The costs and effects of the city's sit-lie ordinance are examined in a Chico State report.

Professors at Chico State published a report this year with one main question in mind: “Is Chico’s approach to homelessness effective?”

Jennifer Wilking, who teaches political science, asked herself that question after learning about Housing First, a housing assistance program that offers permanent and affordable housing for homeless individuals.

“As I thought more about this approach to homelessness, Housing First, I started wondering what does our approach to homelessness look like and is it effective?” Wilking said. “So we (she and four other researchers) started with that really broad question, and then we started looking specifically at our approach to homelessness being these ordinances that were passed (sit-lie 2013, and property storage 2015) because they were getting a lot of media attention.”

The sit-lie ordinance prohibits sitting or lying on the sidewalk or other public walkways. The property storage ordinance prohibits storing of personal property in any public space. Wilking’s team began gathering data from the police department, including citation and arrest records from 2010 to 2016. Based on the information, they narrowed their research question to three main questions:

• What is the effect of sit-lie on homeless individuals?
• How has it changed the geography of those arrests?
• What is the cost of sit-lie?

The team examined arrest records of homeless individuals compared to the arrest records of housed individuals before and after passage of the ordinance. They found a gradual increase in the arrests of homeless individuals post sit-lie.

They also raised the possibility that general policing of homeless individuals increased after sit-lie was implemented. The report said that before sit-lie, an average of 2.7 homeless individuals were arrested each day. After sit-lie, arrests of homeless individuals increased to an average of 4.1 each day.

Top: A reconstruction of the graph featured in the report by Wilking, Roll, Philhour, Hansen, & Nevarez. Bottom: A graph created by calculating the averages of the four quarters of each year. 

Wilking’s team put together cost estimates of enforcing sit-lie and responding to crimes committed by homeless individuals from 2010 to 2016. The Chico Police Department provided reports on their cost estimates of police time to book and arrest someone and the times to dispatch.

Wilking’s team reviewed this cost estimate and paired it with the data it had on how many citations were written and how many arrests were conducted from 2010 to 2016. The report used geographic analysis to pinpoint locations of arrests of homeless individuals over time. It found the mean location of arrests has gradually moved north.

This map is a reconstruction of the map they provided in the report. The points on the map are not approximate locations of arrests, but the average longitude and latitude of arrest locations for each year. Each point also shows the number of arrests and citations of homeless people per year.

In all, they reported the average daily cost of arresting homeless individuals from Jan. 1, 2010, to Dec. 18, 2013, was $315.75. The average daily cost to arrest homeless individuals from Dec. 19, 2013, (the date sit-lie went into effect) to June 30, 2016, was $459.35.

Originally, the team hypothesized that the increase in arrests were likely due to an increase in the homeless population. But after looking at the biennial mandated count of homeless individuals conducted by Butte Countywide Homeless Continuum of Care, the data said that the homeless population in Chico had gone down from 804 in 2013 to 571 in 2015.

This caused them to question their hypothesis that the increase in arrests was due to an increase in homeless population. Their report was released before this year’s Continuum of Care point-in-time survey, which says that the homeless population has gone up, in Chico they counted 1,096. That’s a 92 percent difference from the 2015 report.

In the 2017 point-in-time homeless census and survey report, the Butte Countywide Homeless Continuum of Care offered and explanation to the increase: They said that the 2015 count “may have been influenced by the lack of a PIT coordinator to facilitate the planning and execution of the PIT methodology.”

This would mean that Wilking’s team’s original hypothesis that the increase in arrests was due to an increase in the homeless population may have been accurate.

Wilking, Susan Roll, a social work professor, and Mariah Kornbluh, a psychology professor, will be joining their classes together for a joint session in October. The class would conduct two different surveys, one among the homeless population and one among the shelter population. Wilking said the motivation behind those surveys is to understand why portions of the homeless population are not using supportive services. Chico Police Chief O’Brien will be attending the sessions.

Laura Cootsona, executive director of the Jesus Center, said future studies would help shelters adapt their services. “It would be hugely informative for us if we knew why they weren't coming and if there was something we could change to attract them to our services, because honestly, what we’re trying to do is drive them back into the community,” Cootsona said.

Wilking said the team is planning to do more community-based research including a breakfast meeting in October where members of the community will able to provide input on what data needs to be collected in order to better address issues of homelessness.

“And the second thing we want to know is what the general population wants around the issue of homelessness,” Wilking said, “but we need to understand do they want more of the public safety approach or do they want alternative approaches and how willing is the general public to tolerate alternative approaches -- like a tiny house village for example -- or designated parking spots for homeless people who have cars.”

by Michael Fritz