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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Sheldon Praiser, CHAT Co-Founder
At CHAT, every story of hope begins with someone struggling in homelessness—or on the verge of it—and ends with them gaining access to safe, affordable housing. As a co-founder, I have met hundreds of people who needed our help to overcome difficult barriers. Each story inspires me, but today I want to share two about families.
One is about a single mother who lived in her station wagon with her 8-year-old daughter for 19 months. Determined to finish her education, she studied by streetlight. She and her daughter did their best to blend in, sneaking showers on campus, and life was far from easy. With CHAT’s help, they moved into an apartment and began to thrive. Today, that resilient mom holds a master’s degree from Chico State.
Another family I’ll never forget was a couple living in a tent with their 11-year-old son. As if being a kid isn’t challenging enough, the boy told me how hard it was to hide his homelessness from classmates. CHAT helped the family into a home, changing the course of their lives. Today, the parents work full-time and remain stably housed, while their son has graduated from high school and joined the Navy.
Stories like these are why we started CHAT back in 2013, when a small group of us opened the Peace & Justice Center during a cold spell to shelter 32 people. Since then, we have provided stable housing to more than 600 individuals, including the 200-plus people currently in our programs. Last year, we opened Everhart Village to support people experiencing homelessness with mental health challenges, and I’m thrilled that 61 new units are now underway at Builders Village, which will provide homes for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.
As Leslie, Sheldon, and I step away from CHAT’s Board of Directors, I am filled with gratitude for this journey. CHAT has become a bridge of hope for so many. Through housing, people who were hurting, stuck, or forgotten have found the stability to heal and rebuild their lives.
Your support makes this possible, and right now, until my retirement at the end of this month, we are holding a critical fundraiser called Lasting Impact: The Founders’ Legacy Campaign. I'd be honored for you to consider giving a gift today to keep CHAT strong and help create the next story of hope.
With gratitude,
Bob Trausch, CHAT Co-Founder
A Legacy
Of Hope.
A special message from CHAT Co-Founder,
Bob Trausch:
A Legacy
Of Hope.
A special message from CHAT Co-Founder,
Leslie Johnson:
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Early in my work with CHAT, I realized how many people living unsheltered suffer from serious health issues and disabilities. Often, those challenges are what drove them into homelessness and kept them there. I will never forget seeing a man in a wheelchair, missing both legs, pushing himself down Main Street in search of food or rest. I knew then that CHAT needed to ensure people with disabilities had safe housing options.
I also remember a former truck driver who lost his job after a serious back injury. Without income, he soon lost his home. Even when people with disabilities can afford rent, they often cannot find housing that meets their needs. CHAT has rented to tenants in wheelchairs, only to discover that narrow doorways or a lack of roll-in showers made the homes unlivable. And, unfortunately, retrofitting is costly.
That’s why Builders Village is so important. Now under construction, it will provide 61 fully accessible units for people with limited mobility. In many ways, this project brings CHAT full circle. The first conversations leading to our founding were sparked by the late Dan Everhart, who used a wheelchair and knew this need firsthand.
Builders Village will allow residents to remain independent and live with dignity, no longer forced to struggle on the streets or in homes that were never designed for their needs. But construction alone is not enough. The village will need ongoing support to provide lasting stability for the people who live there.
As Bob, Sheldon, and I prepare to retire, my greatest hope is that the community will carry CHAT’s vision forward. Only seven days remain in Lasting Impact: The Founders’ Legacy Campaign—and your gift can go twice as far! Thanks to a generous supporter, every donation made between now and Sept. 30 will be matched, up to $10,000! Don’t miss this chance to ensure dignity, independence, and hope for those who need it most. Please give today!
With gratitude,
Leslie Johnson, CHAT Co-Founder