Letter: Don’t use prime land for homeless camp

Published 6:15 am Thursday, September 14, 2023

To the Editor:

I live with my son and family. I’ve been here 20 years now. We all have a huge concern about opening a homeless camp. We have all seen the horrid mess in Redmond across from Lowe’s. Just plain sad.

You may be homeless of a real home, but what you do live in, keep it nice as possible. I just don’t understand the trash all around their sleeping area. Human waste on the ground and they have those outhouses the city supplies and trash cans, but they don’t seem to use them much.

Everyplace you look the homeless camps are the same, pretty nasty. Why? How hard is it to pick up the garbage? You’re living for free on a piece of land that isn’t yours and you’re ruining it for any future reuse (like a possible park or future business).

Some suggest the gravel empty lot up by City Hall. Why on earth would you put it there for all to see? We are proud of our town and if we want more new taxpaying families to come here, well, that would deter me for sure.

And then I hear down by the fairgrounds. Why there, I ask? And wasn’t the showers area vandalized and the money box broken into just here a few months back? Our families and many others who have fair animals, do fair activities, even wedding events and so forth at the fairgrounds don’t want the issues this will bring.

Isn’t there a place out of main view for this idea? Maybe the ones picking such public places should have a few homeless, unthankful takers on their lawns, in their backyards. Isn’t there an out-of-town area available?

We aren’t talking a huge spot, lots of land, just a spot by the river way out of sight, down behind something not visible from the main road. Or how about the huge empty spot where the old mill used to be? Only put up a fence around a small area like up under the buildings that are already there. Anyone think of that place as a possibility?

Hmmmm, maybe?

Jim Jones III

John Day