Businesses near NE Bend homeless camp express frustration; city checking site, plans trash cleanup

(Update: Stolen SUV recovered)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Mary Donnell, the owner of Bend Lock and Safe, still couldn't believe someone placed 12 grocery carts full of disturbing contents in front of her business in the 200 block of Northeast Franklin Avenue.

“A dozen shopping carts, full of matter, feces, rotten food, trash," Donnell said Tuesday.

She said it may have been a retaliation for unplugging a power extension cord that was powering a space heater in the homeless camp a few hundred feet away on Sunday night. The cord was plugged into their business sign. She found the carts were lined up in front of her store Monday morning.

But that's not the only incident she's had this week. 

Around 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, she reached out to NewsChannel21 to report another incident, where a homeless woman stole the car of a customer, which Bend police soon found undamaged near Sixth Street and Greenwood Avenue, close to a Chase Bank.

After looking through camera footage, Donnell said a homeless woman left her tent and got in the customer's car. The customer and the technician were working on the vehicle's programming, checking on it periodically from inside the store.

The surveillance video led -- less than an hour after officers around the area were notified -- to the arrest of a 31-year-old female transient on theft and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle charges. Police said she possessed the Ford Explorer's key fob and items stolen from the SUV, and the abandoned Explorer was located in an alley off Northeast Sixth Street and returned to the owner.

Donnell said the homeless presence on the street deters business and creates health and safety issues.

"Disturbing" is how she described the things she and her employees have had to clean up.

“This is not just about Bend Lock and Safe. This is about our neighbor businesses -- Campfire Hotel, Platt Electric, Paulson's Flooring, 7 Eleven," Donnell said.

With Bend's homelessness situation growing and a variety of government and private-sector efforts in the works, the frustrated owners of several businesses near the growing homeless camp on Second Street are speaking out and calling for the city to make solutions happen faster.

Other businesses in the area have shared how the homeless are sleeping in their parking lots and causing a variety of issues.

Samir Dean, a worker at Paulson's Floor Coverings, said he’s tried to help them out as we head into the cold winter, but there needs to be a stronger, coordinated strategy to get them off the streets. He estimated that 42 tents and 50 homeless people occupy the corridor.

Dean expressed his compassion for the homeless, but also noted the public health and safety hazard their tents and camps create on the sidewalks and streets. He wrote up a 13-step plan highlighting that need for shelters, vocational schooling, and city and state funding.

“We’re trying to help them, you know, with blankets, with gloves, food, with everything we can do," Dean said. "But this is a human crisis."

Bend resident Chip Conrad said after noticing the homeless camping where he and his coworkers usually park for work, he reached out to social services and agencies that could help.

Tackling the root of homeless problem he said, needs strategic planning and empathy.

"It's really easy to try and put a Band-Aid on it," Conrad said. "For example, let's give people experiencing homelessness our cans and bottles, so they can go get money to spend it on whatever they need to spend it on. But I think taking some time to really understand how just a few things could happen to me, putting me in the same place, really made me feel like not taking the easy way out, but rather asking the harder question: How do we start fixing this at the root, as opposed to a Band-Aid?"

Former City Councilor Chris Piper shared an incident where a driver had to get out of his semi-truck to shift tents out of the road, just so he could drive by. He stated the importance of having a plan and to be proactive, as to keep the homeless situation from festering.

“What I would like to see -- just me as a private citizen, contacting the city, and hearing back from the city -- they’re going to be issuing notices for cleanup out here in the next few weeks," Piper said.

"The city has an opportunity under a right of way policy, and that right of way policy means that if there’s a sidewalk that is impeded and without access, the city has the opportunity to come in and clean this up and clear it," he said. " We have those with disabilities that are in wheelchairs or walkers. We have those that are blind, and they have to walk down the sidewalk. They should not have to walk in the road, which I witnessed two weeks ago.”

The businesses around the corridor request long-term solutions, when it comes to tackling homelessness.

“We would just love to get some kind of help for the city of Bend," Donnell said.

City Councilor Megan Perkins said she understands the frustrations and that the city has been stepping up to do trash cleanup, sanitation work, more police patrolling in that area, and are working with service providers.

"It's important for people to understand that first of all, for legal reasons, it's very hard to remove a camp," Perkins said. "There has to be sort of a myriad of things that are happening in order for a camp to be closed down. But secondly, there's the humane aspect of this. If you clean up a camp now, and you have no place for people to go, you're just kicking the can down the road."

Joshua Romero, assistant communications director for the city of Bend, later provided an official statement:

The City of Bend understands that activities that can accompany unmanaged campsites in public rights-of-way can be difficult for businesses, community members, and the traveling public. The City has an administrative policy for the management of City rights-of-way and the removal of established campsites in rights-of-way (ADM 2021-1). The policy guides the City’s response to these campsites.

The policy requires the City to “attempt to mitigate or resolve the health and safety concerns that create the unsafe camping conditions.”

In alignment with the policy, City staff are evaluating the area of Second Street and Greeley Avenue today to see if there is an opportunity to remove any garbage from the City right-of-way. Garbage removal is expected to take place tomorrow afternoon. If any additional response is required in this area, it will follow the procedures outlined in the administrative policy.

Bend City Council has a goal of providing 500 shelter beds for unhoused community members in Bend. This year, the City has purchased two properties for use as temporary housing. One of the locations, at 275 NE Second Street, is open as an overnight shelter. The City is currently in the process of identifying potential operators of and locations for outdoor shelters. Community support is needed to help provide these housing options and give unhoused community members a safer place to sleep than on the streets of Bend.