Searching by air for C.O. homeless camps

This isn’t your ordinary flight.

Mike Wissing and Ron Lee, with the Civil Air Patrol, are on a mission. On Friday, they flew over a wide expanse south of the Bend Airport in search of homeless encampments — not to report them to authorities, but to a group that will travel to those spots to help the veterans and others in need.

Officials say there are nearly 800 homeless people in Central Oregon. And a recent study showed Oregon has the fifth-largest number of homeless veterans in the country.

The Civil Air Patrol recently teamed up with Central Oregon Veterans Outreach to find and help the homeless veterans in our area.

“We normally fly for our own enjoyment,” Wissing said. “To be able to give back, to actually give back and do something meaningful, is really important.”

The CAP found eight apparent homeless camps on Friday after flying over the area for just over two hours.

The pilots and observers search for encampments, snap photos, mark the latitude and longitude a nd manually log the locations.

Then, the CAP sends that information to COVO.

“If COVO goes out there and actually makes contact with those people and says, ‘Yeah, we found those guys and we gave them this,’ then it’s going to really hit home, the fact that we were able to do something,” Lee said.

Officials from COVO said that’s exactly what they plan on doing. COVO will travel to the encampments, build a relationship with the homeless people and gather the supplies they need to survive.

“You know, a lot of times, these vets are the toughest ones to crack, because they carry a lot of pride with them,” said David Nieradka, COVO’s outreach program manager. “It takes a lot for those guys to ask for help.”

The CAP and COVO said they are proud to help.