Doug Guillon recently upbraided Chico State's administration, President Paul Zingg, for opting out of R-Town's efforts to rid downtown of its "anti-social" element. While some of R-Town's efforts have been laudable, other parts of its initiative have been ham-fisted, even pernicious, particularly its messaging.
The R-Town mission statement released in the fall read like a manifesto written by an 1850s Vigilance Committee, its tone wavering between hysterical and xenophobic. Even the name of this coalition, R-Town, suggests an Us against Them attitude.
Guillon now acknowledges there is no apparent connection between homelessness and crime, but the campaign put out in November emphatically associated the homeless with anti-social behavior, if not with outright criminality. And there was something particularly unseemly about a group of wealthy business owners demonizing the homeless — claiming victimhood.
I'm glad Guillon now recognizes that the homeless aren't the problem. I wish R-Town had been as judicious in its earlier pronouncements.
Going forward, it can help itself, and the community, by broadening its efforts to aid people who are on the streets and struggling, and by minding its previously overblown rhetoric. These are tough times, and the social fabric in Chico, as elsewhere, is frayed. There are no easy solutions to our problems, and we'll all be better served if we keep our minds open, our words temperate, and our judgments close. Do that, Doug Guillon, and the university may yet have reason to get onboard.
— Ken Devol, Chico