Bend Humanity Coalition claims city has ‘ample’ shelter beds; Councilor Perkins fires back

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The Bend Humanity Coalition and former Mayor Jeff Eager claimed in a news release Monday, hours before a city public hearing on code changes to allow more shelter locations, that data shows the city already had more shelter beds than needed, before winter hit. City Councilor Megan Perkins later fired back, calling the stats "misleading and incomplete."

Here are both statements, in full, first from the nonprofit group:

Bend Homeless Shelter Beds AVAILABLE Most Nights

City ALLOWS encampments to continue for months despite ample capacity

Bend, OR – There were available beds at Bend’s 2^nd Street homeless shelter on seven out of every 10 nights between June 1, 2021 and February 7, 2022, according to documents obtained by the Bend Humanity Coalition.

On January 19, the City’s “Update on Temporary Housing Strategies” stated that the 2nd Street Shelter was “consistently full.” The Bend Humanity Coalition analysis of capacity demonstrates this is not true most of the time since the shelter opened on June 1, 2021. In fact, the shelter had excess capacity on most nights in all months other than December, January and February.

Tonight, the City of Bend Planning Commission is expected to vote on a proposal to make homeless shelters and camps lawful uses in most zones in the city, and to allow long-term RV parking on private property. The city’s push for shelter capacity, and its refusal to regulate camping on public property, is explained in a disclaimer to emails the city sends to Bend residents who have contacted it about homeless issues:

A city’s ability to regulate sleeping in its public places is directly related to a community’s ability to provide shelter for homeless individuals who might otherwise need to use public places to sleep. When we develop more shelter beds for our unhoused community members, we can provide them a safe place to go instead of them simply moving on to another public space to sleep.

The city did not regulate public camping on any of the nights, or in any of the months, capacity existed in the shelter it funds.

“Most nights, there is shelter capacity in Bend, and more is on the way even without the proposed code changes. The City Council’s desire to dramatically build out shelter space in neighborhoods around the city is misplaced. It has the ability, now, to reduce the violence, criminality and human debasement occurring in homeless camps on city streets every day. What it lacks is the will to do it,” said Bend Humanity Coalition consultant Jeff Eager.

“People in Bend understand that the encampments are bad for the community, and most of all bad for the people living in them. Nothing in the city’s proposed code change will solve that problem. It’s time for the City Council to be straight with Bend residents about why it’s not using the tools it has at its disposal right now to make Bend a more humane community.”

Supporting documentation is as follows:

1. Bend Humanity Coalition summary of bed availability by month, based upon data provided by City of Bend and Neighbor Impact:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KAuYNXThvBfxDpPG8S-eToP-3TQpyKL6/view?usp=sharing

2. Bend Humanity Coalition spreadsheet combining City of Bend and Neighbor Impact capacity data by night:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fJLUVmHygLwGbqEJAm2tPBGPNThnwIEe/view?usp=sharing

3. Spreadsheet provided by City of Bend:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uWLj-xJkeNrQl9c0V3RSXnsFCmNE1VOL/view?usp=sharing

4. Spreadsheet provided by Neighbor Impact, which incorporates data provided by the city in (3) above:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uLrGe7pxS7t4s-3V7jRywDiBj0YlMFSF/view?usp=sharing

Note that the data presented is based upon a capacity of 70-80 beds. The city has stated the shelter in fact has a 90-bed capacity, but the lower figures were used in the spreadsheets provided by the city and Neighbor Impact, and by Bend Humanity Coalition. Additionally, fire marshal limits and emergency declarations may have, at times during the relevant period, either increased or decreased capacity beyond that shown in the spreadsheets referenced above.

Bend Humanity Coalition is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation. More information about it can be found at the organization’s website: www.bendhumanitycoalition.org.

---

Here is Councilor Megan Perkins' responding statement, in full, as provided to NewsChannel 21:

It is completely unclear what the Bend Humanity Coalition is trying to achieve and who they claim to be helping with this press release. There are no alternative solutions. There are no plans. This press release doesn’t help our houseless. It doesn’t help our service providers doing this work every day. And it doesn’t help our business owners who are dealing with unsanctioned camping on their sidewalks. There is no viable approach to addressing this huge humanitarian crisis on our streets. The City of Bend, on the other hand, is doing so much more than putting out press releases and has actually developed comprehensive plans to get people off of our streets and into safe shelter (bendoregon.gov/houselessness). 

The numbers used for this release are misleading and incomplete. Yes, there were beds available when the shelter first opened in June. Word had to spread among the houseless community that this was a safe place to go at night. The months of July, August and September combined saw 15 nights that had 18 or more beds available. Hunnell Road at the time had 50-75 campers. You can’t clear a camp of 18 people and then stop. The standard for camp clearing is sufficient beds. Sufficient beds for everybody. Otherwise, you are just kicking the can down the road.  

In the fall months, we saw demand for shelter grow especially as camping on 2^nd and Greeley began to emerge. Because of this, capacity was actually raised at the 2^nd Street Shelter and we began looking for another property to use as a temporary shelter.  

Since December there are more nights when demand exceeds the 80 beds that are available at 2^nd street. There have only been 6 nights in the past 6 weeks with ANY capacity at all (and that is just a few beds).  

It is a completely false narrative to tell our community that we have the capacity to house all the people on our streets right now. Roughly 70% of our houseless population still remain unsheltered. We can and must do better for everybody by increasing shelter capacity. It’s time for the political games to stop. Houselessness is not a game and it certainly isn’t political. It is dehumanizing to our houseless community and disrespectful to those working with the houseless. We need problem-solvers to help us tackle this issue, not anonymous keyboard warriors like the Bend Humanity Coalition.   

Bend City Councilor Megan Perkins