There were over 2,000 unhoused individuals in Lane County every month in 2019, according to the Lane County Point-in-Time Homeless Count. To address that issue, Eugene has approved five Safe Sleep sites with the goal of providing a legal space in which those without shelter may camp overnight, as stated in the original press release from the city. As I looked into it further, what originally sounded like a great effort to help the unhoused community of Eugene quickly revealed itself as a disappointing endeavor to keep homelessness out of public view.
The first of those sites, located at 310 Garfield St in West Eugene, opened its gates on Oct. 4. I needed to see the place for myself. Walking up to the site from the nearby bus stop, I was greeted by a heavy chain link barrier and two attendants standing guard to keep unwanted visitors — anyone but a resident — off the premises. In the center of the concrete yard, dozens of tightly packed motorhomes sat idle. The site was silent but for the sound of aluminum cans rustling in plastic bags and an employee demanding I vacate the lot before I got two steps past the gate. Since I wasn’t going to get anything out of the employees, I went higher up.
The program is overseen by Roxann O’Brien, the director of homeless and emergency services at St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP).
“It filled up the first day we opened; it took us about a week to get everybody over there because many of them needed to be towed,” O’Brien said. “We have a waitlist right now of about 75.”
However, each site has a limited number of lots —60 for vehicles or 40 for tents, according to the city’s website. The city also prioritizes applicants based on where they’re currently camped. Prioritizing who moves in based on location rather than situation implies that the creation of the Safe Sleep sites is less about giving those in desperate need a safe place to stay and more about getting idle cars off the streets and emptying crowded parks.
According to Eugene’s website, Washington Jefferson Park has 224 occupied lots as of Oct. 5, and those camping in the park will be prioritized as the first to relocate to the next site. Despite such prioritization being announced online, unhoused people I spoke to in the park were largely unaware of the sites’ existence, indicating that the program is being promoted to the general public rather than to those it claims to help. I spoke to three people camped in Washington Jefferson Park; only one knew of the Safe Sleep sites, and he wasn’t impressed.
“I’m homeless, why would I want to move somewhere else homeless?” Chris, a 55-year-old man, said. “I’m not moving to another homeless camp. That’s stupid; that’s just passing a problem around.”
Chris had never been without housing before this year. He leaves the park every morning to go to work and returns to the encampment by evening.
“[Eugene] keeps a lot of people crammed in the middle of parks. I’m not trying to sit in this park in front of people’s windows and their kids looking like a display,” Chris said.
However, with the chain link fence wrapped around 310 Garfield St., the site looks like a zoo enclosure rather than a protected community. At least camping at Washington Jefferson Park grants residents the freedom to walk in and out as they please.
If the unhoused citizens are settled into their current encampment, why is the city asking them to pick up shop and relocate to a less visible space? It seems as though the city would rather hide the unhoused population than truly shelter them, let alone confront the systems Eugene has built that keeps those without housing on the streets.
Diane, a 68-year-old mother from California who now lives among the unhoused community in Eugene, is grateful for Washington Jefferson Park.
“It’s very hard out here. But I’m so happy that I walked into a place where we could camp,” she said.
Diane is happy in Washington Jefferson Park, so why is the city asking her to move elsewhere? They want her and her community out of the Eugene spotlight.
In Washington Jefferson Park, Diane also has access to ShelterCare, a nonprofit human services agency with a housing program right across the street where she attends appointments.
Although the government touts the Safe Sleep sites’ various hygiene facilities like a trophy, it has been awfully vague about what services are provided by the “social service providers” on site. The truth is that there aren’t any.
“There are no services attached with this program at all, no case management,” O’Brien said.
While the FOOD for Lane County Dining Room is a 0.4 mile walk from Washington Jefferson Park, the Dining Room is a 1.6 mile walk (or 16 minute bus ride) from the 310 Garfield site. ShelterCare sits at the border of Washington Jefferson Park, but it’s about a mile and a half walk (or 21 minute bus ride) from the only open Safe Sleep site. Since social services are not being provided on site, one has to question the motive of such isolated camps. In truth, it comes down to the optics.
For instance, O’Brien stated that SVdP requires residents to “keep your area neat. It’s all about keeping it clean.” One of the qualifications for the Safe Sleep site is that a resident’s lot isn’t unsightly, so they limit the number of items outside the vehicle to four.
The cleanliness of one’s lot is monitored by the staff on site. SVdP employs two people who are on the property 24/7. The staff patrols the lots to check for neatness and monitor who comes in and out of the gates. On top of that, the employees enforce the other primary rule upheld by SVdP: Residents are forbidden from having guests within the premises, and press is not allowed near site without making contact with the director first. But is the fence to keep everybody else out or unhoused people in?
Think about this: The city has offered to “help” those camped in the parks and on the streets, but the residents must bring their own tent or vehicle to live in; they must limit the number of belongings outside their home to no more than four; they must be willing to move away from centrally located services to a site that offers none; they must be willing to be surveilled 24/7; they are not allowed to have visitors nor are they allowed to talk to members of the press about their experiences without the approval of SVdP. People talk about unhoused people not being willing to accept help that’s offered to them but don’t mention what all that “help” costs.
“Out of sight, out of mind” is an okay sentiment to have when scattered food crumbs disappear among the carpet, but the way Eugene is applying the concept to its own citizens is absolutely barbaric. While the city can argue that the chain link fence was put in place to prevent wanderers from traipsing through the Safe Sleep site, from an outside perspective it looks like an encasement placed around an intensely monitored community instead.
Opinion: Eugene Safe Sleep sites cage unsheltered community
Emma J Nelson
November 1, 2021
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