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Honoring Our Roots. Securing Our Future.
For over a decade, the Chico Housing Action Team (CHAT) has worked to ensure that everyone in our community has access to safe and stable housing. That work was made possible by the vision, compassion, and tireless leadership of our founders, Sheldon Praiser, Bob Trausch, and Leslie Johnson.
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At the end of September, these three incredible individuals will retire from our Board of Directors, concluding over ten years of grassroots leadership and transformative impact. In response, we’re launching a campaign to honor their legacy and protect the organization they built.
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The Lasting Impact: The Founders’ Legacy Campaign is a $400,000 effort to secure CHAT’s future. We’ve already raised over $100,000, but we need your support to reach our full goal by September 30.
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This campaign will help us bridge a critical funding gap caused by the end of key government grants and delays in new funding. Your gift will allow us to:
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Sustain essential resident services like case management, healthcare navigation, and job support
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Prevent disruptions for more than 200 current CHAT residents
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Support our leadership transition as we prepare for the next chapter
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Continue building long-term housing solutions like Builders Village and Everhart Village
CHAT began in 2013 with a simple but powerful idea: that everyone deserves a safe place to live, and the support to stay there. From its humble beginnings, our founders dreamed up community-based, compassionate, and creative solutions to the growing housing crisis in Butte County. That dream has grown into a full-service organization serving families, veterans, seniors, wildfire survivors, people with disabilities, and individuals experiencing mental health challenges.
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As we celebrate the contributions of Bob, Leslie, and Sheldon, we also look ahead. Their chapter may be closing, but our work is far from over.
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This is our moment to carry their compassion forward and finish what they started. Make your gift today and be part of CHAT’s next chapter.
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With gratitude,
Team CHAT
A Legacy
Of Hope.​
A special message from CHAT co-founder,
Sheldon Praiser:
One Saturday afternoon in 2013, as I was leaving the Chico Peace & Justice Center,
Dan Everhart stopped me and suggested I stay for a meeting about the growing problem of local homelessness. From that moment, a thrilling adventure began. That November, with temperatures dropping into the 20s, a grassroots group that had formed after that meeting opened Safe Space Winter Shelter. Soon after came our first Housing Now rental houses.
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As the Chico Housing Action Team (CHAT) grew, so did our understanding of the need in our community. We created programs for students, veterans, and families with children, and then we partnered with Behavioral Health to build Everhart Village—a 20-unit emergency shelter we operate for unhoused individuals with mental health diagnoses. Milestones like these remind me why sustaining CHAT is so vital, which is why our
Lasting Impact: The Founders’ Legacy Campaign is underway—to ensure these programs continue to thrive.
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Another pivotal moment came when CHAT received a donation of five acres of land. From that gift grew the vision for Builders Village, a 61-unit affordable housing community for low-income seniors and people with disabilities, which is now under construction.
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For me, CHAT has always been about turning challenges into dreams fulfilled. Some of my most meaningful memories are of residents who taught me about trauma, trust, and compassion—people who, despite many obstacles, became success stories. While
co-founders Bob Trausch, Leslie Johnson, and I are soon retiring from the Board of Directors, we are not retiring from the dream. Behind the scenes, we will continue to help sustain this amazing nonprofit's efforts to better Chico by providing affordable housing and supportive services to folks who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
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From literally passing the hat for donations all those years ago, CHAT has grown into a multimillion-dollar organization housing over 200 individuals, supported by over 30 staff and a remarkable volunteer force. That progress has been possible only because of your generous partnership. If you can help once again by supporting the Founders’ Legacy Campaign, you’ll enable CHAT to make many more dreams come true in the years ahead.
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Thank you for your support.
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Sincerely,
-Sheldon Praiser, CHAT co-founder