Chico city leaders end shelter crisis declaration, community reacts

A divided Chico City Council declared an end to the shelter crisis.

Open chico city council says: the city is no longer in a shelter crisis.

New at 5 -- action news now reporter krisitan lopez shows us why council members made this decision -- and what it means for the community.

Kristian: you can see there are still a lot of people living in tents in comanche creek even so some city leaders say they believe there is no longer a shelter crisis in chico.

Richard munzer/lives in comanche creek: my reaction to ending the shelter crisis?

Take a look around you, this is a shelter crisis.

Richard munzer lives in comanche creek.

He doesn't agree with the council's decision to rescind the shelter crisis declaration.

I asked council member sean morgan about it.

Sean morgan: we declared a shelter crisis, has the unsheltered population gotten bigger or smaller?

Bigger.

Did the encampments get smaller or grown?

So what did that do for us?

Kristian: so there's declared shelter crisis but would you say there is still a shelter crisis?

Sean morgan: no i would say no, because we have available spaces.

Kristian: so you're saying there are enough shelter beds for people who want one in chico?

Sean: yeah, there certainly were last night and the night before that and the night before that.

Anonymous: i've been to the shelter a couple of times myself and i know for a fact that's not true, the people out here take one shelter on its own.

In a statement from kami denlay - who proposed the motion.

She says in part quote - "we do not have a shelter crisis, we have a drug addiction and mental health crisis.

The more we continue to spend on additional beds that no one is interested in accepting, the more resources are being snapped from resources that could address real crisis like addiction and mental health.

Kristian: what does this mean moving forward?

Scott huber: well i'm not sure yet but it seems like the direction given to city staff was to stop working on this, so what does that mean?

I guess the problem just proliferates, we continue evicting people with no place for them to go.

Sean morgan: we're still doing all the options and we're still open to spending money and cbg funds, none of that has changed, all that changed is we're saying this isn't out of our control anymore so why have this thing that says oh we're in a shelter crisis that lets us do more things that didn't happen anyway.

Kristian: the shelter crisis was declared in 2018 and council member morgan says it was set to expire this june.

In chico kristian lopez action news now coverage you can count on.

We have kami denlay's full statement on our website action news now dot com just click on this story.

Hayley -- the council also approved a new wild fire risk reduction plan