Right before the mid-January ice storm struck Eugene, Eugene authorities traveled out to a West Eugene camp on Seneca Road railroad tracks to evict, and ultimately displace, campers.
The camp, which has been established there for over two years, houses a community of homeless people. Nine of these individuals were fined and were expected to arrive in community court in early February at the Eugene Municipal Court.
Jetty, a local homeless advocate who chooses to go by an alias for protection, went out to the camp on the day police intervened.
“There is a whole debate about whether these people are illegally camping or not,” Jetty said.
Steve Kimes, a pastor for the Eugene Mennonite Church and social advocate, believes that even if the people camping were on private land, it should not be an issue: the community has been established there for two years and hasn’t received any word from owners of the land up until now.
“The city tried to contact the owners for years before they finally forced the owners to come and kick people off,” Kimes said. “If they could’ve left those people there then it would have been better for everyone.”
According to Kimes, the campers living there were in the process of structuring the camp, like trash cans, to keep the camp clean. Jetty said some campers there created make-shift homes with doors and windows.
“[EPD] ripped people’s doors off of their homes,” Jetty said. “They broke windows. This was two days before the storm. They took a generator and tried to drain it of all of its oil.”
Though EPD police was destructive to the campers’ property, no sweep was actually performed on Jan. 10.
“They said [EPD was] going to come sweep on the first day of the ice storm, but nobody could move their stuff on the first day of the ice storm because there’s an ice storm,” Kimes said. “But if they move in the middle of an ice storm or move immediately before that means they’re going to die.”
Jetty said the police asked the campers to sit on the train tracks and subsequently cited them with trespassing.
“It’s entrapment,” Jetty said. “They got them up on the tracks which made them trespass.”
Nearly a month after this incident, protesters “packed the court” on Feb. 7 at the Eugene Municipal Court to show their support for the individuals who were cited.
“The reason we wanted to pack the court was to show the courts that the people who are on trial have support from the community,” Jetty said. “It’s also to show the unhoused people that housed people do have their backs and that we want to help fight for them.”
Kimes and Jetty believe that the citing of these individuals is a tactic used by police and the city to get campers into community court and in the system. This, in their opinion, essentially keeps these people in a situation where they are forced to do community service or work a program to avoid paying a fine.
“In the end, they’re killing people with kindness,” Kimes said. “If someone ends up getting community service they have to return to court every six months in the winter when they’re not able to get transportation. It’s not a death sentence, but it’s close.”
One of the campers, an elderly person, was cited with trespassing. When she arrived at the courthouse on Feb. 7, she was told she was unable to take her case to trial and rescheduled for a later date.
If this case fails in trial, she will be fined upwards of $700.
“They’re supposed to submit to whatever the court tells them to do so they don’t have to pay that money,” Kimes said.
Since the Feb. 7 court date, the number of those fined has increased: four more people have been cited with trespassing at the same encampment.
Authorities revisited the site on Feb. 12, saying through a loudspeaker that they will continue to ticket people if they see them leaving the encampment.
As of Feb. 16, the court dates for the people who were cited for trespassing have been rescheduled.
“If you see a camp and it’s in a place that you don’t like or maybe they’re a little loud at night, we need to remember that those human beings take up space,” Kimes said. “And if we move them off that space, they’re going to go to another space because they don’t have any choice.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article stated that Seneca Camp was located in East Eugene. The camp is located in West Eugene.