If there’s one topic of frequent conversation in Bend these days, it’s houselessness. A brief primer:
-The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Bend nearly doubled from March 2016 to March 2021, going from $995 to $1,800, according to Zumper.
-Since 2015, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Central Oregon has nearly doubled, with a 13.42% increase from 2020 to 2021 alone, according to the Central Oregon Point in Time Count.
– In 2015, the City of Bend had already identified that it needed more than 5,500 housing units to meet the needs of people in the city back then—with the vast majority of that housing needed for households earning $24,999 or less
per year.
-City and community leaders have, for the better part of a decade, been lauding the Bend Central District, located east of the Bend Parkway and between Franklin and Greenwood avenues, as a zone possessing massive potential for redevelopment, including more housing. Locals have been regaled with countless design charettes, events, articles and so on regarding the potential for the area. The level of hype was enough to get even the most skeptical of residents excited about the opportunities.
But those opportunities come with complications. Combine soaring construction and personnel costs with skyrocketing rents and a proliferation of people living on the streets and you have a current situation that appears downright untenable. Or do we just require more patience to see fruition of an idea that’s been years in the making?
Since at least September, property owners along NE Second Street have been lodging complaints with the City of Bend about trash, feces, needles and tents erected in the right of way. The Bend Police Department fielded some 258 calls for service to that area from Nov. 9 to Feb. 9, prompting Bend PD to declare the area an “unsafe campsite” on Feb. 9. Doing so, according to the City of Bend’s rules, gives the City Manager authority to clean up the area or to remove the campsite. On Feb. 28, City Manager Eric King issued the required two-week notice to service providers, alerting them to the need to begin relocating the campers on Second Street. The City would have done so sooner, City Communications Director Anne Aurand told the Source, but a cold snap delayed that process. (City rules adopted in 2021 put a delay on camp removals when temperatures are below 20 or above 100.)
Last week, members of the Bend Central District Business Association wrote a letter to the City of Bend, asking for clarification on a number of points that relate to the houseless population. In addition to wanting more details about what the City plans to do with its recent purchase of the Rainbow Motel on Franklin Avenue (slated to first become a shelter facility before being put to other, as-yet-unannounced uses) those business owners wanted to know when, or if, the City planned to take further action on Second Street. Property owners including Brooks Resources and others have put their apartment projects on hold due to the overall uncertainty.
The situation is a literal and figurative mess, to be sure. Locals want the City to fix it—but many of us lack the patience to remember that the wheels of government grind slow. However, slowly—agonizingly slowly, from the perspective of the property owners in the BCD—we are seeing progress, and it doesn’t lie in immediate camp removals.
The City now operates its Second Street Shelter year-round, where little more than a year ago, it was only a warming shelter. It’s also recently opened its motel-turned-shelter on Division Street, where over a dozen people who were consistently staying at the Second Street Shelter have been moved and more are now moving. Without these shelter beds in place, federal court rulings make it illegal for cities to remove camps.
Now, here, comes the ironic part.
For the better part of a decade, locals in the BCD have lauded the area as an opportunity zone where Bend can grow “up,” turning the area into a new, more urban zone. But with urbanity comes urban concerns—including the presence of people who don’t fall into Bend’s previously suburban framework. If Bendites want to see the area become more urban, it’s going to come with urban headaches, including the presence of people who now find themselves unable to weather the doubling of area rents in a five-year span, and a protracted governmental process to do better.
“Poverty with a view” has long been Bend’s unsanctioned brand. Now, though, everyone just gets to see it.
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This article appears in Source Weekly March 10, 2022.
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Bend is doing an awesome job trying to handle the houseless crisis with compassion, props to them! I know folks are having a hard time coming around, but these are human lives we’re talking about. If everyone would get involved, we could ease some of the fears and worries AND actually accomplish something, together.
If you even THINK most of these homeless are born and raised locals you’d be wrong. “Homeless”, believe it our not are quite mobile, going where they have the most “privileges” as they say, and can get away with it. The more you cater, the more will come, fact. Back in the “old days”, people migrated where they could thrive and make a living, now, it’s just the “coolest spot, to hell if I can afford it” basically. My question is, if you need 2+ more jobs and roommates just to keep a roof over your head, when are you going to have time to even ENJOY that “coolest spot”?? 🤔🙄
Please note that facilities and services for the houseless are being concentrated in a very small section of town. Close-in east side of Bend. The Project Turnkey motel on NE Division. The Rainbow Motel on NE Franklin. The Second Street shelter south of Franklin. The growing St. Vincent Depaul shelter at 350/362 SE Cleveland Ave. The planned 36 unit Cleveland Commons somewhere near SE 5th and Cleveland. This concentrated approach has been tried for many years in Portland (Old Town), San Francisco (Tenderloin), and Los Angeles (Skid Row). What has been the result – success or failure? Obvious and glaring failure. Why are Bend City Council and city employees repeating this pattern? What do they think is going to magically create a different outcome here? Additionally, please note that poverty is generational. And when government intentionally concentrates poverty in a single geographic location, it perpetuates this cycle. Where is the social justice component to the pattern that is being laid down right now in Bend? Where is the fairness to the traditionally underserved sections of Bend where city government is now intentionally concentrating the houseless population? Is anyone paying attention to the bigger picture of what is being done to our city? Help the houseless? Yes. But don’t try to do it in the same way that has failed miserably elsewhere. Disperse these facilities now!
Thank you GSKY, I couldn’t agree more with in inequity of the City’s approach. In siting its shelters the City has normalized one part of Bend as the “logical” place for the homeless. Then it pretends that all of Bend is sharing the burden. It isn’t now and it won’t. If they say shelters anywhere then shelters everywhere, not just on the East Side. Don’t call protestors to the Shelter Code unfeeling because they see the rig and refuse to be dupes.
It’s long past time for Wards in city governance.