"It just didn't work out"

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Oregon Public Broadcasting ran a segment on "Homelessness in Salem" a couple of days ago, and the impression left by the conversation between Think Out Loud host Jeff Norcross and Jonathan Bach of the Statesman Journal is that Salem is just kind of bumbling along when it comes to dealing with homelessness.  

In his defense, Bach was just reporting what people, including City staff, have told him.

The City's press release stated that the crime and unsafe/unsanitary conditions under the Marion Street Bridge "confirm last year’s pilot effort to provide a single location for food distribution to the homeless was not successful." 
  
During the interview, Bach repeatedly conflated the camping ban with the ban on food distribution under the bridge and with distributing food in the area of Marion Square Park generally.

When Norcross asked Bach why people congregated under the bridge, Bach took the City's line by saying one of the draws may have been the volunteers serving food there under the City's pilot program.  He did so again when asked to explain the intent of the program (organize the area, contain people and trash, identify who was providing food) and the purpose of the ban (reevaluate the program).

When Norcross asked the same question everyone else is asking -- why did the City wait so long to clear the camp -- Bach couldn't say.  (The City hasn't said.)  Asked what went so wrong wrong with the City's program, Bach repeated what the Salem police had told him -- the unsafe/unsanitary conditions.  "It was done with the best of intentions, it just didn't work out", he said. 

"It just didn't work out" makes it sound as though the City uses a trial and error approach to homelessness.  Trial and error is appropriate for simple problems and games.  Not the best approach for dealing with people who feel their best option is to camp and eat under bridges.

Norcross told Bach, "This all sounds very familiar.  Other cities, especially on the west coast, are dealing with a growing homelessness problem", and asked, "Is it different in Salem, in some way?"

"It's hard to say", Bach replied.  "You can go to Bend, you can go to Portland, you can go to Salem, you can go to Eugene, it's a problem that a lot of cities are trying figure out how to deal with.  Salem has one approach, Portland and Multnomah County have a different approach", but he couldn't say what either was. 

So, after two years of covering homelessness in Salem, Bach cannot describe Salem's approach to homelessness.  Is that because he isn't paying attention?  Or might it be because Salem doesn't actually have what anyone would recognize as a plan?

Bach did, by the way, mention Salem's Homeless Rental Assistance Program.  He told Norcross that HRAP clients were ultimately supposed to become self-sufficient, which isn't quite accurate, although it is what the program's annual report says.