The Bulletin, Bend / Central Oregon News
FEBRUARY 09, 2010 10:28 AM
bendbulletin.com/Jefferson County
Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosRobert Knight, 50, is a laborer and said he's been looking for work in Montana and Oregon since January. He is among an increasing segment of the homeless population traveling in search of jobs, social services and housing, according to homeless advocates.
A ‘last resort' for homeless
Bend's Bethlehem Inn is seeing an influx of people from outside the area. Part of it may be because more people are traveling in search of jobs. Part of it could also be tied to the Inn's reputation as a pretty nice place all things considered
By Cindy Powers / The Bulletin
Published: November 13. 2009 4:00AM PSTRobert Knight has been traveling around the West looking for work for nearly a year.
He has always “worked with his hands or his back,” he said, and he's never had a problem getting a job before.
But in January, the snow removal jobs he had in Montana diminished, so he decided to head to Oregon in hopes of finding a job here.
Now, he's living at the Bethlehem Inn in Bend after hearing about the shelter from a young man he met on a bus.
Chris Clouart, the Inn's director, said Knight, 50, is one of a growing population of homeless coming to the shelter from out of the area.
And homeless advocates say they are seeing an increasing segment of the homeless population traveling in search of jobs, social services and a place to stay.
Sarah Elliott serves dual roles, as the homeless outreach coordinator for Deschutes County Health Services, formerly Deschutes County Mental Health, and as the co-chairwoman of the Homeless Leadership Coalition.
Over the past year, Elliott said she has seen 43 homeless mental health clients, 17 of whom were from outside Central Oregon.
“I feel like, more often than not, I am hearing from people who have been in the (Willamette) Valley,” she said, noting that 15 of those clients came to Central Oregon from the Eugene and Salem areas.
Oregon's recent economic downturn has left “more people struggling for resources,” Elliott said, pushing more homeless people to travel in search of housing and social services.
Many come to Bend after hearing the Bethlehem Inn opens its doors to pretty much anyone willing to follow its rules.
“I think it's very well known in the homeless population that the Bethlehem Inn exists, but it's a matter of whether people want to live by the rules — being subject to drug and alcohol tests, living under a curfew. Not everyone is willing to do that,” Elliott said.
Clouart said he's aware the Inn is gaining a reputation for taking in whomever it can.
“We're becoming known as the place of last resort for these people. There is no place further down the line. The next place down the line is Sawyer Park,” Clouart said, referring to a public park within walking distance of the shelter.
‘This place is nice'
Elliott and Clouart also said that word has gotten out that the shelter has nicer accommodations than some others located in bigger cities.
“The overwhelming report that my folks give — and this comes from people that have been chronically homeless and have gone from shelter to shelter — is, ‘Wow, this place is nice. We are being treated well. We have good accommodations, and we get a hot meal every night,'” she said.
“It's sort of a double-edged sword,” Elliot continued. “The shelter wants to be open and available for people who have needs, but then that reputation brings people from different areas.”
Clouart said the shelter has been asking people where they came from as part of its intake process for about six months. The numbers show that 348 individuals have stayed at the Inn for some period of time over the past six months. Of those, 184 were from out of the tri-county area or out of state, Clouart said.
“Bear in mind, some of the people who have come in with out-of-state IDs were born in Oregon or have spent time in Bend, and so this is the place that they know,” Clouart said. “People who find themselves in really difficult circumstances will often gravitate back to what they know, and a significant percentage of them have some touchstone here in Oregon.”
Nonetheless, he said, the Bethlehem Inn, which generally charges $5 a night but will waive the fee in some circumstances, exists primarily to serve people from the tri-county area.
“And if I have to choose between a person from Prineville and a person from California, I'm going to choose the person from Prineville,” he said.
Clouart said he may have to start making those choices soon because the shelter tends to fill up this time of year and to stay at capacity through the winter.
As of Thursday, the Inn's five family units were full, and of the 85 beds available for individuals, 66 were spoken for. The shelter's total population was 76, a 25 percent increase over this time last year, Clouart said.
He said the last of the Inn's five available family units filled up in mid-October when a couple called and later showed up with a desperate need for a place to live.
A Portland nonprofit had given the 19-year-old pregnant woman — on the verge of delivery — and her boyfriend bus tickets to Bend.
They had been living on the streets in Portland, and when they searched the city for a place to stay, were told there were no beds available for them anywhere in the Rose City, Vancouver or the Willamette Valley.
The two arrived at the Inn late in the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 16, and the woman gave birth the next day. The new parents say they have no family ties to Central Oregon, little education and no job prospects.
Laura Langslet is a homeless advocate at Rose Haven, the organization that helped pay for the couple's ticket. She said housing for homeless women and children can still be found in Portland, but that men and families are placed on waiting lists that average a minimum of six months.
Brian Merrell, of the Portland Rescue Mission, said the agency just opened its winter shelters, and the organization's 120 beds are full nearly every night.
The mission offers addiction recovery programs that serve up to 45 men and 37 women, and Merrell said, they “have been at capacity for quite some time.”
The lack of bed space at facilities in major cities like Portland may be bringing people like Knight and the couple staying at the Inn to Central Oregon, Clouart said.
‘It's bad here, too'
Bend's Community Center Director Taffy Gleason said she, too, has seen an influx of homeless to the Bend area in the past year, but that most people coming to her organization for help are from Central Oregon locations like Prineville, La Pine and Madras.
The center provides meals, clothing, tents, personal hygiene items and hot showers to Central Oregon's homeless.
“They are moving to Bend because the outlying areas have no jobs, and generally these people were laid off or lost their jobs, and, as a result, they lost their place to live,” Gleason said. “So they come to Bend hoping to find better resources or a job or a place to live. To them, it's the big city.”
Gleason said she also sees homeless people who have come to Bend from out of state, but they tend not to stay.
“Every week, we see people from different parts of the country that may have heard Bend is the greatest place in the world, and they get here and say, ‘Gosh it's bad here, too,' and they may stay for a few months and then leave,” she said. “It's the migration effect, and it happens during any economic downturn.”
Robert Knight says he'd like to stay in Bend, but after checking in with WorkSource every day for weeks with no luck, he may have to start looking for work out of the area.
Knight says he has family scattered around the country but doesn't want to ask them for help.
“It's kind of humiliating to be in this position, and I'd really rather they not know anything about it,” he said.
Knight said he's worked in landscaping, construction, carpet installation, restaurants and logging.
“I have always been a laborer, have always worked with my hands, and frankly, I'm good at it,” Knight said. “And it's something that you can take pride in, look at later and say, ‘I did that.'”
He has now been living at the Inn for nearly a month and is grateful for the bed and meals.
But what Knight really wants is to support himself.
“This has been really hard on me,” Knight said. “Being out of work, I feel like a waste.”
Cindy Powers can be reached at 541-617-7812 or at cpowers@bendbulletin.com.
ARTICLE ACCESS: This article is among those available to all readers. Many more articles are available only to E-Edition members. Sign up today!
blog comments powered by Disqus
