In December the City of Bend declared the campsites sitting on Hunnell Road to be unsafe, planning to remove them in March to make way for construction crews doing road maintenance in the area. A few weeks before the road was scheduled to be cleared, the City approached Deschutes County to collaborate on a managed camp for 15 to 30 medically vulnerable people. The Deschutes County Board of Commissioners rejected that plan, but the City then learned construction crews didn’t need to use the road during negotiations and delayed the Hunnell closure until there was more shelter capacity.
Hunnell would’ve been cleared under protocols laid out in Bend’s camping code, which the Bend City Council approved in November and started enforcing on March 1. The code allows people to camp at one place for 24 hours before they’re cited and asked to move at least 600 feet. People aren’t allowed to camp near homeless shelters, in City buildings, residential areas or near the river. How people camp is also regulated; more than three campsites can’t cluster, camping materials can’t exceed a 12×12 foot space and camps must be kept free of trash and debris.
Bend Public Information Officer Anne Aurand said the City isn’t yet applying the “time” standard of the code for people on Hunnell, but are talking with campers about the manner that people camp on the road. Next steps for Hunnell will likely depend on how state money from Gov. Tina Kotek’s $217 million budget for homelessness and housing is allocated. On April 10, Kotek announced $13.9 million would go to Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties to rehouse 161 households and create 111 shelter beds.
“Oregonians are demanding urgent action and accountability. That’s why this emergency funding is tied to specific, local action plans that will reduce unsheltered homelessness,” Kotek stated in a press release. “The state will continue to provide technical assistance and partner with local communities to make sure this money makes a difference on the ground.”
Editor’s Note: In an earlier version of this article we incorrectly said campsites were being cited under new city codes governing outdoor camping on City rights of way. Camps across Bend are being given notice to modify their campsites, which can theoretically end in a citation to municipal court, however none have yet been cited.
The City is still waiting for more information on the specific projects that the funding will support before making a decision on the Hunnell campsite, Aurand said. Other campsites still have to pass muster, though. Since its implementation in March, the City used the camping code to remove a camp on Second Street. Camps on Mary Rose Place have been given n to clean up their areas. April 11 marked the code’s first use for a large camp when the City removed a 30-person campsite on Aune Road by Crux Fermentation Project in conjunction with the Oregon Department of Transportation, which owns an adjacent right of way.
This article appears in Source Weekly April 13, 2023.
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It is not difficult to see that the Bend anti-camping code continues the legacy–though in a dressed up, euphemistic neo-liberal sort of way–of a law passed by the Tennessee legislature a year ago which effectively criminalizes all unhoused people no matter where they exist.
Those Tennessee Democrats voting against this law included heroic State Senator Gloria Johnson. (The other members of the Tennessee Three, Justin Jones and Justin Pearce, had not yet been elected.)
“If you can’t be in any of those places, then where are you supposed to be?” asked Paula Foster, executive director of OpenTable Nashville.
About a month ago a statement co-authored by ACLU, Bend Equity Project, and local attorney Thaddeus Betz called into question the morality and Constitutionality of the Bend Anti-Camping Code.
They posit that the City of Bends camping code stands in violation of Oregon State law ORS 195.530, which requires that Oregon cities not disregard the impact of regulating Sitting, lying, sleeping, or keeping warm and dry outdoors on public property.
They go on to say:
“As we all know, there are more people without houses than there are shelter beds available in Bend. And under the new code it remains unclear at best, and certain at worst, that there will now not be enough physical outdoor space in the City on which sleeping will be permitted for people experiencing homelessness.
Three courageous Bend City Councilors voted against this code last fall. Unfortunately two of them chose to retire from office. Where will we find our own version of the Tennessee Three to overturn this cruel, anti-democratic law?