Inside The Redding California Homeless Crisis

Several articles have come out recently about our local homeless crisis featuring the investigative reporting skills of independent journalist Evelyn Nieves. You can hear and read her interview here at  What Redding's Response to Homelessness Says About a Statewide Crisis at the San Francisco Public Press.

“This population has always existed, what hasn’t existed was the kind of street homelessness we see now. Why is that? Money...Stories about homelessness never bring up the fact that federal funding has dropped.”

Evelyn Nieves has covered homelessness extensively and has been reporting in depth on Redding’ response to homelessness, and how it parallels trends around the region and the state. Redding Coalition for the Homeless director Chris Solberg had the pleasure of meeting Evelyn and spending much of the day with her and the local homeless population at the Shasta County library. “There is a dynamic of hatred,” said Solberg, who has posted scores of videos on YouTube documenting the city’s responses, from police encounters with homeless people to the caging of park benches.You can read her most recent in depth article here, Redding’s Homeless Ride a Wave of Very Tough Love."  California Gov. Gavin Newsom calls homelessness an emergency akin to a major earthquake, but his proposals do not prevent cities from sweeping people off the streets."

"Security guards would kick them off the library lawn at dusk. South City Park next door, once a refuge, sat behind iron gates. So did the alcoves of the businesses across the street. Even the tunnel under a nearby road, a creepy crawl space that always offered a last resort, was cut off: An elaborate metal barrier, almost sculptural, criss-crossed its length, blocking access."

“There is a dynamic of hatred.”https://t.co/gxRGhHhnrG

— Capital & Main (@capitalandmain) February 6, 2020

“We’re treated like scum” said Tani Kelley 44-year-old mother of two She lost her housing to a series of misfortunes she said including the 2018 wildfires that ravaged Shasta and neighboring Trinity counties “No one,” Kelley said, “wants to be out here” https://t.co/92ePM8NJi0

— Redding Homeless (@ReddingHomeless) February 5, 2020

Redding’s homeless ride a wave of very tough love https://t.co/ROrkwDP80J

— Daily Kos (@dailykos) February 7, 2020

Redding Makes Washington DC National Law Center Homeless Civil Rights Hall of Shame List

WoW ! Congratulations Redding California !

Washington DC National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty has identified seven especially harmful policies and has included Redding California in its NATIONAL HALL OF SHAME in its Housing not Handcuffs 2019 Report !

"The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (Law Center) is the only national organization dedicated to using the power of the law to end and prevent homelessness. The Law Center works to expand access to affordable housing, meet the immediate and long-term needs of those who are homeless or at risk, and strengthen the social safety-net through policy advocacy, public education, impact litigation, and legal training and support. 

The Law Center recognizes that communities struggle with difficult policy choices over how to reduce homelessness and often pursue a combination of good (constructive) and bad (destructive) policies. Rather than call out individual governments for being the best or worst, we have identified particularly bad policies and/or practices of certain governments to include in our Hall of Shame.

This year, the Law Center has identified seven especially harmful policies, enacted by: Ocala, Florida; Sacramento, California; Wilmington, Delaware; Kansas City, Missouri; Redding, California; the State of Texas; and the United States federal government"

City of #Redding placed in "Hall of Shame" for homeless policieshttps://t.co/KSXbS0TKfL

— KRCR News Channel 7 (@KRCR7) December 12, 2019

Governor Newsom On Redding California Homeless Prison "Whether You Like It Or Not"

"Whether You Like It Or Not"

These are chilling words from California Governor Gavin Newsom coming back to haunt the poor and disenfranchised homeless of Redding and the rest of the state of California.

Now Governor Newsom says changes are coming for the state's prison and jail system, and it looks like he has been working on it for quite some time.

"I have spent the last six or so months, not a gross exaggeration, assembled a team of experts to look at re-imagining a 21st century criminal justice system."

"So we're looking at step down facilities."

So one might ask is the recent firestorm of controversy directed at Redding Mayor Julie Winter and the idea of forced incarceration of homeless and conservatorship of their finances part of a much larger plan to have facilities placed up and down
the state of California with Redding the far northern planned facility?

Is this a result of Trump looking at crackdown on homelessness as aides visited California?

Something tantamount to a middle ages debtors prison to go with the medieval plagues that are surfacing as well Redding Mayor Winter?

"And as California goes so goes the rest of the nation"....

“We’ll hide the costs of that in our jail budget, in our police budget, in our courts budget and, you know, we’ll make it disappear for today…” This is the criminalization of #homelessness—hiding costs and punting on problems. People are hurting now. https://t.co/kjTsg6Cv0q

— NLCHP (@NLCHPhomeless) December 5, 2019

'They have no place': Rousted, relocated, Redding's homeless have few choices

"Redding's Good News Rescue Mission turned away 500 people last year." 

HOMELESSNESS IN REDDING AND THE BETHEL EFFECT

Redding Mayor and Bethel Mega-Church Elder Julie Winter recently sent a letter to Governor Newsome asking the State to fund what is basically a concentration camp for the area's three thousand homeless people, where they would be forced to stay until they can somehow manage to become housed and "self-sufficient"

Under this proposal homeless detainees would also be deprived of whatever meager income they may have until the government agents in charge are convinced that the homeless person will only spend their money on what these agents deem acceptable.

The obvious illegalities of her fascist proposal aside, she failed to acknowledge that Redding's rental market is nearly non-existent, and that the local rental vacancy rate was less than two percent even before last year's devastating fires. Nor did she mention that the thousands of Bethel adherents who have flooded the area in recent years are - to a notable extent - responsible for Redding's severe housing shortage. More than a few local families and what are often elderly and/or disabled individuals have lost their housing to crowds of Bethel students, who bring in far more money for greedy property owners than many locals can afford to pay.

This heavy deluge of outsiders into our small city has contributed directly to local homelessness. It has also raised the cost of whatever housing remains, which makes the poor even poorer (and closer to homelessness), and creates a situation where fewer people working in the area's many low-wage jobs can actually qualify for a roof over their heads.

I have a two-fold alternative proposal. Bethel provides no housing for its several thousand "supernatural" students, or the countless other Bethel groupies who invade the area every year. Neither will we be seeing any housing included in Bethel's upcoming $148 million 39-acre mega-church complex. I would suggest that Bethel use some of its $60.8 million annual income to provide housing for its students and other followers, which would free up existing housing for the actual locals, and potentially lower rents.

Secondly, the Redding City Council has chosen to ignore recommendations from Housing First program experts, who made the provable case that supportive housing - however minimal - has dramatically reduced chronic homelessness and improved prospects for the mentally ill/substance-addicted (often one and the same) as nothing else can. It has also saved participating cities millions of dollars a year in the process.

Perhaps Bethel could get the ball rolling on that program locally, since it does little else to help address a crisis it's at least partially responsible for creating except pass the plate on occassion for Shasta County's single vastly over-crowded fire-and-brimstone homeless shelter, with its largely failed punish-the-sinner approach.

Purging its world-wide base of operations of unsightly homeless people has been high priority for Bethel. However, there's a right way and a wrong way, and forcing people into a prison/concentration camp facility until they accomplish the impossible (without the addition of more humane and practical solutions) is definitely the wrong way.

Patrecia Barrett

Meet Redding's "Catwoman"

A gentle homeless soul in her 70's who loves to collect money to feed her stray animal friends.

Homeless for the majority of 16 years, she camps out in the wooded area by the Sacramento River known as the Henderson Open Space. Recently she alleges that Bob Brannon, community work program officer for the Redding California Police Department has threatened to arrest her if she dident leave the Henderson area, and that she would loose her beloved pet dog, and that he was sick of cleaning up after her.

"Catwoman" is a very warm and easy to talk to individual. She loves to feed and take in unwanted stray dogs and cats, and it is said that she has developed a relationship with wild animals as well, feeding turtles and baby skunks as they rub up against her like baby kittens. Unfortunatly when Bob Brannon discovers and raids her camp, he throws away pounds of Cat and Dog food, as well as any survival homeless camping gear she has managed to obtain.



"Catwoman" is a cancer survivor, and unfortunatly needs a constant supply of colostomy bags to maintain her health. The last thing this dear homeless senior citizen needs is a threat of arrest, and the loss of her beloved pet dog hanging over her head.


If you agree that homelessness is not a crime and Catwoman is not a criminal then please take the time to call the Redding Police Department at (530) 225 - 4200 and ask for Redding Police Chief Robert Paoletti.


Let him know that this is not Stockton, that we here in Redding are compassionate to our homeless senior citizens, and until Redding California and Redding Rotary is willing and able to provide adequate shelters and affordable housing for the growing numbers of homeless folks free of homeless camping tickets,criminalization and evictions that Henderson Open Space is big enough for everybody to share.