The first Safe Parking site in Redmond is adding a playground for children experiencing homelessness. The nonprofit operating the Safe Parking program, Mountain View Community Development, held a groundbreaking on June 1, inviting community members to the parking lot of Mountain View Fellowship to see the site.
“The vision here was, you know, while families are in this program, that there’s a place appropriate for kids, that’s fun, that’s safe,” Rick Russell, executive director of MVCD, told the Source.
“It’s always been really heartbreaking for us when we see moms come into our program in a car and kids having to sleep upright in the backseat of a car and then get up in the morning and get on a school bus and go to school and then come back and basically it’s just a gravel parking lot, so there’s not a lot for kids to do there.”
The Central Oregon Health Council is funding the project which should be finished in a few months.
According to Russell, the area surrounding the playground will also accommodate four new RV sites and four micro shelters, to allow for more residents to stay on the property. The micro shelters, which are garden-sized structures, will be double-sized units, measuring about 12 feet by 16 feet – offering space for a family of four.
Gwen Jones, director of community strategy for the Central Oregon Health Council wrote in a press release about how the project fit COHC’s mission.
“At COHC, we believe health starts long before someone steps into a clinic or hospital. It starts with safe shelter. With places for children to play. With spaces where families feel secure, and people feel they belong. And this project — right here — is building all of that.’
As of today, Russell said, every space at the safe parking site is filled, with about six households. Over the last two years, the site at Mountain View Fellowship has been a place of refuge for 75 children. The site typically houses around 10 to 12 kids, on average.
Colton Hill once lived at the Safe Parking site and is now a peer support specialist with the organization. He spoke about the playground during the groundbreaking ceremony.
“This playground I’ve heard about since the very beginning.” He pointed at Russell and continued, “…wanting somewhere other than just a parking lot for the kids to run around in and ride their bikes, somewhere that they can actually relax and just be kids. When you’re going through homelessness it’s way more stressful than people on the outside see, so I’m very excited to be here,” read a statement from a press release.
In addition to its groundbreaking, MVCD plans to open an office and add Safe Parking sites in Bend in the coming months. Next week, the organization is meeting with the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners to request a small piece of the County’s Public Safety Campus, proposing six micro shelters on the site. The campus is on the north end of Bend, adjacent to US-20 North. The organization is currently working to find other sites in the Bend area to accommodate more people experiencing homelessness.
This article appears in Source Weekly May 29, 2025.
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This is how you do it. This is how you care compassionately for your neighbors and their children who are experiencing homelessness. Thank you Central Oregon Health Council and Mountain View Community Development. Bend – are you paying attention to this?