City of Chico removes RVs from Comanche Creek

CHICO, Calif. — Chico's Comanche Creek has become one of the city's bigger homeless encampments with people living out of both tents and RVs. But, the city is slowly making progress toward clearing the encampment.

This past week the city began hauling trailers out of Comanche Creek after giving those living in them a seven-day notice. But where will the trailers go?

The city does not have a designated area for RVs to park and at this time there are no plans to create one.

Those living in RVs said they were told to move to a trailer park, but either can not afford to or will not be accepted because their RV is too old.

"Many of the campers out here are not campers that any park will take. A lot of people, if they have an income, have social security so if we were able to move the campers somewhere, which we can't, most of them don't even move, we financially would have no means to do so," said Monique Bergeron.

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Bergeron has lived at Comanche Creek for four months, moving there after falling on hard times. She had her RV towed out of Comanche Creek Thursday morning. She plans to move to Santa Rosa where her daughter lives, but she said others are not so lucky.

"If people had a place to go, they would go, you know? Nobody knows where to go. Essentially, three years and a million dollars later, what's happening is people are gonna have nowhere to go. They're gonna end up back in the park, back at One Mile because they're not gonna have anywhere else to go."

Bergeron said she understands Comanche Creek is a park and community members are not happy it has become an encampment, but she said there is nowhere else for them to go.

"Nobody is here by choice, we're here because we don't have anywhere else to go," she commented.

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On the other hand, some community members are happy to see the city doing something about the encampment. A business owner who works near Comanche Creek told KRCR their building has been broken into multiple times and has had thousands of dollars worth of items stolen.

Per the Warren v. Chico settlement agreement, the city does not need to find a place for people living out of cars or RVs to go because they are not considered without shelter.

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