Notice of an upcoming ODOT camp sweep is posted under the Market Street overpass in Salem on July 12, 2021. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter)
Dozens of people living under Salem’s Interstate 5 overpass on Market Street will have to find another place to stay starting July 19.
The Oregon Department of Transportation plans to sweep the encampment with Oregon State Police on Monday, spokesman Lou Torres said. The department posted notices under the overpass on July 8.
The agency typically sweeps camps on its property regularly. But starting in March 2020, federal and state health authorities recommended against actions that would displace unsheltered people who were camping because of concerns that disrupting camps would increase the spread of Covid and make it harder for service providers to connect with their clients.
Torres said that led to the Market Street encampment growing to one of the largest camps the agency has ever seen in Salem.
“We weren’t able to address any of these areas. Some of them got really big,” Torres said.
When Gov. Kate Brown lifted Oregon’s state of emergency, Torres said that allowed the department to resume clearing camps.
Ahead of the sweep, the City of Salem is working with service providers to help people find other places to stay, city spokeswoman Emily DuPlessis-Enders said.
She said outreach workers from Salem Housing Authority have already begun talking to people living in the camp. The city is organizing events ahead of and during the sweep in the parking lot of the nearby Denny’s on Market Street where multiple agencies will be available to talk to people and try to find them housing.
But she acknowledged the city doesn’t have enough shelter space for everyone being displaced, particularly for women.
Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, the area’s largest homeless service provider, estimated over 125 people were living at the Market Street camp at its peak. The number has fallen in recent weeks as some people have prepared for an expected sweep by moving elsewhere.
“Sweeps never really change the total homeless population. It just tends to redistribute them through other parts of town. Sometimes that’s better for them, sometimes it’s worse but it always causes a lot of anxiety,” he said. “It’s going to be a pretty traumatic event.”
Several people have died at the Market Street camp in recent months, Jones said, including a man found dead in his tent during the heat wave. One client was shot there in June, and a woman died of a drug overdose recently. Several people have also been hit by cars, he said.
“That camp had gotten pretty rough so it’s probably going to be a better situation for most folks if it’s redistributed,” Jones said.
But with about 1,000 unsheltered people living on the streets in Salem and Keizer, Jones said nearly all the campers will just end up pitching tents elsewhere.
“We don’t have shelter capacity for that. We’re not close to shelter capacity for that,” he said. Many of those camping under the overpass won’t go to a shelter because they’re part of a couple that wants to stay together, have pets or have mental illnesses that are made worse staying indoors with strangers.
“They will resettle somewhere, whether it’s an organized camp or unorganized camp,” Jones said.
DJ Vincent, executive director of Church at the Park, said his organization will have workers at the Market Street camp before and during the sweep to sign people up for space at a new managed camp. That’s scheduled to open on Portland Road in the coming weeks, though those beds won’t be available until the end of July. That site will have 60 beds available, he said.
Torres said the transportation department expects it will take two or three days to clean the encampment. Personal belongings collected during the sweep will be stored at their maintenance facility so people can reclaim them, he said. After finishing at Market Street, state crews will sweep the camp along the Salem Parkway in Keizer. The agency expects to finish both sweeps by the end of the week, Torres said.
“We know that there are a number of other illegal campsites in the area but we’re not going to get to those right now,” he said.
He said it’s not yet clear whether Market Street will have lane closures during the sweeps, but said drivers should prepare for heavier traffic and large trucks in the area.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
