Camping Ban for Christmas

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

 Revised 23 December 2019

Salvation Army Social Services 12/13/19

For people experiencing homelessness, the 2019 holiday season did not bring much comfort, much less joy.

This week, not only did the City start enforcing its camping ban, The Salvation Army closed its doors for ten days just to focus on its "Christmas Toy & Joy Project" over at the Kroc Center.  Too bad for any camper that might want a bed at TSA's 80-bed Lighthouse Shelter, as TSA's not been doing intakes for weeks now, despite being nowhere near full, fueling speculation that TSA intends to close it down come spring.

Across the street in the Inside Out ministries building, United Way has begun operating the 10-bed, low-barrier overnight shelter for women called Safe Sleep.  See Brynelson, T. "Homeless women in Salem get new chance for a safe night indoors."  (December 12, 2019, Salem Reporter.)  United Way hopes to raise $150K for renovations to the building (which is leased for $1/year) that are needed to remodel the kitchen, add a shower and laundry facilities, and allow the shelter to expand to 50 beds.

TSA's Lighthouse Shelter                                                            Inside Out's Safe Sleep

Did we mention there's a staffed, 80-bed shelter (kitchen, showers, laundry) operating at less than half capacity across Front Street? 

After a brief flirt with the bad idea of allowing organized camping on City property (estimated cost for a 40-tent site ~$1M/yr) (see "Will Downtown Host Organized Camping"), the City Council agreed by a 6-3 vote to spend $213K from the City's contingency fund to keep two of the four warming centers (92 spaces) in the Salem Warming Network open every night through March, beginning 1/1/20.  See Brynelson, T. "Salem leaders decide to shelter homeless instead of setting up public camping."  December 10, 2019, Salem Reporter.)  That's about $26 per night per mat.  ($213K/90 = $2,367/92 = $26.)

The overnight warming centers currently open when the mercury drops to 32 degrees.  There are four approved sites:  South Salem Friends Church (capacity 54), First Presbyterian Church (78), Church at the Park (14) and Capital Park Weslyan Church (109).  However, these sites rely heavily on volunteers.  So far this year, Capital Park Weslyan Church has not been able to open.  This means that the City has only 146 out of a possible 255 spaces available in the warming network.

When the Council voted on December 9 to keep two of the four warming centers open every night for 90 days, it was believed that both Church at the Park (capacity 14) and First Presbyterian Church (78) had agreed to expand.  Turns out, however, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church was not 100% on board with the expansion.  See Bach, J. "Salem drops sanctioned homeless camping idea, agrees to pay for warming shelters."  (December 10, 2019, Statesman Journal.)  That left the City with just Church at the Park -- capacity a mere 14 people.

City NOT likely to allow stopgap camping at this WMP parking lot

A December 18 press release announced that City staff "are rapidly exploring other sites for shelter operations by reaching out to other churches in the warming shelter network and looking at other buildings as possible options for a 90-day nightly operation."  On December 20, it was reported that City officials were considering allowing camping on City property "possibly at West Salem's Wallace Marine Park" until a wet shelter site is found.  See Bach, J. "Salem reconsiders homeless tent camping as 'stopgap' until 90-day warming shelter" (December 20, 2019, Statesman Journal.)  

12/23/19 Update:  Statesman Journal reported "City officials...backed away" from sanctioning camping, and seemed to suggest they were at some point considering allowing unsupervised camping on City property.  See Bach, J. "Salem homeless told to leave Oregon Capitol grounds after establishing camp in protest."  (23 December 2019, Statesman Journal.)
 
In January, City staff will submit plans for a car camping program.  Eugene's program is run by St. Vincent de Paul and costs the city more than $160K/yr.  Jimmy Jones, Executive Director of the Mid-Willamette Community Action Agency told the Council on December 9 that Salem has about 400 residents living in cars.  See also Bach, J. "Downtown Salem homeless warned to decamp by Wednesday morning as sweep looms."  (December 17, 2019, Statesman Journal.)  "The homeless population inside the urban growth boundary — not counting people in transitional housing programs or those who are couch surfing — stands at about 1,800 people. That figure includes about 330 in emergency shelters, 400 in cars and 1,000 people outside."  The 330 in emergency shelters doesn't count the 146 warming center spaces that are available when activated.  

Union Gospel Mission hosts the vast majority of those in shelters.  The Men's Mission's capacity is ~100 in summer, with another 48 in winter, and Simonka Place can hold up to 100.  The Salvation Army comes in second with a capacity of 80, however, as noted above, access has lately been limited to about 30.  Salem Interfaith Hospitality Network can shelter up to 14, short term, in church buildings, and the aforementioned Safe Sleep program can shelter 10.  A number of other programs provide shelter beds for certain sub-populations (youth, DV victims).   

TSA gave Safe Sleep 2 beds

It's estimated that between one third and one half of the 1,000 Salem residents living outside would not accept an offer of barracks-style shelter except in extreme conditions.  That means, as a practical matter, Salem reasonably needs another 330 to 500 "duration" shelter spaces (spaces that are available 7 nights/week), just to meet residents' basic needs.

The City's prepared to allow tent-camping until it can provide around 100 duration shelter spaces for three months, and allow car camping if sites can be found.  But a car-camping program will not add shelter spaces, it will only make life more tolerable for those already car-camping.  Same for a tent-camping program, whether or not it's organized.

Let's be clear.  Cars and tents are not housing.  According to HUD, they're not even shelter.  Camping is not a "best practice", it's not "Housing First", and it's surprisingly costly, both for the campers, and for the communities supporting camping.  Ask the City, which paid for one camp's toilets, hand-washing stations, and garbage removal.  Ask the staff of The ARCHES Project, who spent hours picking up trash over the past month, when they needed to be working cases.  Ask the Mid-Willamette Community Action Agency, which paid for security to keep campers safe.  Ask the Downtown Enforcement Team and the Salem Housing Authority, who spent hours just trying to keep the lid on.  Ask Community Supported Shelters in Eugene, which pays about $400/mo to support one Safe Spot space.        

The City's desire to site a temporary (90-day) low-barrier shelter site asap has been intensified by pressure from the Governor's Office and other state officials.  It seems safe to say that "everyone" is aghast that the City, having known since 2017 that camping would be banned, did such a poor job of implementation planning.  The City will forever be remembered for sweeping the homeless from its streets and sidewalks the week before Christmas 2019, when there was "no place for them to go." 

If there's any benefit to embarrassing the Governor's Office, it's aid and assistance solving the problem.  The good news is that the City, having failed to find a way to cover the operating costs of the Mayor's sobering center (~$1M), will soon be getting the chance to figure out how to cover the operating costs of a permanent low-barrier shelter or navigation center (~$1M), which is approximately what the City thinks it would cost to operate a *safe* 40-tent organized camping program.  See Brynelson, T. "Salem needs 'navigation center' for homeless, state-backed report said." (December 16, 2019, Salem Reporter.); "Courtney calls for state funding to build shelters in Salem."  (December 20, 2019, Salem Reporter.)  (Salem Reporter says "shelters", but construction and operation costs for just one shelter will easily exceed the $3M to $4M Courtney's promised.)

Courtesy Jimmy Jones, Exec Dir Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency

The implementation of the camping ban upset a lot of residents, much the same way seeing tents downtown upset a lot of people this fall.  But many who've loudly condemned the City's actions and demanded that the City provide people "a place to go" object just as strongly every time the City tries pass a bond measure, raise taxes, or impose a fee.  The City needs to do a much better job of planning, obviously, but it also needs to do a better job informing staff, elected officials and the public about the true costs of maintaining 1,000 Salem residents outside, in places not fit for human habitation, which includes tents and cars, and any temporary "solution" other than housing.  Maybe then the City and the public it serves will get serious about ending homelessness using proven strategies, and not just at Christmas time. 

12/22/19 The Capitol Mall is now occupied.

12/23/19 The Capitol Mall is now unoccupied.  See Brynelson, T. "Homeless campers cleared from Oregon Capitol Mall."  (23 December 2019, Salem Reporter.)