By Nicole Drummond | Executive director
Everhart Village is a planned emergency shelter project of 20 sleeping cabins on a site owned by Butte County within the city of Chico. The sleeping cabins will house people with severe mental illness who are referred by Butte County Behavioral Health, then the program will work to stabilize them, provide case management services, help them with socialization and life skills, and work with them to find permanent affordable housing. The project held its official groundbreaking ceremony on August 13th, and construction work began shortly afterwards. The Santos excavation company has been contracted to handle all of the earthwork and utility line installation at the site. They've finished with clearing and grubbing, and are mostly complete with the mass grading, the fine grain road, and the bioswale and drainage. Remaining work from the Santos company includes installation of fine grade pads, an onsite sewer main, sewer services, an onsite water main, water services, electrical, baserock road, paved road, striping & signage, offsite water main, testing, water tie-in, pavement replacement, sewer lift station, forced main, and a sewer tie-in. All of the excavation and earthwork is expected to be completed in early February, although rain could cause further delays. We would like to especially make note of Cal Water's contribution and support for this project.
Sleeping cabins are being outfitted with electrical, plumbing, insulation, and sheetrock by a dedicated volunteer team.The sleeping cabins are being kept at the Santos company's excavation yard. Our volunteer manager and Everhart Village volunteer coordinator are setting up volunteer build days whenever they can arrange a group of volunteers.
Discussions with Butte County Behavioral Health (BCBH) are continuing to develop the intake and referral processes. Butte County Behavioral Health is actively recruiting experienced psychologists and case workers to be part of their REST team, which will conduct outreach to the unhoused community to find folks with serious mental illness. More details can be found on the Butte County Behavioral Health website.
We recently hosted an online GoFundMe campaign that raised over $139,000 within three weeks, and are adding to that fundraising with this GlobalGiving project, plus a corporate sponsorship program, major grants, and a major We’re hosting periodic online community forums with members of BCBH and CHAT staff to provide the most current news of the construction and the intake and referral processes, and to answer questions from the community. The next community forum will take place on Wednesday, November 30th, and folks can register for the forum on our website. See the Everhart Village page on our website for more information about this innovative project.
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