People walk through Wallace Marine Park with their belongings as city crews city sweep a homeless encampment on Thursday March 31, 2022. (Ron Cooper/Salem Reporter)
After camping for five months at Wallace Marine Park, Kyler Walls had no choice but to pack up and leave.
Walls, her fiancé and her two dogs had lived in a homeless encampment at the west Salem park since October. It was working for them – they had a small community there as well as a space for her dogs to play.
On Thursday, workers from the city of Salem cleared the camp and residents dispersed. The city has not offered any other camping location.
Walls said she said she has nowhere to go. Her camper was also towed days prior after she lost her key.
“We’ve lost a lot of what we own, and we’re moving back into the woods,” she said, choked up. “It’s the only safe spot we have where they don’t bug people.”
Around a week before the sweep, city officials posted signs that the park would be closed the following Wednesday for cleaning. The early deadline was intended to mitigate the number of campers still packing up at the time of the sweep, said city spokesman Trevor Smith.
City crews arrived at 8 a.m. Thursday and shortly after began clearing the space, using skid steers to haul clothes, furniture and other items from campsites spread among the trees. Contracted workers from ServiceMaster of Salem also helped with the sweep.
A skid steer hauls clothes and other items through Wallace Marine Park as city crews city clear a homeless encampment on Thursday March 31, 2022. (Ron Cooper/Salem Reporter)
Wallace Marine was one of two parks where the city allowed homeless people to camp for much of the pandemic. The arrangement provided some stability for camp residents for over a year, but city officials last May said it would eventually end such camping.
Smith said the last time city crews were at Wallace Marine Park was Jan. 6, when they cleared the parking lot area near the softball complex. Before that, they cleared the north area of the park near the Willamette River on Dec. 2. The most recent sweep has been in planning for at least two months.
The sweep came after the state Department of Transportation posted notice March 17 to vacate 16 other locations along Front, Marion and Center streets in downtown Salem, including the encampment where police say an intoxicated man crashed a car Sunday and killed four residents.
City spokeswoman Kathy Ursprung said in an email Monday they planned to clean the area due to “public health concerns of conditions” at the park.
“I know residents of Salem recognize the issue and realize how difficult it is, and that there aren’t really any good answers. There’s no silver bullet for people who are experiencing (homelessness),” Smith said.
Smith said social service teams visit city parks daily to check on campers and, ahead of sweeps, help get them connected with resources.
“I know that they’re limited. I know some aspects of the resources have waitlists, but we really do try to identify places you can go and things that could help to help you with those issues,” he said.
Smith said the city doesn’t have an estimate of how many people were camping at Wallace Marine Park before the sweep.
Don Homer lived at the park for four years, sleeping in his car.
When asked if he has a place to go after the sweep, he said, “No not really. I just hit the parking lots, I go out to the rest area and stay for a few hours, but they’re kicking people out of there too if you stay over there.”
Flori Black hasn’t been homeless in three years but went to the park Thursday morning to help clean up garbage. She said her sister living at the camp didn’t know where she would go until “the very last minute,” when Black called someone and arranged for her to park her fifth-wheel camper in their driveway.
Flori Black sweeps garbage at Wallace Marine Park as city crews clear a homeless encampment on Thursday March 31, 2022. Black transitioned into housing three years ago and hasn’t been homeless since. (Ron Cooper/Salem Reporter)
She said the homeless in Salem need a designated place to camp.
“There’s literally nowhere that they can go that they feel safe, that they feel like they’re not going to be in trouble,” she said.
Walls said people often don’t understand the challenges of surviving on the street without having lived through it themselves.
“It’s supposed to be the community helping out the community, not people just fending for themselves and the others just have to try and survive and struggle. The world is hard enough,” she said. “We don’t need a hand out, we need a hand up.”
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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