This week, while the average person hunkers down in front of a fan or in that coveted air-conditioned room, people on the margins in our community are fighting for their lives. The record heat we are experiencing all around the region became deadly this past weekend for two people living on the literal margins of Bend, who were camped on the stretch of Hunnell Road just off Highway 97.
It is already difficult for this population to fight the myriad number of false misperceptions about the circumstances that lead to being on the streets. Many in our community turn down their nose at houseless people and assume that their life choices alone—and not the high cost of housing, or the widening gap of income inequality, or the dearth of mental health and substance abuse funding—are the reasons someone might find themselves living in a tent or a trailer on the edge of town.
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It is a struggle to educate and fund a solution to this issue and harder still to overcome the malaise that it is “someone else’s problem.”
However, with the increasing visibility of the houseless community, several individuals have taken the almost incomprehensible position of making the lives of our houseless neighbors even harder.
Spend some time with those living on our streets and the horror stories you’ll hear may be less about the choices they themselves are forced to make and more about the horrifying treatment they endure by those with privilege. Volunteers and those without homes tell us how they’ve been subject to eggs being thrown at them; to rocks being thrown at them; to people driving through and “blowing coal” on the dwellings they call home. At least one local has even taken to TikTok with videos of him trolling through the Hunnell camp, lamenting the mess from the comfort of an air-conditioned vehicle.
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Beating The Heat
In the midst of a massive heat wave, this is how some Central Oregonians are spending their time. In our ongoing boot/slipper series, we give our biggest boot to the people who, rather than offering an ounce of comfort to those suffering, offer more discomfort instead. It is depressing to hear these stories of adding insult to injury, and as much as we’d like to say, “This is not what Bend is,” unfortunately, it is. People are dying while others are collecting likes on social media for trolling them.
What we are seeing in increasing numbers is not a result of a lack of effort on the part of countless volunteers and agencies who have been sounding the alarm on this crisis for years. The very least—and that’s a very low bar—those not involved can do is to not make things worse.
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This article appears in Jun 30-30, 2021.
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People are hunkered down in front of a fan or in a coveted air conditioned room because they value having permanent shelter for themselves over taking drugs and getting high.
Many in our community assume that their life choices are the reasons someone might find themselves living in a tent or a trailer on the edge of town, not the dearth of mental health and substance abuse funding.
It is a struggle to educate and “fund” a solution to this issue and harder still to overcome the malaise that “it is not someone else’s problem. it’s their own personal behavior that causes the problem”.
What we are seeing in increasing numbers is the result of the effort on the part of countless volunteers and agencies who have been using taxpayer funding to increase this crisis for years.
The very least—and that’s a very low bar—those not involved can do is demand that non profit advocacy groups not make things worse.
Look to Finland. Best solution I’ve come across yet. Not perfect but sure beats what we have happening here.
Mudbath, you need a reality check. I’ve spent three of my five years houseless in Central Oregon with my family. We don’t do drugs or have mental health issues, and we worked (I made $19/hr before Covid caused me to lose my job), we simply couldn’t afford to live in this area because of the systems in place and the outrageous cost of living. Guess what? Even people who have drug issues deserve housing. And do you blame them for doing drugs? I sure don’t, because look how their own community treats them, it’s disgusting. It’s a basic human right to have a stable roof over your head because everything else becomes harder without it (ever heard of social determinants of health). It’s people like you who have no idea what you’re talking about and make ignorant judgments like this that make it harder for actual change to happen.
And to the writer, thank you for bringing attention to this. I live in Sisters, and there is a group of teenagers (mostly, but not all) who make it their job to harass our houseless neighbors for no reason other than boredom and hate. Nobody ever listens -I’ve gone to the City, School District, Forest Service, and Law Enforcement- or does anything about it, and some of them actually shot at a camp. Our family was harassed for two years in the forest, and now that we’re housed, it continues because they know our vehicles and where we live. There is no accountability for people who act like this, and it’s ridiculous. These are human beings, become part of the solution or get the hell out of the way so the rest of us can do our job.
Having arrived in Bend in 1985…
I can attest to the houseless/homeless/transit populations having been an issue now for many years.
Many don’t realize we’ve had sizable camps outside Bend/Redmond/Terrebonne for now decades. In Bend, it used to be that you’d find a homeless / transit campsite here or there, particularly near the railroad tracks.
That’s clearly changed for a number of reasons.
The outlying camps were and continue to be provided services by non-profit organizations such as Central Oregon Veterans Outreach. Now we have a number of funded, staffed, and committed NGOs as well as individuals providing assistance / services.
There are two primary pillars that too many people underestimate as being absolutely necessary – Long term funding and appropriate trained/certified staffs to include mental health / substance dependency workers.
Without both in synch and working together it is impossible to truly effect meaningful and long term changes here or anywhere else.
In addition are the laws, policies, and processes that protect those who have simply opted out of mainstream society. We can’t make them go to a cooling station; make them see / participate in behavioral health counseling/treatment; make them move into “houseless hotels”; and so on.
Some folks are just content to be left alone to live as they please regardless of what Society may thing…or want.
“We” may not understand that but “we” don’t see Life through their eyes.
And that’s okay.
As an OSU counseling intern in 07, I helped create the first mental health counseling program at the Bethlehem Inn. The horrific abuse suffered by our unhoused citizens is unbelievable. No, everyone is NOT a drug addict or likes being homeless. We fail to help our Vets, foster kids aging out of care, our elderly, adults abused as kids, those who cannot get their teeth fixed (so unacceptable for work), those who grew up here but cannot afford a place, single moms, those who simply cannot find a job that allows them to meet their other obligations— and so on!! I am beyond disgusted by my “neighbors” on Nextdoor, who are part of the problem with their overwhelming hate for those who lacked their good fortune. If these folks would actually help – time/$
instead of raging, or NIMBY, the situation could change for the better for all. In the current insane housing market, the problem will only increase. I think quite a bit of $$ could come from the sales of homes— now orders of magnitude more expensive. Sorry rich folks! Time to share rather than complain.