In a town where residents are often contentious with the homeless population, resources for unhoused residents are scarce during the pandemic
McMINNVILLE — When McMinnville’s library closed in response to the coronavirus pandemic, people experiencing homelessness in this community had no public building where they could wash their hands or use the toilet.
But John Kraemer worries more about where he’s going to sleep, he told Street Roots. The coronavirus he leaves to fate.
“We all die,” Kraemer said in the wake of the library’s March 16 closure. “I’m still pretty young and strong. Maybe I can fight it off. If I was going to get sick, I would probably get sick by now.”
An estimated 426 people live unsheltered in Yamhill County, according to the 2019 Point-In-Time count, conducted by Yamhill Community Action Partnership. Although, the number might be higher, as Point-In-Time counts are widely understood to undercount the number of people experiencing homelessness.
Most of Yamhill County’s unsheltered residents live in McMinnville, the county’s largest city, with 34,000 people.
The affluent community, situated about 50 miles southwest of Portland in Oregon’s wine country, is often polarized between people who want to help the homeless community and those who want their homeless neighbors out of sight and, preferably, out of town.
Local efforts to protect people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic have been met with mixed reviews.
“Nothing has really changed,” said Ryan Rodgers, a McMinnville resident who is houseless. “I’m just trying to survive one day to the next.”
Shirley Evers is more impressed. Usually a full-time security guard, Evers said work has been slow lately. She lives in her car and spends most of her nights parked in a safe spot in Beaverton.
However, she regularly drives down to the Yamhill County Gospel Rescue Mission more than 30 miles away in McMinnville to do her laundry and take a shower.
“I have to be presentable for work, and there are few places in Washington County where I can even take a shower,” Evers told Street Roots. “Everything’s closed now. There’s a new shelter that’s opened up in Washington County, but it’s crowded.”
The challenges of COVID-19
However, resources for people experiencing homelessness and poverty are scarce in McMinnville, too, during the coronavirus pandemic.
The McMinnville Free Clinic at the First Baptist Church had been run by volunteer medical providers the first and third Saturdays of the month, but it closed because of the pandemic.
A big reason for the closure was lack of personal protective equipment, said Howie Harkema, a local homeless advocate and one of the founders of the clinic. But there were other factors.
“Our volunteers aren’t trained for any of this,” Harkema said. “We also don’t have any isolation areas. So it’s not just one thing. It’s a combination of things. The church isn’t even holding services, so I don’t know how we’d even get in there.”
Mike Burr is a member of the church that has traditionally served weekly breakfasts to the poor and homeless people who routinely gather at the church on First and Cowls streets.
“We’ve been struggling with the virus to figure out what to do with the homeless,” Burr told Street Roots. “The city keeps meeting, and not much seems to be done.”
Yet meals continue to be served.
“We’ve changed the way we’ve done it,” Burr said. “People still have to eat. What we’re doing is fixing bagged lunches. It has a sandwich, chips and couple of eggs. Folks miss the social time, but it’s really hard to get people to social distance.”
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He worries about the people at the mission.
“There’s no place for people to go during the day,” he said. “And I’m not bad-mouthing the mission, but the point is that when the virus sweeps through, then all of those people go back into the community. It’s a public health hazard in addition to being a tragedy for the folks.”
City council members seem indifferent, Burr said.
“I’m trying to work with the mission to get some attention from the city, but it’s like pulling teeth,” he said. “All they’re willing to do is talk about it.”
A fraught relationship
For years, city officials have grappled with a contentious relationship between housed and unhoused McMinnville residents.
Tempers flared in the fall of 2014 when members of McMinnville Cooperative Ministries, a combined Lutheran and Methodist congregation, began allowing people to camp on the church grounds.
City officials issued an ultimatum that December for the church to ban camping or face fines up to $500 per day. Church officials relented, but tensions over people living on local streets continued.
Business leaders and housed residents periodically packed the City Council chambers to complain that people experiencing homelessness were too conspicuous.
The City Council responded to outraged residents by forming a temporary Downtown Safety Task Force. The City Council ultimately adopted several task force recommendations, including a ban on smoking along downtown streets. They also required people to move out of a city-owned parking structure.
Such actions did little to lower the emotional temperature of the community.
By April 2019, the anger boiled over. Crowds booed, hissed and catcalled city officials whom they blamed for allowing people to live on the streets and in RVs parked in the city’s industrial area.
“There’s been a lot of talk about the rights of the homeless,” Gioia Goodrum, president of the McMinnville Area Chamber of Commerce, told the council at an April 9 City Council meeting last year. “What about the rights of the residents, the business owners and the taxpaying citizens of this community?”
The council responded May 28 by passing a law banning camping on public property.
Under the law, people can sleep on public property, but they have to remove themselves and any camping paraphernalia from the site between 6:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. The law also bans overnight camping in residential neighborhoods, parks, parking lots and parking structures and in the urban renewal district in downtown McMinnville.
Violators risk going to jail and having their property confiscated.
In a massive crackdown in June, police took industrial trash bins to homeless camps and threw away what remained of people’s tents and other belongings.
When the council passed the ban on camping, it also approved a safe-parking program that allowed private property owners to provide space for people living in up to three vehicles. However, the program offered no indemnity for property owners. Aside from a few parking spots offered by government and nonprofit sources, there have been few participants in the program.
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Since last year’s crackdown, there have been few signs of people living along the streets. They have, instead, been living in parks and other less conspicuous areas.
“I sleep where I can,” Rodgers said. “Last night, I was sleeping behind IHOP. I got chased out of there. Sometimes I fall asleep while I’m walking. I’ll wake up in the middle of a crosswalk with a car honking at me.”
Shelters stretched thin
The mission is where James Long feels safe.
Long became homeless Jan. 24 and had been in that position “a handful of times over the past decade,” he told Street Roots.
“My situation isn’t the typical story for homeless people, but the reality is I’m homeless right now, and I’m grateful for the mission,” he said. “They’ve really been taking a lot of precautions.”
Not everyone finds the mission so pleasant. Jack Waldow, who has been homeless for the past nine months, has a problem with the mission’s strict schedules and rules.
“It’s like a prison in there,” he said. “In fact, I had more freedom in jail. And if you break a rule or get into a fight, even if it’s not your fault, you get thrown out. And there are no other shelters in McMinnville.”
The mission operates out of three facilities — a 3,462-square-foot building for women and children, a newly built 3,500-square-foot building for men, and the 1,792-square-foot emergency shelter.
There are 17 beds in the new main building and 30 beds between the other two buildings.
All the shelters are full these days, kitchen manager Terry Woods said.
“We’re going to stay entirely open until this is over,” Woods said. “Everyone’s been complying with the rules really well. We’re keeping the 6-foot distance rule in effect.”
Kaye Sawyer founded the mission 13 years ago. After 30 years of working as a police and fire dispatcher, Sawyer said, she saw how limited local resources were for people experiencing homelessness.
She still sees the mission and other agencies stretched thin, she said, especially during the pandemic.
“I have noticed that alcohol and drug consumption is much higher than I’ve ever seen it,” Sawyer said. “We’ve had a lot of people going into the hospital because of falls and passing out due to substance abuse.”
Personal protective equipment and other supplies have been limited, Sawyer said.
“The community has been helping by sewing masks for us to get us by,” she said. Thermometers have been particularly scarce. “I finally found a thermometer from Petco that we can use until YCAP’s order of infrared ones come in,” she said, referring to Yamhill Community Action Partnership, the local social-service agency.
Sawyer said she believes she and her staff can respond to medical emergencies.
“We have the ability to isolate people that have symptoms until they’re past the time of infection,” she said.
“YCAP and the health department have also made themselves available to the mission in case we have someone that does need more than what we can provide,” Sawyer said. “They have made arrangements to transport if needed to an alternate location to keep the population here safe.”
Food supplies at the mission, however, have not been a problem, said Woods, the kitchen manager.
“I get all my stuff through YCAP and some donations that come this way,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate. Also, in the wintertime, I doubled up on supplies.”
Meeting the community’s needs
County Commissioner Casey Kulla said county health officials have provided two hand-washing stations near the police department and McMinnville First Baptist Church. These facilities were installed 11 days after the public library closed.
“If you close down the buildings where people normally wash their hands, you can’t have the expectation that people will wash their hands,” Kulla said.
There’s also a portable toilet near the Police Department. Before the portable toilet was brought in, people had to hope to find an available restroom in one of the few downtown businesses that remain open during the pandemic.
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Kulla said Yamhill County Health and Human Services is working with nonprofits and city government to use a local hotel or other location as a low-barrier shelter for women with children, where they can maintain appropriate social distances.
Partners in the shelter project reportedly include YCAP and Champion Team, a nonprofit drop-in center for people experiencing mental health challenges. Some homeless advocates said people have crammed into the agency to an unhealthy degree during the day.
Long spends much of his time during the day at Champion Team and said he’s had a more positive experience.
The risk is minimal, he said, except for a few people who tend to crowd the hallways.
“A lot of people just have their heads up their rears and don’t want to abide by the 6-foot rule,” he said. “They don’t get it. They don’t understand that one of the reasons the rule is enforced is so that Champion Team doesn’t get shut down. Then they wouldn’t have a place to be.”
Champion Team provides a vital service during the crisis.
“Just having the mission and Champion Team available to the guests gives them a sense of stability and place to go during the daytime and nighttime,” Sawyer said. “There aren’t any other places they can go during the day or evening now.”
Nonetheless, she said, social distancing at Champion Team presents a problem.
“Their building isn’t big enough for everyone,” she said.
With restrictions placed on homeless people in McMinnville even in the best of times, Long said he appreciates being able to turn to Champion Team.
“Before the big scare, I went to the library or wherever,” he said. “The biggest thing for me at Champion Team has been having a place to go during the day.”
No one from Champion Team responded to Street Roots to comment.
McMinnville City Manager Jeff Towery told Street Roots that YCAP officials are also working on increasing shelter space through a hotel voucher program. YCAP also operates a program called the Shelter Collaborative, which draws together the various players in the county.
State response
Some cities might receive funds to help their homeless residents from the federal CARES Act. However, aid to local governments is reserved for cities with populations of more than 500,000, so smaller communities like McMinnville might get nothing.
“My understanding is that the money for states goes to each state on a per-capita basis,” Towery said. “The state may further distribute money to local governments. However, I don’t know if that’s a ‘may’ or ‘shall.’ And I don’t know if the money can be used for other things.”
Cities may also receive financial reimbursement through the Federal Emergency Management Agency similar to how local governments are reimbursed for other emergencies like wildfires. There are still some questions surrounding the money, Towery said.
“It will essentially pay for the direct response to COVD-19,” he said. “It won’t replace lost revenue.”
McMinnville initially stood to receive $1.5 million this year from the Oregon Legislature through House Bill 4001. The money would have been specifically earmarked to create a local navigation center where people experiencing homelessness could secure shelter and receive an array of other social services.
Funding would also have been provided for similar centers in Salem, Eugene, Medford and Bend. However, this year’s short session ended abruptly when partisan gridlock broke out over limitations on carbon emissions. Lawmakers left Salem without taking action on House Bill 4001 and a slew of other bills.
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A collaboration
Kulla, the county commissioner, said the response to homelessness during the pandemic could always be better. Overall, he said, he is pleased with the local response.
“The big takeaway right now is that the response from the city and local nonprofit agencies to coronavirus among the homeless community has the potential of being the model for the state,” he said. “What’s been really heartening in this project is the way YCAP is working with the city. That wasn’t always the case. Trust is being built.”
Their first priority should be expanding shelter beds, he said.
“If they can work together and get a real shelter solution up and running, they can keep it going.”
But Long, who uses the mission’s services, said the biggest problem facing McMinnville’s houseless residents is not the lack of shelters and services, but the way they are treated by some of their housed neighbors.
“What really weighs on me in McMinnville is an agenda some people seem to have to make life difficult for the homeless,” he said. “I understand protecting society and keeping things decent, but my problem is I see a lot of attitudes that are pretty despicable.”
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