Residents of Marvin's Garden, a formerly city-sanctioned tent community in Albany, pack out their belongings during a sweep by Albany police Aug. 29. Albany City Manager Peter Troedsson ordered the residents removed a month ago. Credit: Photo by Tom Henderson
Anthony Miller served as the de facto mayor of Marvin’s Garden.
He lived in the largest tent in the two gravel lots at the corner of Southeast Ninth Avenue and Jackson Street in Albany, a city of 57,000 people 70 miles southwest of Portland. For reasons even he finds baffling, the other 50-some people in the tiny community known as Marvin’s Garden often came to him with their problems.
“I tried to keep the peace,” Miller told Street Roots. “Everyone seemed to look to me. I don’t know why. I just wanted everything to go smoothly and nice.”
However, things went neither smoothly nor nice at the city-created encampment — at least according to the Albany police.
More than 10 officers came with dumpsters and heavy equipment Aug. 29 to enforce an eviction notice City Manager Peter Troedsson issued a month ago.
By the end of the day, the lots were nothing but gravel.
‘About public safety’
Matt Harrington, Albany’s communications officer, told Street Roots local officials have no plans for the property. For now, Harrington said, the lots will remain vacant.
Nonetheless, he said, the people living there for the past year had to go. Just don’t call what happened Aug. 29 “a sweep,” according to Harrington.
“I don’t like that term,” Harrington said. “This clean-up is about public safety. Over time, the police department has been responding to more and more serious public safety complaints.
“We’ve had assaults and overdoses and all sorts of very serious issues. It’s become untenable.“
Carol Davies, the outreach director for the Albany nonprofit Creating Housing Coalition, told Street Roots she and coalition staff members experienced a very different Marvin’s Garden during their many visits to the tent community.
“I will say this on the record,” Davies said. “COHC has never had any problems here whatsoever. We have never felt unsafe.“
Despite Troedsson’s order, only a few people had left Marvin’s Garden by the time police conducted their sweep.
‘Hard to get them into housing’
City officials posted a list of local resources and housing options along with the eviction notice.
“Our suggestion is that folks take advantage of the resources that we’ve gathered that are nearby,” Harrington said. “We’ve got 40 open low-barrier beds available. There’s been numerous contacts with residents here over the last month since the closure was first announced.“
Davies said city officials’ response highlights their fundamental misunderstanding of people forced to live in tents, especially the people who came to Marvin’s Garden.
“These are the people who have traditionally been the hardest to get into housing,” she said. “They often have severe trauma, mental health issues and substance abuse issues. They often also have evictions on their records, criminal backgrounds. It’s really hard to get them into housing.“
Police didn’t arrest anyone during the sweep, she added, but the city’s resources proved inadequate.
“We were only able to connect one person to potential housing options,” Davies said.
Kandyce Stirman, a recovery support specialist at Samaritan Treatment and Recovery Services, told Street Roots she was able to find alternative shelter for two people and get another person into detox services.
“Unfortunately, it appears that a lot of the folks just dispersed into other areas including parks and across the street,” she said.
‘It is … coincidental’
City officials began allowing people to pitch tents at Marvin’s Garden a little more than a year ago — naming the site after Marvin Leonard Studer, a man who died in 2011 at the age of 63 while living on the streets of Albany.
The city created the site to comply with 2021’s Oregon House Bill 3115, now ORS 195.530, which requires local laws governing such things as sleeping in public and other activities associated with homelessness to be “objectively reasonable.“
Providing adequate shelter or sanctioned sleeping space expands a city’s ability to enforce laws regulating those survival activities.
Troedsson’s decision to close Marvin’s Garden a year after it was created came 33 days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled cities could ban homeless people from — and leverage civil and criminal penalties for — sleeping in public.
“I can’t comment on that, but it is … coincidental,” Davies said.
‘This is my home’
A Marvin’s Garden resident who identified himself as Isaiah said being forced to move is possibly for the best.
“It’s not such a bad thing,” he said. “Everything’s just too packed in. It’s just one problem after another. Some people just naturally clash, and it becomes something more over time. Everyone’s just so close. There are no walls.”
However, he said he has no idea where he and his dog Thelma will go next. He and Thelma have been together since she wandered into Marvin’s Garden.
“I didn’t want her to go to the pound, and no one else will take her, so I’m going to take care of her while I can,” Isaiah said. “I’ll exercise her and get her de-wormed. She should be fine.”
Another Marvin’s Garden resident, who preferred not to be identified, was less happy about the sweep.
Heavy equipment removed people's tents and belongings on Southeast Jackson Street in Albany during a police sweep Aug. 29.
“It’s bullshit because the city was supposed to find a place for every homeless person,” they told Street Roots. “They’re bringing bulldozers and everything. I’m pissed. I was here when they first started. This is my home. I know everybody here. I grew attached to everyone. Now they’re forcing everyone to move and make us all spread out.”
Spreading people out will only make any problems worse, Davies said.
Without Marvin’s Garden, people will join other homeless residents in more remote areas such as Takena Landing in North Albany and a wooded area behind Simpson Park.
Those places hardly offer a safe haven, Davies said.
“Police are also doing sweeps at the places where people ordinarily go to camp that are farther out away from the public eye,” she said. “We were much better able to serve people when they were all in one place. We knew where they were and where to find them so we could help them.“
Harrington admitted Davies may be right. Spreading people out may be a cure worse than the supposed ailment, Harrington said.
“That’s certainly a possibility,” he said. “That is a reality that could happen.”
‘Set up to fail’
Miller told Street Roots Marvin’s Garden could have worked.
“The place is actually pretty cool, but people screw it up,” Miller said. “There’s always one bad apple. No one’s perfect. People come by all hours of the night, yelling, ‘Fuck you. Get a job.’”
What the tent community truly needed was a superintendent, he said — and not just someone like him who people informally choose as their go-to guy.
“I think if there was a superintendent, I think it would have been a lot smoother, a lot better, to enforce the rules a little bit,” Miller said.
Davies told Street Roots she couldn’t agree more.
“We have been advocating for some sort of management since before it opened,” she said. “It’s pretty much fallen on deaf ears. The city doesn’t have any funds to pay anyone to manage it.“
Her coalition and other nonprofits already struggle for funds, she added.
“I’ve been saying all along that people need to step up,” Davies said. “It needs to be managed. If it had been managed properly, it would have been successful.”
The Marvin’s Garden closure shows how city officials simply followed the law without ever truly caring about vulnerable people forced to live on the streets, according to Davies.
“This was set up to fail,” she said.
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
