Safe Housing United States Project #50326

Creating Affordable Housing Options in Chico, CA

by Chico Housing Action Team

Creating Affordable Housing Options in Chico, CA

Project Report | Nov 17, 2022
November 2022 update on our housing programs

By Nicole Drummond | Executive Director

New family getting set up to move into a HUSH home

Chico Housing Action Team (CHAT) is happy to report more growth and continued financial stability since our last report in July 2022. We enjoy the support of over 175 monthly sustaining donors who provide us with nearly $7000 per month, which is a great source of sustainable income. We are continuing to grow with a financial assistant and a property management assistant. We are now at 29 staff members, which is up from 11 eleven employees at the end of last year.

On the program side, CHAT is now housing over 280 residents, including nearly 90 children, in over 70 residences in Chico. We continue to create new housing opportunities, including two new homes for veterans for which the down-payments were generously provided by VFW Post 1555. We now own these two homes, each of which can house four individuals, and we are delighted that we can add to our property mix so we are less vulnerable to properties not owned by us being sold. Over a dozen people living in CHAT residences have needed to be moved quickly this year due to properties being sold by their owners. We are continuing to accept new families into our HUSH program as well as graduating families out of the program. This program helps families that are in crisis with rental housing at a below-market rate, combined with intensive case management to stabilize them, connect them with resources, and help them find permanent affordable housing. We currently have 13 families in this program. Recently a new family, Sherry and her two little ones, moved into a HUSH home and began getting stabilized. We are also continuing to house folks in our Wildflower and Harmony House programs, for folks who have mental illness, and in our Redwood Housing, where we have an arrangement with CSU-Chico to house homeless college students. We continue to support all of these clients with case management services, bi-weekly food deliveries, and a furniture warehouse.

CHAMP, the CampFire Housing Access Model Program, continues to assist Camp Fire and other wildfire survivors in securing rental housing through landlord incentives and the payment of program participant's move-in costs. In addition, the CHAMP program provided case management services to program participants, which included helping Camp Fire survivors with obtaining federal housing vouchers. From July 1, 2022 through Oct 31, 2022, the CHAMP program assisted 17 households, which includes 18 adults and 11 children. Between July 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022, the CHAMP program received 37 new applications, in addition to the over 300 households that lost their homes in wildfires and still need stable affordable housing. Recently, CHAMP was particularly pleased to help a program participant who was not only a Camp Fire survivor but also a Bear Fire survivor as well. After losing his housing twice from wildfires, this individual found himself in a FEMA trailer and running out of time before the FEMA housing closed. CHAMP worked closely with this participant’s Disaster Case Manager and was able to pay the security deposit, first month’s space rent, and the towing fees to move a purchased trailer from a nearby county to a mobile home and RV park in Butte County. CHAMP also paid the remaining rent owed to FEMA when the participant was able to move out of FEMA housing and finally into his own home again.

Thank you so much for your continued support for our work in creating affordable housing options for folks in the Chico community. It's because of our many generous donors and great organizations like GlobalGiving that we can continue supporting our clients who are now in homes and developing future projects to create more low-income housing for those who are still living in homelessness.

Bridgett Cooper after 2 years in a CHAT residence

Camp Fire survivor who found housing with CHAMP

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Jul 12, 2022
July 2022 Update for Our Overall Program

By Nicole Drummond | Executive Director

HUSH participant Mari graduates from the program

Chico Housing Action Team (CHAT) is happy to report more growth and continued financial stability since our last report in March 2022. We continue to enjoy the support of over 180 monthly sustaining donors who give nearly $7000 per month, which is a great source of sustainable income. We have seen an incredible growth in our staff in the past several months, including new office support staff, a volunteer coordinator, and additional maintenance and construction crew members. We are now at 28 staff members, which is up from 11 eleven employees at the end of last year.

On the program side, CHAT is now housing over 280 residents, including nearly 90 children, in over 70 residences in Chico. We continue to create new housing opportunities, including some new properties we've purchased that we hope to be able to share more information on shortly, and we continue to add more rental units that we master-lease from the owners. We're continuing to fill up a triplex that we recently purchased for the Wildflower Housing program for up to 12 folks with mental illness or other substantial challenges that need intensive case manager support. The additional case managers who we were able to hire for the Housing Now program are working closely with the volunteer house support teams to provide an extraordinary level of support for folks most in need of it. We were also recently able to "graduate" a family from our HUSH program. This program helps families that are in crisis with rental housing at a below-market rate, combined with intensive case management to stabilize them, connect them with resources, and help them find permanent affordable housing. Mari, a young mother in our HUSH program, is caring for her five children with no family support, but she was able to get stabilized in the program, get some help with getting some job skills and childcare for her children, and find affordable housing on her own. We presented her with a graduation certificate and we're all so proud of what she's been able to do for herself.

Another area we're moving forward with is creating Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with other service agencies in our community who have clients who need help staying housed. CHAT is becoming recognized in our community as an organization that does an excellent job of keeping people housed. These MOUs with other agencies will let CHAT provide case management support and other volunteer support to let those agencies be more successful. They in turn can provide the expertise and knowledge of working with their particular population so CHAT staff and volunteers become more informed about those populations.

CHAMP, the CampFire Housing Access Model Program, continues to assist Camp Fire survivors in securing rental housing through landlord incentives and the payment of program participant's move-in costs. From March 1, 2022, through June 30, 2022, CHAMP assisted an additional 11 households (including 14 adults and 8 children) with first month rents, security deposits, rental assistance, the purchase of new bed frames and mattresses, emergency hotel stays, and towing fees to move a program participant’s RV into a permanent location in a mobile home and RV Park. In addition, the CHAMP program provided case management services to program participants, which included helping Camp Fire survivors with obtaining federal housing vouchers. Because this program is becoming recognized as particularly successful in our area, CHAT staffers from the CHAMP program were recently interviewed for a Scripps news agency video spot and article about how natural disasters and home prices contribute to homelessness.

Recently, CHAMP was particularly pleased to help a program participant who was not only a Camp Fire survivor but also a Bear Fire survivor as well. After losing his housing twice from wildfires, this individual found himself in a FEMA trailer and running out of time before the FEMA housing closed. CHAMP worked closely with this participant’s Disaster Case Manager and was able to pay the security deposit, first month’s space rent, and the towing fees to move a purchased trailer from a nearby county to a mobile home and RV park in Butte County. CHAMP also paid the remaining rent owed to FEMA when the participant was able to move out of FEMA housing and finally into his own home again.

We're continuing to move forward with plans for Everhart Village, a 20-unit sleeping-cabins project we are developing in collaboration with the Butte County Dept of Behavioral Health. Volunteers are working with our Everhart Village shelter-units manager Charles Withuhn and volunteer construction coordinator Ken Dickson to make the sleeping cabins ready. CHAT staff are working closely with Butte County Behavioral Health staff to develop the program for the residents, while we're also working to secure all the permits and plan approvals needed from the county. We are now planning our groundbreaking for July 13th. We'll also host an online community forum on July 14th, where several CHAT and Butte County Behavioral Health staffers will be on hand to give the latest updates and take questions from community members. We're planning to be able to open the village to Butte County Behavioral Health clients sometime this fall.

Maintenance and construction crew

Meeting at Everhart Village site with BCBH staff

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Mar 16, 2022
March 2022 Update for Our Overall Program

By NIcole Drummond | Executive Director

This triplex is now home to Wildflower Housing.

Chico Housing Action Team (CHAT) is happy to report more growth and continued financial stability since our last report in November 2021. We continue to enjoy the support of over 180 monthly sustaining donors who give nearly $7000 per month, which is a great source of sustainable income. In the past three months we've been able to hire several new staff members with our new executive director Nicole Drummond starting the first of the year and providing excellent leadership, plus several new Housing Now case managers, warehouse and maintenance assistants, and a new accountant.

On the program side, CHAT is now housing approximately 232 residents, including 89 children, in 72 residences in Chico, compared to our report in November when we counted 185 individuals, including 56 children, and 63 locations. We continue to create new housing opportunities, including a triplex that we recently purchased and transformed into our Wildflower Housing program for up to 12 folks with mental illness or other substantial challenges that need intensive case manager support. We've recently secured several grants from the state and county governments to let us hire additional case managers for the Housing Now program. This program has relied on volunteers who have done a stellar job of creating supportive relationships with CHAT residents, and who will now benefit from the additional support and expertise of a top-notch crew who bring a whole new skill set in helping residents learn additional life skills and find permanent affordable housing if that's what they want.

Our CHAMP program continues to find housing for Camp Fire survivors via landlord incentives and assistance with up-front costs for securing a rental. From October 2021 till February of this year, CHAMP assisted an additional 11 households with first month rents, security deposits, rental assistance, the purchase of new beds and frames, and an emergency hotel stay, in addition to case management services, which included helping Camp Fire survivors with obtaining federal housing vouchers.

We're continuing to move forward with plans for Everhart Village, a 20-unit sleeping-cabins project we are developing in collaboration with the Butte County Dept of Behavioral Health. Volunteers are continuing to work with our Everhart Village shelter-units manager Charles Withuhn and our volunteer construction coordinator Ken Dickson to make the sleeping cabins ready. We recently hired a project manager for Everhart Village, Gary Lee, to oversee all the construction at the village and we're fortunate to have such an experienced contractor on board. We were so thankful to receive a generous donation of materials for the sleeping cabins from Sierra North Valley REALTORS in December, and they set up an online materials wishlist for the public to donate specific items. We were also given a $200,000 grant from Cal Water in December to cover all the water-infrastructure costs for Everhart Village, which will be of tremendous help for the overall success of this project. We're hoping to have a ground-breaking for Everhart Village sometime in April, and we plan to be able to welcome the first residents to Everhart Village by June of this year.

We want to share a story about one of our residents, Stephen, who was living in a CHAT shared residence for folks with mental illness. He had to find an individual apartment that could pass Section 8 inspection so he could get custody of his daughters, and he was very anxious about whether he'd be able to make it happen in time for the December 22nd custody hearing where he would need to prove he had housing. With CHAT's help, he was able to secure a Section 8 housing voucher and find an affordable apartment. The CHAT maintenance team worked very hard to make time consuming and expensive repairs on a two- bedroom apartment, in time for him to get custody of his daughters so they could move in just before Christmas. CHAT was able to provide some furniture, and Butte County Behavioral Health provided funding for the first month’s rent and deposit. The family is receiving counseling through Youth for Change, while Stephen is receiving counseling through Butte County Behavioral Health. The daughters are receiving help in school subjects through the Boys and Girls Club, and the Disability Action Center has provided a battery for Stephen’s C-Pap machine in case of an electric shutoff. It was a beautiful collaboration of agencies plus CHAT staff and volunteers that made a difference for this family.

Stephen at his new apartment for Christmas

Board VP Bob Trausch and EV project mgr Gary Lee

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