MWHITF: Meeting 4 - Chronically Homeless

   Revised: December 2018

 

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

                                                          

Marissa's Tent

Well-worn trails wind between the campsites, now mostly abandoned, in the woods just off Portland Road NE, near the Kale Street 'T' intersection.

We went there a few weeks ago to observe as Salem police spoke with each of the inhabitants, letting them know they were on private property and couldn't keep staying there.

The police had brought with them  staff from the Salem Housing Authority (Nicole and Sonya) and Community Action Agency (Ken).  Nicole was packing a thermos of coffee, bottles of water, and granola bars, which she offered to the young woman in the first tent.

Marissa

 The woman was crying, embarrassed, very thirsty.  "This is insane to me", Marissa sobbed, "I never thought I'd be freakin' homeless."

She said her ex had tried to kill her last August.  "I had an amazing life, until last August."  Before then, she had worked as a CNA.  Her hands were trembling.  "I'm the one who cares for people," she insisted.  "I thought I'd have no trouble camping in the woods.  I've been camping.  But this, this is way too scary." 

We left the workers to talk to Marissa about where she planned to go next, and moved on to the next camp.  We found Kevin in his kitchen.  He had clearly occupied his site for years.  "It used to be a lot cleaner", he told one of the officers.  Yes, he'd been to the (Union Gospel) Mission, "I won't go back there", he said, shaking his head.

Kevin's Main Tent

Pretty clearly, he wasn't going to "go" anywhere.  He would stay where he was, unless he was arrested.  He was warned he had to leave.  The worker from Community Action Agency's ARCHES project asked if he was a veteran.  He was.  He needed ID, though.  The worker left his card and asked Kevin to call him.

Kevin

Kevin obviously had mental health issues, as did the other occupants of the camp.  No one thought Kevin was going to call, and he didn't.

And Marissa didn't show up Monday morning at the coffee shop per that plan, either. Most likely, despite meaning it when she told the worker she was ready to deal with her addiction, she was in a different  frame of mind by Monday.

Nicole and Sonya went looking for Marissa on Monday, but could not find her.

No one was arrested during the operation - that day, or the following week.

Shirley (way back on the left) and her Tent

Offering services instead of arresting people in circumstances like these is one of the "Innovative Public Safety Strategies" the Task Force heard about at its fourth Meeting.

Commonly referred to as "harm reduction", it's  properly considered a public health, rather than a public safety, strategy.  It's been around in some form since the 1980s.

The other two strategies that the Task Force heard about Monday are basically variations of harm reduction.  They were, specifically, the Crisis Outreach Response Team or CORT, which has been in use for the last 10 years and you can read about at the link, and Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion or LEAD, which Dallas, Oregon, started implementing last summer and is based on Seattle's successful pilot project.

It's always good when public officials discontinue strategies that are a) inhumane, and b) don't work.  Or, as Task Force member David Leith commented, "you always change a losing game plan."

Doing that's not exactly innovation, though.  And when the problem is trespass - a subject not  touched on at the meeting - "move along, you can't stay here" remains the strategy in Salem, at least for individuals who're "chronically service resistant."

But what alternative is there, when police are dealing with individuals like Kevin and Marissa?  The Task Force so far has not discussed sanctioned outdoor shelters (aka, "legalized camping"), like Right 2 Dream Too in Portland, Seattle's tent cities, and Eugene's sanctioned homeless encampments and micro-housing projects.  Likely, this is because law enforcement generally oppose such measures, which are hard to defend from a policy standpoint.  That's because sanctioned outdoor shelters are not typically any more accessible to the "chronically service resistant" than indoor shelters, they don't end homelessness, and they can be a distraction from the primary goal, which is to get everyone into permanent housing. 

While the Task Force seems to be struggling just to figure out what kind of numbers they're dealing with, they did soundly reject Commissioner Carlson suggestion that they rely on the most recent Point In Time Count numbers.  Their committee reports contained nothing of substance, though there were some reassignments.  Overall meeting attendance was way down, by more than half.  Bruce Bailey sent a substitute again (Jeanine Knight, of UGM Simonka Place) and Mayor Clark, Shaney Starr, Ron Hays and Irma Oliveros were all absent.

The meeting can be summed up by the shockingly honest comment by Commissioner Carlson toward the end, "We're just kind of dabbling in topics" at this point, waiting for the committees to come forward with recommendations.

The next Task Force meeting is July 20, 2016.