval notion that criminalization is useful in assisting people with brain injuries (40% of men on the streets), the mentally ill, addicts, people with PTSD, the financially broken, etc., cannot be credible advocates. To suggests they are, is like saying arsonists make credible firefighters.

Reed aside, where is the legal community? I recall no lawyer, other than Jennifer Haffner, as having the courage to confront the city on the dehumanizing and unconstitutional Offenses Against Public Property Ordinance. This acquiescence should be cause for shame in every law office.

In today’s E-R:

It seems that good is barely out of bed while evil has already made three trips around the world.

Your recent coverage of the possible Peet’s coffee shop closure leaves readers with the impression that “vagrants” are to blame. I’m in Peet’s many times every week and I’ve talked with staff about “vagrant” impacts for years. I’ve also observed, first hand, how much impact the poor/disabled/homeless have on the business. It’s minimal, but the apparently very well heeled landlord, who owns much of downtown Chico, is bound by some commercial code to demonize the homeless at every opportunity.

Then we have an E-R editorial asking the city get some restrooms open. Great idea, because the homeless are now locked-out for ten hours each day. But, why does the E-R care? Is it because so many people, living brutal lives, are further punished, humiliated, degraded and criminalized by having no place to legally urinate and defecate? No. Instead, it’s the inconvenience Bank of America or Morgan Stanley might experience when some poor soul takes a dump on their stoop.

Lastly, we have news that Michael Madieros and Ron Reed are opening a legal clinic for the homeless–with lawyers available three hours a week. But, Madieros is a vocal proponent of criminalization, the very engine of legal entanglement and misery for the homeless. Something doesn’t add-up.

Letters

Restrooms & Teri DuBose and her take-back-the-plaza group

July 12, 2017 No Comments

Below are two letters covering some recent developments in several realms. Anyone interested in organizing around restroom/homeless issues, please contact us. What’s happening is inhumane and then some.

To the E-R, 7/11:

It seems that good is barely out of bed while evil has already made three trips around the world.

Your recent coverage of the possible Peet’s coffee shop closure leaves readers with the impression that “vagrants” are to blame. I’m in Peet’s many times every week and I’ve talked with staff about “vagrant” impacts for years. I’ve also observed, first hand, how much impact the poor/disabled/homeless have on the business. It’s minimal, but the apparently very well heeled landlord, who owns much of downtown Chico, is bound by some commercial code to demonize the homeless at every opportunity. Then we have an E-R editorial asking the city get some restrooms open. Great idea, because the homeless are now

Then we have an E-R editorial asking the city get some restrooms open. Great idea, because the homeless are now locked-out for ten hours each day. But, why does the E-R care? Is it because so many people, living brutal lives, are further punished, humiliated, degraded and criminalized by having no place to legally urinate and defecate? No. Instead, it’s the inconvenience Bank of America or Morgan Stanley might experience when some poor soul takes a dump on their stoop.

Lastly, we have news that Michael Madieros and Ron Reed are opening a legal clinic for the homeless–with lawyers available three hours a week. But, Madieros is a vocal proponent of criminalization, the very engine of legal entanglement and misery for the homeless. Something doesn’t add-up.

To the CN&R, 7/11:

I appreciate the CN&R’s coverage of civil rights issues affecting the homeless in the public space–specifically Chico City Plaza. I have no doubt a battle is underway, as many in our city government and commercial sector seek to “take” the public space from “vagrants.” (Where they are supposed to go is never explained.

While I was quoted as saying I was “surprised” that Teri DuBose and her take-back-the-plaza group provided “bottled water and Otter Pops” to the homeless, it was never my impression that the take-back group intentionally provided anything to the homeless. They don’t. Affirming homeless people in the public space is clearly not their mission.

On the other hand, Chico Friends on the Street has delivered many tons of food, clothing, blankets, tarps and toiletries to the street, during the last year-and-a-half. Our involvement has made us ever more aware of the profound lack of support for the visible poor.

In that regard, the homeless are now shut-out of public restrooms for ten hours of every day, while public urination and defecation are crimes. People need restroom access 24/7; this is a non-negotiable human right. Anyone interested in engaging our city council on this issue, please contact: [email protected].

Letters

CN&R LTE/Battle

July 7, 2017 No Comments

Dear Editor,

I appreciate your coverage of civil rights issues affecting the homeless in the public space–specifically Chico City Plaza. I have no doubt that a battle is underway and that many in our city government and commercial sector seek to “take” the public space from “vagrants.” (This is exactly the kind of direction recent visitor and nationally known homeless demonizer Robert Marbut would advise.)

At the July 5th Chico City Council meeting, I asked the council to immediately resign and rather than “stand down” from completing my public comment, I opted for removal by the Deputy Chief.

I advised the council to resign, as they are in breach of their oath of office, requiring adherence to the U.S Constitution. Our council supports laws criminalizing the possession of necessities by the homeless (violating the 4th Amendment), laws criminalizing sleeping (violating the 8th Amendment) and–inflicting more “cruel and unusual punishment”–the council is now failing to provide restroom service, during eight hours of every day. This, while public urination and defecation remain misdemeanors and the homeless are subjected to ongoing arrest and jail time.

If you would like to help organize resistance to these policies, please contact: [email protected]