Creating Affordable Housing Options in Chico, CA

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.

Links:

• KRCR: Camp Fire 4th Anniversary: what was, what is, what's next
• CHAT Blog: Camp Fire anniversary, a day of hope and remembrance
• VFW donation houses local homeless veterans