Looking forward to a safe place to play: Redmond groundbreaking highlights future playground for children of homeless

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) — Yellow toy dump trucks stood out against the dirt, an excavator behind them in the lot behind Mountain View Fellowship Sunday morning. The trucks were the first clue this wasn’t going to be a typical groundbreaking ceremony. Not to mention 15 elementary school kids in bright orange safety vests and hard hats. 

“The first Safe Parking site in Redmond was right here in this back parking lot of Mountain View Fellowship,” Rick Russell told the crowd. Russell is co-pastor of the church and executive director of nonprofit Mountain View Community Development, which runs a Safe Parking & Microshelter Program in Central Oregon.

“It was three and half years ago. Over the last two years, this site has been a place of refuge for 75 children who had to call this parking lot home. That is a point of relief for those families, but also a little bit heartbreaking for our community.” 

Just to the right of the ceremony was the nonprofit’s current family site, a gravel parking lot with fences and a portable toilet.

The church is offering another piece of land to expand the site, building four RV sites with electrical hookups, four 16-by-12-foot microshelters, which are similar to garden sheds with electricity for heat and cooling but no plumbing, as well as a covered picnic area. 

“And what we’re most thankful and proud of is a playground space for our kids who call this place home,” Russell told the crowd. “To Mountain View Fellowship: You all have contributed land, but not just land. A sense of mission and purpose for our community, particularly for our unhoused people in our community. So to Mountain View Fellowship, I say thank you for this gift and this contribution to our community.”

Russell acknowledged the attendance of state Senator Anthony Broadman of Bend, Deschutes County Commissioner Patti Adair and Wasco Chief Jefferson Greene. 

He also thanked the Central Oregon Health Council, which funded the project. 

Gwen Jones, the council’s director of community strategy, explained how the project fit COHC’s mission. 

“At COHC, we believe health starts long before someone steps into a clinic or hospital,” she said. “It starts with safe shelter. With places for children to play. With spaces where families feel secure and people feel they belong. And this project — right here — is building all of that. 

“At COHC, we recently launched a new version of our Regional Health Improvement Plan, or RHIP," Jones said. "And while the name might sound technical, the heart of it is simple: We believe that the best solutions come from the people living the reality every day. In listening deeply. In working hand in hand with organizations like Mountain View and the neighbors they walk alongside.” 

One of the people who had “lived the reality” was Colton Hill, who lived at the Safe Parking site and is now a peer support specialist with Mountain View Community Development. 

He recounted his journey from active addiction to giving support to others who are where he was. 

“And this playground I’ve heard about since the very beginning,” he said, pointing to Russell, “wanting somewhere other than just a parking lot for the kids to run around in and ride their bikes, somewhere that they can actually relax and just be kids. When you’re going through homelessness, it’s way more stressful than people on the outside see, so I’m very excited to be here!” 

Emily Nelson, co-pastor of Mountain View Fellowship, said the work with the nonprofit is “core to how we live our faith out. This is a concrete part of what we see that God would have us do and how we would have us be in our community.” 

She then blessed the land, and those who will be living there. 

“We ask that this would be a place of peace and be a place of stability,” she prayed, “that it would be a place of abundance and blessing for families, for their children, for the ones that are here now, for the ones that will come through. Lord, would you bless and watch over this land?” 

Then, the 15 kids, some of whom live at the Safe Parking site, others who attend Mountain View Fellowship, and others who are children of MVCD staff, got to dig in the dirt. 

Russell led the countdown, and then the kids, with their bright blue, purple, and green shovels started scooping dirt into the toy dump trucks. 

The trucks went home with the kids in the Safe Parking Program. In a few months, they’ll be rolling over a brand new playground that, the church and nonprofit hope, will make them feel a little more at home. 

For more information, visit http://mvcdoregon.org.