If China Hat is the Forest, One Small Managed Camp is a Tree

This past week the public has had a window into the difficulties and details that go into approving a managed camp for unhoused individuals in Central Oregon. After initially indicating support for using county funds to launch a camp for “medically fragile” individuals in south Bend, Deschutes County Commissioners Patti Adair and Tony DeBone voted against taking part in that plan – a vote that obviously upset their counterparts at the City of Bend. Adair clarified with the Source Weekly that the commission had never formally agreed to fund that camp – that it instead simply agreed to send a letter seeking requests for proposals to manage it, and that ultimately, their concerns around the impacts of the unsanctioned camps at China Hat south of Bend made it impossible to support a managed camp a little farther north at this time.

Commissioner Adair told us she’s not opposed to supporting efforts around houselessness outright, but is presently more interested in replicating the model used by Helping Hands at the privately owned Bybee Lakes Hope Center – formerly known as the Wapato Correctional Facility in the Portland area – where people can pay a small fee to access long-term housing, so long as they maintain sobriety.

We see no reason commissioners shouldn’t support both models – one, a transitional, low-barrier camp where people can access basic sanitation and receive support and that can be put together rather quickly, and another, more expensive and restrictive option that could take years to implement. We should be able to hold multiple truths in our minds at the same time – that yes, the impacts to the area around China Hat — which falls under the purview of the U.S. Forest Service, not the County or City — are terrible and need to be addressed by the Forest Service and its partners, and also, that a managed camp inside city limits serves a need in the community.

Since the City of Bend put off clearing another persistent area of concern – the unsanctioned camps at Hunnell Road – until it could open the camp, it seems all we have achieved as a community at this juncture is more wheel-spinning. What’s more, we take issue with the notion that managed camps or temporary facilities with temporary housing types are not a model to strive for. If that were the case, local officials would not continue to hold up the Central Oregon Veterans Village as a model of success.

There has been brewing friction between the various cities of the region and Deschutes County over how to address the issue of homelessness. With this recent debacle, that friction amounts to a forest fire.

Meanwhile, people in the region are living outdoors or in subpar forms of housing and do not have access to the basic sanitation that could improve their health, and lives in general. Just look outside; people without homes have immediate needs that certainly aren’t getting any better with this inter-governmental infighting. The City of Bend deserved a willing partner on this project.

If China Hat is the forest, one small managed camp is a tree. It’s a tragedy to sacrifice one for the other when they both need addressing.

This article appears in Source Weekly March 16, 2023.