Last week, in the City of Santa Cruz, at the urging of Judge Susan van Keulen, the City and homeless rights advocates agreed in concept to a plan to move a homeless encampment from one section of San Lorenzo Park to another section of the park. The reason that the City’s efforts to simply evict the residents of the encampment were unsuccessful is because of the work of the California Homeless Union. The California Homeless Union, in partnership with the Sacramento Homeless Union, is also working to recall Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg because of, what the group says is Steinberg’s failure to protect the homeless community, particularly during the pandemic.
Because of the fact that Chico is experiencing a homeless crisis as severe as any city across the state, and because the actions of Chico City officials is similar to the action of officials in other cities, we will spend the first part of The Real Issue talking with the attorney for the California Homeless Union about the work of the union to protect unhoused people during this time.
And then we will talk with the Chair of the Greater Chico Homeless Task Force to get an update on the current number of available beds in the Chico area versus the number of people needing shelter. Angela McLaughlin will also talk about the expected eviction of campers at Windchime Park as early as Friday.
