Travis Lundy

People must remember that many of us live in one of the most significant old growth juniper forests on Earth. Junipers are notoriously thirsty, but are also the only tree able to simultaneously survive months without water, and then barely any at all during our bitterly cold winters. Many of us live between those rocky ridges, often in sandy soils that locally never supported much grass or anything else at all besides spring flowers, shrubs and ancient junipers. My mom's family came to Cline Falls in 1913 and, like all the locals then, would heat their home with old growth juniper, 10 cords a winter. That's a lot of trees. Besides clearing juniper for fields, it was also milled into lumber. I still have 2x4's from that period, incredibly fine-grained, dense juniper, from trees hundreds of years old. Stumps cover miles and miles of BLM land surrounding Redmond, Eagle Crest, Plainview, Powell Butte, and Alfalfa, hinting to the magnificence of this woodland before our use of it. Juniper are essential for wildlife cover, moderating summer heat, and protecting many orbs that rely on their shade and addition of organic matter. Junipers taking over productive grasslands due to lack of fire is one thing. But locally, junipers were often more prolific before Europeans than now. Junipers in irrigated areas are definitely water hogs, but they can't be drinking water that isn't there. Our aquifer comes from the mountains.

Bend should investigate cobb, adobe, strawbale, earthship, or other local material construction to build small individual passive solar living spaces surrounding communal kitchen, social, and bathroom buildings. Using cobb or adobe to build keeps construction costs essentially nonexistent, allows the inhabitants to be active builders and designers of their homes, is completely environmentally safe, and creates a living space that requires a minimum of energy to maintain. Of course, the construction would have to be supervised and maintained, but I believe that the benefits of creating places for people that are completely theirs will be unexpected and far-reaching. A program like this would be incredibly empowering for the inhabitants, and inspiring, creative, cost effective, and sustainable for the community as a whole.

What people don't realize is that many people simply don't want to live like everyone else. Myself, I'd rather be homeless (camping) than work a meaningless job just to pay the rent of some depressing apartment in town. I am not mentally ill, handicapable, or a veteran; I actually did quite well in college, but I don't vibe with the way we live. I am not the only person around that sees no value in the busy ways we live today. We have to meet people like me, not just veterans, half way, and understand that our current way of living looks like slavery to many less socialized, more out-of-the-box type people. These centralized villages are a wonderful step in the right direction for people who want to live simply, with less stuff. I'd like to see more of these villages in rural areas, around a farm that could be worked by the inhabitants. Maybe more safe and thoughtful changes to code and law are in order.

Thank you, Paul, for being one of the compassionate ones. I'd like to let you know that I worked a temporary census job in 2010 specifically with transient populations, and I can tell you firsthand that yes, many are displaced locals, and sadder yet, I recognized so many of them as "normal" working class individuals from my youth. Almost all of my friends from childhood have moved elsewhere, in order to find a livable wage and affordable home (and a tolerable culture, one more resembling the one we lost here). I too can tell you a lot about theft and violence, having dealt with it multiple times on my and my family's property: police, court, the whole thing. All of the people that I've actually caught have been home-dwellers, probably struggling to pay their bills or their meth habits. Many are recent arrivals. My family has been in Central Oregon since the 1880's, and I've heard a lot about how "homeless" have been treated here through the generations, first the displaced Indigenous populations and Mexicans, then the Gypsies, then the Red Robes, now the Veterans and "Mentally Handicapped". It boils down to people who are considered "marginal", at any specific time in history, usually end up with less opportunity and more hardship. These people aren't necessarily wrong, they just find themselves surrounded by a culture that doesn't vibe with them, and often have to do "marginal" things to survive. I can't blame people not vibing with the current culture, when I myself am completely baffled by it daily. I choose to live in a 200 sq ft cabin I built off-grid, so I can live a less manic and ego-driven life, focusing less on economics and more on having less impact and mindfulness. I'm lucky enough to be able to live on my family's land, or I too would have to move on to more affordable places, if I wish to continue to live here and not develop mental problems as well, trying to keep up with the breakneck pace that's developed under my nose. Thing is, I am not stereotyping when I say what Bend is. I've witnessed it first-hand through my life, as anyone else who's lived here their whole life has, and just because awesome people contribute to helping those less-fortunate, doesn't mean the problem behind those less fortunate people's actions has been alleviated or solved at all.

Many homeless people here are locals who can no longer afford to live here. As rent, taxes, and everything goes up, many people can't work enough hours to pay for the things that the incoming elite class expects us all to have, and truthfully, nobody should have to work so hard for so little. What should we expect these people to do, move away to somewhere "affordable", away from their family and home? Maybe we should change our thinking to realize that compassion is more critical to life and society than pretty trinkets in spotless mcmansion yards. It's unbelievable to me that in a country as wealthy as ours, we still can't find the humanity to take care of each other. When I was a kid we wore t-shirts saying "central Oregon...poverty with a view" and we came together to take care of people in their hard times. I'm sad to say that our culture here has become so pretentious, self-serving, and cold as to worry more about neighborhood aesthetics than the health and safety of our community members. And we're so proud! Shameful.