In June 2023, the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners approved a remediation plan to clean up the area of Juniper Ridge and offer services to individuals living in encampments on the County-owned property. On March 20, County staff members updated the board on progress and asked for direction on next steps.
The County decided to allocate $200,000 back in June in order to address code violations that brought up public health and safety concerns. As of March 8, the County has spent a total of $112,400 on cleanup efforts and resident services at the property on the north end of Bend. According to a staff report, the remaining funds will last until approximately June 30.
At Wednesday's meeting, staff members recommended allocating additional funds to continue services once the initial budget is expended. The staff report suggests that additional funds could come from American Rescue Plan Act funds set aside to address homelessness, the General Fund or be included in the fiscale year 2024-25 proposed budget. County Commissioners decided to discuss additional funds at a future meeting.
Since July, the County has set up three different stations, each with portable toilets, drinking water stations, hand washing stations and dumpsters. The County considers this a temporary fix to decrease code violations occurring at the property.
County staff members noted that a complete cleanup remedying many of the code violations, such as unpermitted structures and RVs used as dwellings, cannot be caried out while people are still living on the property.
While the County plans to eventually relocate people from the area, it's waiting until there are enough outdoor shelters for people to move to, such as the new temporary outdoor shelter facility that is in the planning phases.
"We are waiting to see what results from that coordinated effort and, in the meantime, continuing services to that area to try to mitigate code violations that were identified," said Janice Garceau, the Deschutes County health services director.
The County reported on March 20 that it has greatly reduced the amount of human waste and trash at the property. County contractors cleaned up abandoned or burned-out encampments and distributed trash bags to residents to be taken to a nearby dumpster.
County staff members have seen a lot of resident cooperation with these services and cleanup efforts, they said. Many in the area reportedly help the remediation company with picking up trash and limiting code violations.
Since the cleanup has begun, contractors have removed 75,000 pounds of trash, 80 bio-buckets consisting of human waste, around 500 tires, and about 39 burned or abandoned encampments.
Staff members reported about 14 occupied encampments on the County-owned Juniper Ridge property, approximately 20 people, and an estimate of 74 vehicles and 17 RVs. The report found many more camps and hundreds of people on adjacent land, not owned by the County.
The County-owned land is approximately 50 acres. Other areas of Juniper Ridge are owned by the City of Bend and/or the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. "There has been some cleanup, but it's a huge area, and we're really only addressing a small portion of it," Garceau told the Source Weekly.
Staff members reported benefits and challenges to this approach. "It is definitely cleaner, it's definitely somewhat safer and people are definitely making use of resources without damaging them," said Garceau.
However, the camp still struggles with holding harmful individuals accountable. It also continues to take time to move individuals into more permanent housing – an ongoing issue.
"The charge of the group was to clean up, to the extent possible, the items that were a public safety health concern, and we have. The only thing that hasn't been addressed are some of the structures that people are living in," said Garceau. "In order to address those, you'd have to ask people to leave, and the county wasn't prepared to do that."
