It’s not uncommon for people to balk at the notion of siting services for the unhoused near their homes. If anything is going to bring out the NIMBYs in a community, it’s the prospect of having shelters, RV sites or other services for a city’s most vulnerable placed in the vicinity of someone’s dwelling, office, school or other facility. Still, the only thing that seems to draw out more ire from the public than a managed camp is the sight of a tent city nearby. When you’re a government leader aiming to avoid tent encampments or other unsafe and unsanitary forms of housing, it’s bound to feel like a no-win situation.
Yet, in Central Oregon, we have an example of how two different approaches can lead to very different results. In Redmond, a service provider is getting ready to open not only a low-barrier facility offering tiny home structures for the unhoused, but is also well on its way toward building a place for people who live in their RVs, trailers and cars to park safely, off the streets, with the use of sanitary facilities. While the funding for the RV parking facility has yet to materialize, Redmond, a town far smaller and with fewer unhoused people on its streets, is making strides that Bend doesn’t yet seem to be able to muster. Where Redmond has a service provider, a location and a plan in place to see fewer people occupying the streets, Bend appears to be stuck in an endless cycle of meetings that appear more aimless and unproductive. The same can be said for Sisters, where an effort to site a cold-weather shelter in the town was shut down by a massive public outcry, where many residents were afraid of “more drugs and crime.” The result: the drugs and crime simply moved to the woods on the edge of town.
Redmond’s approach to siting these new facilities is somewhat unique, in that the facilities, including Oasis Village, are located on public land adjacent to the airport, where no permanent housing currently exists. Bend has its own fair share of public land, too – but thus far, it’s seen massive outcry when even whispering about siting a camp or shelter on Juniper Ridge, or (with perhaps the biggest outcry) on 8th Street near two schools. While Redmond has moved forward on its two new facilities (on top of two new shelters in the last several years), any real movement on a public RV park or public managed camp in Bend has stalled. The irony of the fact that there’s a new luxury RV park now under construction on the south side of Bend, but no real action on a managed houseless camp, is not lost on us.
To be fair, Bend has taken a lot of action on homelessness over the last several years, including purchasing the old Rainbow Motel and opening The Lighthouse Navigation Center. But that progress is also tempered by the recent camp removal of Hunnell Road, where, after the removal, it was announced that a new Pahlisch development would get underway. Bend has the ability to build things, and to get things done – though the message Bend seems to be sharing on the whole is that it only caters to those with means.
This week, the Coordinated Houseless Response Office – that office created in the legislature and aimed at bringing local governments and service providers together to work on the issue – is meeting yet again to discuss the siting and best practices for a managed camp in Bend. That office has been fraught with controversy and internal squabbles since before its first director left abruptly earlier this year. Let’s hope that soon, the group can move beyond just meetings, can overcome the apparent hurdles of NIMBYism and take real action on providing the type of facilities that Bend so badly needs. Redmond is getting it done; let’s hope Bend can, too.
This article appears in Source Weekly October 12, 2023.
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Excellent points. Thank you.
The various shelters and facilities supported by the City of Bend and their tireless staffs have functioned admirably to literally save lives and give people access to the care and services needed to transform their lives.
Unfortunately, the humanitarian infrastructure remains incomplete: On April 29, 2023, the NY Times ran a front-page above-the-fold article on the death of former Bend Mayor Chris Coyner, who had succumbed to complications following amputation of his frostbitten toes.
And, due to factors such as the renovation at the Lighthouse and burgeoning numbers of unhoused people (as shown by the 2023 Point In Time Count), we have even less capacity to shelter people this winter–even with addition of the excellent Franklin St. shelter.
One hope was that the State of Oregon could step in with much needed financial assistance.
However, an Oct. 4, 2023, KATU report (https://katu.com/news/politics/oregon-maki…) indicates a substantial lag between the governor’s goals for the unhoused of Central Oregon and the reality.
Despite a $14.7 million State allocation to Central Oregon this year only 60 new shelter beds had been created and only 4 households had been rehoused by July 31. (Why am I unavoidably thinking of the Cover Oregon rollout debacle?)
To add to the conundrum we now have news from City Hall that it has been unable to coordinate with the Oregon Housing and Community Services, the State agency charged with dispersing funds to maintain existing shelters.
I am a lifelong Democrat who cheered the election of Tina Kotek. But, can we do better, especially when lives are at stake?
The U.S. Marshall Plan rescued the European continent from the ruins of WWII, yet we temporize over the relatively simple task of helping a half million people in our own country (18,000 in Oregon).
Fair editorial overall. However i must advise you that the denial of a “cold weather shelter” in Sisters, had more to do with the organization behind the effort. They never were clear regarding their true intentions, disingenuously telling everyone in Sisters (and the media) that it was only for about 10-12 totally unsheltered folks only during emergency weather conditions, which they had been facilitating for several years prior in conjunction with area churches and the city. Yet when submitting their application for a grant of $1.4 million they told the COIC it would be a for purchasing an overvalued sub-standard building to operate a 24/7/365 shelter, which our community doesn’t need for the small number of unsheltered in our community, and incorrectly saying it wouldn’t pose any safety issues with adjacent businesses and residences, or the limited unsheltered folks it was intended to temporarily serve . They never met with any residents or businesses prior to their submission for a grant of $1.4 million dollars, did not have the experience of actually operating a shelter of this kind in the and did not have adequate access to medical facilities or transportation to same. There were additional objective reasons for the denial of their proposal, but none included reluctance of our community to support a “cold weather shelter” as we have in the past.
Dear Editor,
NIMBY is derogatory. NIMBY is a slur that dehumanizes people.
Words matter.