Chico is not safe(or cheap)
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10/19/2020
I have lived in the neighboring city of Paradise most of my life which is 15 minutes drive from Chico. I've worked in Chico for many years and we would come to Chico frequently to shop and enjoy a night out. I now live in Chico out of necessity. Chico has always had a minor homeless problem. However, in the last few years, it has grown into a major issue. The city council and elected officials have created a very welcoming environment for the homeless population. I can only assume they receive state or federal funding for this as there is no other reason to completely erode the safety, cleanliness, and charm of the city.
Add to this that 2 years ago, a major fire burned the nearby town of Paradise (I was one of those that lost my home). This created a major outpouring of support and resources for those that lost their homes. Unfortunately, a significant number of homeless and transient people moved into the area to try and take advantage of the free services and people's generosity, claiming to be victims of the fire themselves. A few months later, a study was conducted and found that of the remaining people living in tents seeking resources for being fire victims, a tiny percent were actually Campfire(the name of the fire) survivors but were transients who had moved to the area. The welcoming and tolerant nature of Chico's leaders towards the transient population kept them here long after services for fire victims stopped.
They have tied the hands of the local police department as well as underfunded them, making it so they can do almost nothing about the transient issue, softened or eliminated regulations that would dissuade loitering, they set up a needle exchange program for addicts(near an elementary school) against the wishes of the citizens, and have set up several resource centers to provide free services and items for the transient population further enabling the behavior.
Chico's small plaza park in the center of downtown intended for community events and as a place to relax for those shopping the downtown area has become a permanent homeless camp. This serves as a home base for many of them, who then spread out and panhandle near downtown businesses. There is trash and refuse everywhere. For city events, the police drive the homeless away, and when the event is over, they make their way back. The police don't have any authority to do anything about them and will more or less tell you that if you call about a homeless person being somewhere they shouldn't(like your yard or front porch).
Chico's Bidwell Park, which used to be a wonderful place to hike and bike and bring your kids, has countless homeless camps within the park boundaries. You can no longer swim in the 1-mile swimming area that a natural creek flows into because of the fecal matter and drug paraphernalia from the transients who use the creek as a bathroom and dumping ground. The play areas in the park are now all within proximity to transients, many of whom are sex offenders.
There are several homeless camps in the empty canal areas near Chico neighborhoods. It is commonplace for homeless people to prowl into nearby neighborhoods at night and break into people's vehicles to steal items and steal items from their yards.
Many of the areas mentioned now have trash and used needles scattered about(increasingly more after the needle exchange program). From watching the spotter page, not a day goes by that someone isn't attacked or harassed in some way by members of the transient population. A man who was walking his dog in a park was stabbed, a woman who was shopping and putting groceries away in her car was struck over the head with a bottle, several women have had transient men expose themselves to them. Skimming these daily police reports reveals that many of these transient people are convicted sex offenders, have histories of theft and violent crime, and have been arrested many times. But per city procedure, they end up in jail for a short time and then are released back into the population to continue wreaking havoc on the taxpaying citizens of Chico.
I have a coworker whose apartment was broken into by a transient while he was away. His wife was home and hid in the closet, fearing for her life. She called the police and luckily the police arrived while he was rifling through items in the living room and hadn't made it to the bedroom yet. Another female coworker had a homeless person break into her apartment and pass out in her living room(very intoxicated).
Outside of the more affordable places not being safe to live in, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of my wife walking around downtown or her and my kid going to local parks.
The summers are hot and dry, and the winters are mild and dry with occasional rain. Despite that, there's a fair amount of green places nearby, and there's a lot of outdoor activity nearby(some of which has now been ruined by the homeless population). The downtown area has some excellent restaurants and fun shops if you're comfortable with being around all the panhandling and drug-addled transients mumbling to themselves or screaming incoherently.
Several major roadways get very congested around rush hours and lunchtime, partially because of bad city planning and partially because of the influx in population from the people who moved here from Paradise after it burned down.
Housing costs here are artificially high(higher than they should be; prices were still higher than most of the country because it's California, but Chico was once one of the more affordable places in California that was a nice place to live), which is a direct result of people buying houses here whose houses burned in the fire, which dramatically decreased housing inventory and made the demand heavily outweigh the supply.
The job market here isn't great but isn't terrible either. The main employers tend to be healthcare with the local hospitals, the colleges(Butte and Chico State), Sierra Nevada Brewery, and a few successful eccomerce companies. The rest of the jobs are mostly in the retail or the foodservice industry.
Chico was a pretty nice place to live once. A thriving college town whose biggest problem used to be college kids partying too hard; a great restaurant and bar scene, some decent schools, lots of outdoor activities at your fingertips, and relatively affordable. Now it's a homeless dumping ground, unsafe, with an overburdened infrastructure and spiking housing costs.
Mark | Chico, CA