Most mornings, Jim Tudor can be found on Hunnell Road handing out espressos, pastries and engaging in candid conversation with the homeless community living on the northern edge of Bend.
When he arrived on a recent Wednesday, he opened the trunk of his car to reveal an espresso machine, chocolate and caramel syrups and plenty of whipped cream and cocoa powder for toppings. Then he carefully balanced a spread of cinnamon rolls on the roof of his car. Sometimes he brings doughnuts, but he always brings something sweet.
Jim Tudor, 72, set up an espresso machine in the back of his car. He warmed and frothed milk to make a chocolate mocha.
His motto is this: “If you’re hungry, and I have the money, I’m going to feed you. If you’re cold, I will warm you. If you made bad decisions when you were younger or if you made bad decisions now, it doesn’t make any difference.”
Lately, with the city of Bend’s January announcement that people living on Hunnell Road will be removed on March 16, Tudor’s focus has shifted slightly — from espresso beans and sweet syrups to helping people find a place to live.
He is a part of a group of mutual aid and service providers trying to give people on Hunnell Road a place to go before the March deadline.
Tudor has been in Bend for 11 years. Prior to that, he worked in government processing in San Diego, but he and his wife were tired of the traffic and high cost of living of Southern California. One year ago, Tudor started his nonprofit, First Coffee Then The World Inc. He’s spent about $5,000 of his own money to serve espresso and pastries to Hunnell residents every week.
The hardest part, though, isn’t paying for pastries. It’s convincing local officials to change the way they do things.
“I’m trying so hard to get bureaucracy to understand they’re not numbers out here,” Tudor said.
A place to go
Wednesday, Deschutes County commissioners discussed a possible solution that would involve designating a parcel of land where people on Hunnell Road could be moved.
The city of Bend offered the commissioners four options, but the city favored one. It offered an acre of land, possibly located in Juniper Ridge on the northern edge of town, which could fit 20-25 RVs and tents. People would be able to stay for at least one year.
The Juniper Ridge proposal was strongly recommended by Cheyenne Purrington, head of the joint Coordinated Houselessness Response Office, would involve the city providing land and the county funding services.
The county would be required to hire contractors using reallocated funds from the American Rescue Plan Act in order to provide basic needs like trash collection, restroom facilities and “maybe water,” a county document said.
Other options included using county-owned land, using private land or the county doing nothing at all, according to a document from the Wednesday commission meeting.
The idea of moving people to Juniper Ridge is not an attractive one to Tudor.
“Juniper Ridge is dangerous,” he said.
It does not have connections to transportation or easy access to services, he said. Instead, he’d rather see people move to a 10-acre parcel of private land he and the group of service providers have been discussing.
The commissioners didn’t reach a conclusion Wednesday, but all three were supportive of finding a place for people to go. But they wanted to explore the option of moving people to county-owned land instead.
The commissioners are expected to take up the discussion again next week.
Leaving home
At Wednesday’s meeting, Commissioner Patti Adair estimated there were around 100 people living on Hunnell Road as of December.
But news of the impending sweep in March has spread fast.
Tudor estimates there are more than 50 camps left on Hunnell Road — more than 30 RVs and around 20 tents, he said.
Many residents are making plans to leave Hunnell Road — even leave the state — before the city forces them out.
Angie Paris, 30, is looking for an Amtrak ticket out of Bend before she gets moved, she said. She wants to go to Washington, D.C.
Stacey Ray, 60, and Angie Paris, 30, who both live on Hunnell Road, wandered over to Tudor's coffee station to enjoy a hot mocha.
Paris has been trying to do things the “right way,” she said, which to her means getting the necessary documents so she can secure a job and get out of homelessness.
Throughout her life, she’s endured assault, theft and hardship, but the people on Hunnell Road have provided her some solace.
“Everybody I’ve met out here is so intelligent, so kind, so helpful,” Paris said.
She said she has received more help from her neighbors on Hunnell Road in the time she’s been there than she has from the city or county.
Smokey Jordan, 70, has lived in Bend for 30 years. He has been on Hunnell Road for several of those years. The root of why he and his neighbors live on Hunnell Road goes back years, Jordan said.
Years of rising rents and a lack of low-income housing have kept Jordan from escaping homelessness, he said.
“A lot of these people had apartments,” Jordan said.
But they’ve been pushed and priced out, he said.
Jordan has been struggling with a recent mesothelioma diagnosis, which is why he plans to leave Bend before the March sweep. Fed up with being pushed around and picked over, home for Jordan isn’t Bend anymore. He is headed to his former stomping grounds in Conway, Arkansas.
“I want to spend the last of my days with my kids and grandbabies,” Jordan said.
Removal plans
As of now, the city is still planning to move people on March 16. On that day, the city is expected to give remaining campers an additional 72 hours to leave, said Anne Aurand, a city spokesperson, in an email.
The city’s camping code, which was passed last year, will go into effect March 1. The rules were a sweeping change to when, where and how people experiencing homelessness can camp within the city of Bend.
City Manager Eric King said there is a possibility the city could conduct the removal on Hunnell Road with a phased approach, meaning not removing everyone all at once, which is the city’s usual procedure.
“The status quo is not working for anybody in the Hunnell area,” King said.
Tudor is pushing to delay the sweep to give people on Hunnell Road more time to move and service providers more time to find an appropriate place people can stay.
“If we do something, we don’t do it without risk,” Tudor said.
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Anna Kaminski is a city and county government reporter with The Bulletin. Previously, she was a reporter in Eugene, but she began her career in journalism as a teenager in her Midwestern hometown.
Thanks, Ana! Here are some thoughts on how to solve this problem. I’m sure you will like them! First of all, we need to get the City of Bend DEI department involved. Their job will be to force rank each person now living on Hummel Road based on the principle of INTERSECTIONALITY. A. Skin color: 1. Black skin ranks the highest. 2. Then Indigenous skin (Whatever color that may be.) 3. Finally, Brown skin. NOTE: Latinx skin color ranks higher than mid eastern skin color. Asian skin color and Jewish skin color will be lumped into white skin color since those skin colors have somehow succeeded in thriving in our systemically racist society. B. Identify those homeless who have gender dysphoria as they will rank higher on the INTERSECTIONALITY chart than lesbians, who rank higher than male gay homeless. At the bottom of the list will be white males who identify as white males and have jobs. Just above this group will be white employed females who identify as white females. The more INTERSECTIONAL categories each homeless person can claim, the higher on the INTERSECTIONAL charts they will be placed and therefore will be placed in the front of the line for the most “help” from the city. Help Plan: A. Provide Critical Race Theory Training. These front line folks need to understand how nearly impossible it will be for them to succeed without government help. B. Provide any and all gender affirming surgeries that they feel they need to make them feel normal. This, of course will be supplied at no cost to them and will include comfortable surroundings and related expenses required for their full recovery. C. Provide EV’s to each of these people as they will obviously need transportation. EV’s, while more expensive than gas vehicles, will not contribute to Climate Change. Well, that should do it!
So, according to Bend City Manager King, “The status quo is not working for anybody in the Hunnell area.”
I think it is more likely that the people on Hunnell define “status quo” as constant, unrelenting dispersals and sweeps--starting at Juniper Ridge 3 years ago, then moving on to Emerson Street, then the ODOT properties, then Second Street, and now a sweep that may scatter them (don’t disregard the irony) back to Juniper Ridge.
Perhaps Mr. King’s idea of “status quo” is McMansions lining the streets of his city, but it has worked out reasonably well for Angie Paris, who says in the article, “Everybody I’ve met out here [Hunnell Road] is so intelligent, so kind, so helpful.”
I think that Hunnell Road and the other communities of unhoused people may very well fit the bill of “community,” where there is ready access to medical care and services and positive human interactions.
Dispersing people as King plans to do in mid-March will only expose already vulnerable people to increased predation from criminal elements, additional trauma, and enhanced fire danger. (As for the much ballyhooed charge that the people on Hunnell are robbing Lowes blind, it should be noted that Lowes has a policy of non-apprehension of shoplifters, so how can the Bend PD accurately blame the people on Hunnell when there have been no arrests and other evidence that proves their culpability.
The construction projects--North Corridor and Hunnell extension--that provide the pretext for moving the people do not include any work at all on the site of the Hunnell community. So there is no blessed hurry to scatter them--especially during a season when the weather can turn suddenly lethal.
Let’s heed the sage advice of the service providers. Disrupting fragile lives in the name of misperceptions, stereotypes, and appearances harkens back to a time we should have learned from--not emulate.
Let’s do what Mr. Tudor says, if there is private property for them that might be the best..But when it happens let’s all come out to help them with organization and dignity.. Let’s bring boxes, plastic bins, suitcases and backpacks to help them move in an orderly fashion over a period of several days..Those that would like to move to another place where they have support, let’s help them get there with help.. Bring pickups and trailers to help also. Many just need a little compassion and need to be seen..
Thanks for your thought. That is a question I often ask those who favor criminalizing, arrests, and prisons. In the absence of adequate shelter space, adequate parking space, adequate transitional housing, we should allow the people on Hunnell to shelter in place. Where they are is the best of their possible worlds RIGHT NOW. They have access to services and care; they have friendships. Governor Kotek is offering $130 million to address the statewide crisis; let's cool our jets until that relief starts coming through the pipeline. Thank you for your perfectly suitable question.
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(7) comments
Thanks, Ana! Here are some thoughts on how to solve this problem. I’m sure you will like them! First of all, we need to get the City of Bend DEI department involved. Their job will be to force rank each person now living on Hummel Road based on the principle of INTERSECTIONALITY. A. Skin color: 1. Black skin ranks the highest. 2. Then Indigenous skin (Whatever color that may be.) 3. Finally, Brown skin. NOTE: Latinx skin color ranks higher than mid eastern skin color. Asian skin color and Jewish skin color will be lumped into white skin color since those skin colors have somehow succeeded in thriving in our systemically racist society. B. Identify those homeless who have gender dysphoria as they will rank higher on the INTERSECTIONALITY chart than lesbians, who rank higher than male gay homeless. At the bottom of the list will be white males who identify as white males and have jobs. Just above this group will be white employed females who identify as white females. The more INTERSECTIONAL categories each homeless person can claim, the higher on the INTERSECTIONAL charts they will be placed and therefore will be placed in the front of the line for the most “help” from the city. Help Plan: A. Provide Critical Race Theory Training. These front line folks need to understand how nearly impossible it will be for them to succeed without government help. B. Provide any and all gender affirming surgeries that they feel they need to make them feel normal. This, of course will be supplied at no cost to them and will include comfortable surroundings and related expenses required for their full recovery. C. Provide EV’s to each of these people as they will obviously need transportation. EV’s, while more expensive than gas vehicles, will not contribute to Climate Change. Well, that should do it!
cave Idus martias - pro ecclesia et patria
Excellent story, Ms. Kaminska.
So, according to Bend City Manager King, “The status quo is not working for anybody in the Hunnell area.”
I think it is more likely that the people on Hunnell define “status quo” as constant, unrelenting dispersals and sweeps--starting at Juniper Ridge 3 years ago, then moving on to Emerson Street, then the ODOT properties, then Second Street, and now a sweep that may scatter them (don’t disregard the irony) back to Juniper Ridge.
Perhaps Mr. King’s idea of “status quo” is McMansions lining the streets of his city, but it has worked out reasonably well for Angie Paris, who says in the article, “Everybody I’ve met out here [Hunnell Road] is so intelligent, so kind, so helpful.”
I think that Hunnell Road and the other communities of unhoused people may very well fit the bill of “community,” where there is ready access to medical care and services and positive human interactions.
Dispersing people as King plans to do in mid-March will only expose already vulnerable people to increased predation from criminal elements, additional trauma, and enhanced fire danger. (As for the much ballyhooed charge that the people on Hunnell are robbing Lowes blind, it should be noted that Lowes has a policy of non-apprehension of shoplifters, so how can the Bend PD accurately blame the people on Hunnell when there have been no arrests and other evidence that proves their culpability.
The construction projects--North Corridor and Hunnell extension--that provide the pretext for moving the people do not include any work at all on the site of the Hunnell community. So there is no blessed hurry to scatter them--especially during a season when the weather can turn suddenly lethal.
Let’s heed the sage advice of the service providers. Disrupting fragile lives in the name of misperceptions, stereotypes, and appearances harkens back to a time we should have learned from--not emulate.
So what do you think should be done?
Let’s do what Mr. Tudor says, if there is private property for them that might be the best..But when it happens let’s all come out to help them with organization and dignity.. Let’s bring boxes, plastic bins, suitcases and backpacks to help them move in an orderly fashion over a period of several days..Those that would like to move to another place where they have support, let’s help them get there with help.. Bring pickups and trailers to help also. Many just need a little compassion and need to be seen..
Thanks for your thought. That is a question I often ask those who favor criminalizing, arrests, and prisons. In the absence of adequate shelter space, adequate parking space, adequate transitional housing, we should allow the people on Hunnell to shelter in place. Where they are is the best of their possible worlds RIGHT NOW. They have access to services and care; they have friendships. Governor Kotek is offering $130 million to address the statewide crisis; let's cool our jets until that relief starts coming through the pipeline. Thank you for your perfectly suitable question.
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