Comcast’s Lift Zone program provides free Internet access to help community members get online. There will be 3 locations for lift areas in Chico. Locations include the Torres Community Shelter, the Jesus Center, and the Pallet Shelter.
The announcement was attended by a number of city officials and Comcast representatives.
“Today we celebrate the launch of the elevator zones,” said Philip Arndt, Comcast’s director of government affairs. Arndt announced at the conference that Comcast is donating $75,000 to shelters for use in developing digital resources.
“We will use our gift to be able to facilitate the curriculum,” said Amber Abney Bass, Executive Director of the Jesus Centre. “And the staff should develop a very strong digital literacy program here at the Jesus Center.”
Following the announcement, Action News Now took to the alternative homeless site to talk to homeless people about the new lift areas and what it means for them.
“We now live in a world where the Internet is pretty much the place to do anything to get you anywhere. So having that is invaluable,” said Kevin Leeson. Leeson and his wife, Ashley Ann Theriwit, were left homeless for 4 months.
The couple is glad the program exists but may not use it because they don’t have access to any of the shelters, but say there are other options for them.
“We go to a Starbucks, and if we’re downtown, there’s another Starbucks and then Stobel that has free wifi,” said Leeson.
“Personally, I don’t plan to use those sources. It’s a bit far for us. We don’t get a source of income at all. For us, it would require a bus pass and we can’t even afford that,” Threewit said.
If some sort of power plant is built at the site, it would be very beneficial because some members of the camp community can’t commute that far to access the internet, Thruwit and several others told Action News Now.
“We can go to Starbucks and get Wi-Fi, but it’s still a road trip,” Thriwit said. “It would be really helpful if we could create something here, and I don’t know what it would take to do that because there’s no building here.”
Comcast said the three lift regions are active and the Jesus Center plans to begin digital literacy programs in the spring. Comcast has over 150 lift zones across California, the closest city to lift zone access is in Oakland.
Originally posted 2022-12-07 11:16:46.