ER Story About Homeless Costing CARD Money

by Jack

One of the main campsites for the bums in Bidwell Park is the park bench behind CARD. This was pointed out in the ER story. The article said it’s chasing off prospective customers for CARD and I can believe it.

Every time I rode my bicycle on the park path behind CARD there was two or three homeless taking up space on this bench and/or hanging out near the bench. For months I never saw that bench empty! Now I read in the ER that the bums gathering there are chasing off business for CARD. CARD customers like the green lawn and the park setting near the creek for weddings and other family events, but the presence of so many seedy looking bums has ruined that.

It’s been my experience that about a dozen or so bums are always hanging out, sleeping on the lawn, dumping their trash, backpacks and sleeping bags within 100 yards of the CARD building. The bums set up day camps and allegedly there’s nothing the cops can do about it, or so they say. I don’t believe this is quite true. There’s always something that can be done, but our Chico cops have been discouraged because their Chief (Trostel) has taken a (more or less) hands-off approach when it comes to police contact with bums. I think this fits well with his liberal sensibilities, but it isn’t solving the problems for Chicoans.

The bums in the area of CARD tend to be young drifters, mostly white males, but some white females too. They root around the garbage cans and dumpsters looking for aluminum cans or do shifts begging in the Safeway parking lot on Mangrove.

There’s no reason why a majority of these healthy people couldn’t find a job and stop living on the street, if they really wanted too. No roaming “Chico Ambassadors” are going to mitigate this problem, it’s a lifestyle choice.

Speaking of those Chico Ambassadors, I wonder if they are ready to admit this was a dopey idea. So far, it’s been about as successful as Chico’s free bicycle program. You remember that one? All these old bikes were painted white, even the tires and left at locations around town so people could ride them for free and then just leave them for someone else to ride. They were rarely used, and they wound up being stolen for parts. I’ve heard they sparked lawsuits for personal injury too. Like we didn’t see any of that coming? Geez, we’ve got some real dopes in this town.

It’s been a long standing habit for the CARD area bums to walk across the street (Valombrosa) and steal liquor from Rite Aide. I’ve talked to employees there and they say it’s an ongoing problem, along with panhandlers in front of their store. Others have been complaining about small thefts from their parked vehicles in the area.

I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have four large bum-lodging places in Chico? We’ve got a lot of beds and we provide a lot of free meals. Do you think we would still have a bum problem here without all those free things?

Bums were involved in many stabbings lately, (34 last year), also thefts, panhandling, littering, vandalism and as the ER story points out, this has caused substantial financial losses to CARD. Prior to that it was the loss of business to the downtown. As far as I know they are still suffering because they bum population has only grown worse.

I think the whole problem would go away if we didn’t have so many magnets for bums, i.e., all these free things that make it easy to hang out in Chico. The liberal answer is to build even more bum housing, go figure? Of course it’s a stupid plan that will only make matters worse, but don’t try to explain that to our idealistic liberal nincompoops…they don’t get it and they will never get it until it hits them in the pocketbook.