If there’s a case to be made for expanding the capacity of the Deschutes County Board of County Commissioners, look no further than the situation currently unfolding at the managed camp recently built by the County and the City of Redmond near the fairgrounds.
After some waffling, the City and the County finally agreed to build a managed camp to help people transition from public lands into eventual permanent housing, using about $700,000 in public funds.
But nonprofits currently serving the unhoused in our area have been banging a similar drum all along: there weren’t enough service providers doing the work in Central Oregon, and the ones that do are at capacity. The camp, they said, would need a collection of service providers, rather than just one — and it was going to cost more than the County, in charge of camp construction, had projected.
And yet, this month, it came as a shock to some that the managed camp, now completed, did not have a service provider to run it. Now, an expensive piece of land meant to be a lifeline for those living in the junipers is sitting empty and unused. What a debacle.
According to recent reporting in the Source, the County now plans to issue another round of Requests for Proposals for the camp. The County will either split up the duties as was suggested previously by local service providers, or take on some of the duties from within the County itself. Either would be better than the situation as it stands now. At the start of June, the City of Redmond will begin removing people from public lands north of the city, and without the managed camp open, it leaves fewer safe, sanitary places for those people to go. If a private, nonprofit service provider is not willing to handle portions of camp management, the County needs to step up.
We see several benefits to this structure. For one, as we’ve seen when trying to get information about other aspects of the housing continuum in Central Oregon, private service providers operate in a slippery middle where they’re not necessarily subject to public records requests like local government. When public funds are being used to pay for projects, the public should be able to access information about how the money is spent and how the camp is being run. Further, managing the camp from within could lead to cost savings or efficiencies, even while it would require hiring or reallocating existing staff. It’s not unprecedented for local governments to take on these duties directly. Other counties operate shelters and facilities.
Of course, adding yet another layer of responsibility for the homelessness crisis in our area is going to require leadership that’s ready to take on the scrutiny that this will introduce. Given the dire situation, and the potential safety, sanitary and humanitarian issues at hand, we’d hope we wouldn’t have to wait for a new crop of county commissioners to see that happen. But we will not hold our breath.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
