Proposed organizing logo … subject to founding-member approval.

Homelessness is a housing problem. It is a policy failure, not a personal failure.

I’m working to help organize the Chico Union of the Homeless, modeled in part on the grassroots organizing taking place in Sacramento and Berkeley.

Why a union? Because people experiencing homelessness in Chico have been blamed and bullied for a housing crisis they did not create. Now, with proposed changes to Chico’s camping and public-nuisance ordinances, they face the threat of more punishment for trying to survive when they have nowhere else to go.

We need to bring our voices together … especially the voices of people currently experiencing homelessness. We need an independent organization that can stand up to these threats and participate directly in the decisions affecting our lives.

No more making decisions about us without us.

Three initial demands

1. Stop penalizing people for having nowhere to go

We demand an immediate end to threats of incarceration, citations, fines, and other punishment against people experiencing homelessness for unavoidable outdoor sleeping or sheltering when no safe, accessible, and available alternative exists.

We want the City’s ordinances amended to clearly protect people in those circumstances.

This is not a demand that anyone be above the law. It is a demand that being unable to afford a home not become grounds for punishment.

2. Establish a Chico Commission on Housing and Homelessness

Chico has commissions dealing with the airport, arts, and parks. Housing and homelessness deserve an equally serious, permanent, and public forum.

We want a City Commission on Housing and Homelessness that includes people currently experiencing homelessness and people with lived experience, alongside other community stakeholders. It should examine housing policy, affordable-housing production, service outcomes, and the way public money is spent … and make recommendations to the City Council.

3. Put the Genesis Pallet Shelter under community-led management

We want to pursue the transfer of day-to-day operations of the Genesis Pallet Shelter away from the Jesus Center and into the hands of an independent, community-governed organization, with people experiencing homelessness directly involved in management and decision-making.

Genesis should be a genuinely low-barrier place to stay, with professional staffing, reasonable safety rules, and voluntary services … not sobriety or mandatory treatment as prerequisites for shelter. Its operation should be transparent and accountable to the community and to the people it serves.

That is a proposed change in management, not a claim that a transfer has already been approved. Current Genesis rules and legal requirements also need to be carefully reviewed in developing the proposal.

A founding packet … and an invitation to participate

We’ve prepared a draft 13-page founding and recognition packet to help start the conversation. It contains proposed articles of association, bylaws, a founding platform, meeting records, membership and officer forms, and steps for seeking appropriate recognition.

Read or download the Chico Union of the Homeless Founding & Recognition Packet (PDF)

The word DRAFT matters. The proposed union has not yet been formally constituted, adopted these documents, registered with California, or become an official chapter of any national organization. Those decisions belong to its founding members, especially people directly affected by homelessness.

I want to hear from people currently experiencing homelessness, people who have experienced it, and community members who want to support an independent, member-led effort. The first task is to organize, listen, and let the people most affected decide how this organization will work.

We cannot keep blaming people experiencing homelessness for the consequences of housing policies they did not create.

Housing is the problem … homelessness is the outcome.

— Scotty