The Howard Slater Navigation Center

 
 
 

Photos courtesy of Modern Building Company

 
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Building Lasting Pathways Out of Homelessness For All!

The Howard Slater Navigation Center is a purpose-built solution to a fragmented homelessness response system. As our region’s only AB 101-compliant Navigation Center, it serves as a coordinated access point to shelter, housing navigation, and key county, healthcare, and social services.

At the Slater Center, we are delivering real housing outcomes and stopping homelessness before it begins through prevention and rapid stabilization.

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About the Slater Center

The Howard Slater Navigation Center opened its doors on November 3, 2025 at 101 Silver Dollar Way in Chico, California.

In our first three months, our team provided 60 people with financial assistance and case management to prevent the loss of their housing or to help them rapidly secure housing. And there’s even more who have walked through the doors that we’ve connected to community partners or to our Torres Shelter.

What Happens Here:

  • Service-enhanced shelter

  • Housing Navigation

  • Homelessness prevention

  • Rapid rehousing

  • Medi-Cal aligned care coordination

  • Case management

  • Partner Connections

  • Workforce Development

  • Behavioral health & counseling services

Be A Part of the Solution

When you support the Howard Slater Navigation Center, you are investing in a solution that works because it aligns the efforts of housing, healthcare, and public systems. This transforms our community’s response to homelessness, empowering all of us to make a difference and make progress together.

Your support helps keep the doors open, services coordinated, and people housed—before crisis leads to chronic homelessness.

We are inviting you to come out and see what we are all about! We are open Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm. Stop by to learn more about our programs, volunteer opportunities, and ways that you can donate and be a part of making a lasting difference in our community.

The Slater family smiles at the Howard Slater Navigation Center groundbreaking, all wearing mustaches honoring Howard.

 

Become an Ambassador

True North Ambassadors are our biggest fans. They’ve joined our cause and are volunteering their time in our community spreading the word, gathering support for our mission, and even hosting Navigation Center fundraising parties/gatherings.

The documents below are a great place to start when it comes to spreading the word about our programs. Feel free to download and share!

If you are interested in hosting a fundraising party or gathering, please reach out our Donations & Community Engagement Director Paul Wolfe at paul@truenorthbutte.org or 530-891-9048, ext. 817.

 

Photo by Modern Building Company

 

Sponsorship Levels

Captain: $100,000 or more

Room naming rights & name plate; private tour of completed facility, recognition lunch; plaque at Torres Shelter; public recognition on social media, email newsletter, website (press release optional); True North key chain; Navigation Center captain’s hat & sticker.

  • Howard Slater Navigation Center Captains include:

    • The Slater Family

    • North Valley Community Foundation

    • Kirk Monfort

First Mate: $50,000-$99,999

Room naming rights & name plate; plaque at Torres Shelter; public recognition on social media, email newsletter, website (press release optional); True North key chain; Navigation Center first mate hat & sticker.

  • Howard Slater Navigation Center First Mates include:

    • Tri Counties Bank

Quartermaster: $25,000-$49,999

Plaque at Torres Shelter; Navigation Center sticker; True North key chain; public recognition on social media, email newsletter & website (press release optional).

  • Howard Slater Navigation Center Quartermasters include:

    • Richard & Marian Baldy

    • Dale Bennett & Sheryl Campbell-Bennett

Shipwright: $10,000-$24,999

Plaque at Torres Shelter; Navigation Center sticker; public recognition on social media & website.

Voyager: $10-$9,999

Public recognition on social media & website for $5,000 or more.

Mariner: volunteers who've also joined the cause with financial support

  • Howard Slater Navigation Center Mariners include:

    • Mary & Len Matheson

    • Clark & Linda Davis

    • The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - Chico

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Howard and Diane Slater at an Empty Bowls fundraiser for the Torres Shelter.

 

About Howard

Our Navigation Center is named in honor of Howard Slater, a longtime supporter and friend of the Torres Shelter. The Howard Slater Navigation Center honors his efforts to make the world a better place.

Howard Slater was known not only for his reputable work with his family’s construction company, Slater and Son, but also for his generosity and dedication to supporting causes helping local children and families in need. His family has upheld that legacy with their multi-generational efforts to make a difference.

"In the 26 years we’ve been involved with the Torres Shelter, this is the best it’s felt,” said Howard’s wife, Diane Slater, who is also a former board member of the Torres Shelter and organizer of the shelter’s most popular fundraiser, Empty Bowls. “Howard would be honored to have his name on the Navigation Center.”

The Slater family—Diane, son Brandon and grandson Revin—have made a generous $200,000 donation toward the project. Of that donation, $70,000 came from the support of the community via the Howard Slater Memorial Fund at North Valley Community Foundation.

Young Revin Slater has spearheaded fundraising efforts for the project in honor of his grandfather.

To join the Slaters and support the work True North is doing through the Howard Slater Navigation Center, you can donate directly to the Howard Slater Memorial Fund at the North Valley Community Foundation.

Howard Slater Memorial Fund

Howard Slater Navigation Center Partners

 
CHAT Chico Housing Action Team logo with a house roof over it
 
“We are confident True North’s Navigation Center will be a cornerstone resource, providing vital support and paving the path towards stability for our precariously housed and unhoused neighbors.”
— Chico Housing Action Team
 
Butte County California logo with butes green fields a blue sky and a river

Employment & Social Services

Behavioral Health

 
“True North Housing Alliance’s dedication to ending homelessness in Butte County is inspiring.”
— Scott Kennelly, LCSW, Director Butte County Behavioral Health
 
City of Chico logo with a green tree and fields and "inc. 1872"
 

“The City enthusiastically supports True North Housing Alliance's efforts to create and operate a Navigation Center to offer a one-stop location where people who are marginally housed or experiencing homelessness can benefit from housing navigation services, healthcare, counseling, employment development and immediate referrals to community partners and more.”

— Mark Sorensen, Chico City Manager

 

Revin Slater speaks about why his family supports True North and the Howard Slater Navigation Center, named after his “Popsie.” He is interviewed by Hayley Watts of Action News Now.

 

In the News

stories on our navigation center

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