In a field surrounded by chain-link fence next to Highway 199 in Grants Pass, Oregon, about 70 tents have been set up.
It’s one of two city-owned sites where homeless people are now allowed to camp. There are six white shade canopies, four porta-potties, a handwashing station and two blue dumpsters. Cameras monitor the approximately 1.25 acres in an industrial area of town. Another half acre site is located across the street from City Hall.
Providing these sites is the city’s way of following Oregon state law in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. In June, the Supreme Court sided with the city in a long legal battle, upholding its ban on public camping. But Grants Pass still has to comply with state law. That says rules regulating where homeless people can camp must be “objectively reasonable”, although that term isn’t specifically defined.
But not everyone is happy with this campsite solution. Some have even called them “concentration camps,” and there are concerns about fire hazards and mud.
A campsite that Grants Pass has designated for homeless people on Sept. 9, 2024.
Jane Vaughan / JPR
Janine Harris has lived in Grants Pass for decades and spent the last three years unhoused.
She said living at the city campsite is rougher than the city parks where she lived before.
“A lot of places have bathrooms, so it was easier, and more running water than we have out here,” she said.
Harris said it’s hot living on the bare dirt site. When the sites first opened in late August, the city was criticized for not providing shade or potable water. Now, nonprofits bring in bottled water, and the Josephine County homeless services provider MINT set up several shade canopies.
Harris said she lost her job and had trouble getting another one, both because of health problems and because no one wants to hire an older homeless woman. She said a lot of people living here are older or disabled.
“The heat, the cold winters, waking up to snow on the ground and all over your tent. I’m not afraid of stuff like that. It’s just when you get older, you’re going, ‘Okay, I’m done. I’ve had enough of this.’ Like I said, there’s people out here 60 and 70 years old. Their health is really bad, even worse than mine,” she said.
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Some say the uneven, rocky ground presents tripping hazards, and some residents struggle mentally living in a confined space with so many people.
Meanwhile, some businesses near the site have complained about crime and disturbances as a result of those living there.
The city is also still waiting for a 2020 court injunction to be lifted, the final piece in the yearslong legal battle.
“It won’t have a lot of practical changes on the ground, whether or not the injunction goes away, but it is still something we need to close that door on this case for sure,” said the city’s attorney, Aaron Hisel.
He said the court case is nearly over, just awaiting some formalities from the 9th Circuit Court, after it was sent back by the Supreme Court.
City’s public parks are ‘quieter’
But some city residents are pleased with the changes they’ve seen. At a recent city council meeting, some people thanked the council for cleaning up city parks, where homeless people used to camp.
Ginny Stegemiller helped form the volunteer group Park Watch, which monitors the city’s public parks for illegal activity and informs police. She said the parks are quieter now, but Park Watch is still concerned about crime and drug use.
She hopes that the recent revision of Oregon’s Measure 110 will also help. The 2020 measure decriminalized small amounts of hard drugs while also funding addiction services. But earlier this year, the state legislature revised the measure. As of Sept. 1, possessing small amounts of drugs is once again a misdemeanor.
“We’re just hopeful that over time, if you arrest them enough times, they’re going to either get rehab, which would be the hopeful thing, or they’ll leave,” she said.
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Stegemiller also wants to see the state’s Aging and Disability Services Department help the homeless people who are older or disabled.
“We look forward every week to see something improve, and we do see something improve every week. Hopefully, at least the disabled ones and the medically-challenged ones can get help to not be in a park,” she said.
Ashley Hanson was born and raised in Grants Pass and has been homeless on and off for 15 years. She lives in one of the city campsites and said in some ways it’s better than living in the parks because she’s harassed less often by residents who want her to leave.
“People would honk at us. We still have people honk at us, but not as much. We don’t have as much threats towards us,” she said.
Ashley Hanson and her dog are living at one of the city-owned campsites in Grants Pass, Ore.
Jane Vaughan / JPR
What’s next?
One of the main problems with this campsite solution is that it’s temporary. The site where Janine Harris lives is actually designated to be the city’s new water treatment plant. It’s scheduled to break ground next year. The other current site, near City Hall, is less than half an acre, not large enough to hold the hundreds of homeless people estimated to live in Grants Pass.
So, the city needs a long-term plan. And some people wonder whether that’s even the city’s job or whether caring for the homeless should be done by nonprofits.
“If you’re trying to point fingers and [say] ‘it’s your job, nonprofit,’ ‘it’s your job, city,’ that’s silly. We all need to come together, whether we agree or disagree, acknowledge there’s a problem and share our expectations and manage those accordingly,” said Cassy Leach, the executive director of MINT.
Meanwhile, Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol and four other city council seats are up for election in November, so leadership could change drastically in the coming months, which makes it harder to create a long-term plan.
The city has also gotten pushback for not planning ahead, not coming up with a better solution than these campsites, not implementing them more smoothly.
“We’ve had years to come up with a plan, regardless of how the Supreme Court ruled, and [the campsite solution] seemed like it was very short-sighted and not sensitive to the actual needs of the community members they’re trying to take care of,” Leach said.
Related: In Grants Pass, immediate effects of Supreme Court ruling are unclear
Mayor Bristol has been asked, why didn’t the city think about this sooner?
“All I can say is that some people just didn’t want to deal with it a couple of years ago. And I can’t speak for them and what they thought was going to happen exactly,” she said.
Bristol would like to see a low-barrier shelter, which the city doesn’t have, and more housing.
“Ultimately, the difference between an unhoused person and a housed person is the house. So, providing a home where unhoused people can live that’s in a residential neighborhood, well, now they’re just your neighbors, and they have a place to throw their trash and to make their meal and to use the restroom and to sleep, and they don’t have to do those things out on your sidewalk anymore,” she said.
The long-awaited Supreme Court decision has pushed the city to do something, creating a temporary solution in these campsites. But Grants Pass is still stuck with the broader homeless crisis as they try to find a long-term solution.
