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| HOUSELESS JOURNAL, Issue #6, May 1994 GOOD-BYE AGAIN, CAR CAMP! |
| "Legal in May; Criminals in June?" was our refrain last year when we were anticipating the closing of the car camp. And the exact same scenario is to be enacted again this year: as of June 1st we will once again be reduced to the status of criminals as we are forced to resume camping illegally, or to jump in our cars and hit the highway a la Bonnie and Clyde (which may have sounded like a glamorous story when we were young, but the life of a fugitive-on-the-run gets old in a hurry, I'll clue ya!) Those of us who are fortunate enough to own vehicles will at least be able to camp in the national forests for two-week periods without being harassed. That is, assuming we don't have immediate business that will keep us in the city, AND assuming we can afford the constantly-needed gas, repairs, and INSURANCE PAYMENTS to keep our rigs running safely on the road (and many of us are hard-pressed to meet these needs.) But a lot of people who have only tents will have to go back to "ducking-and-dodging" in the city parks, as Rick and I did last summer. NO progress has been made toward striking the anti-camping ordinance from the law books since then... ...And so, folks, what do we have to look forward to in the way of another legal camp in the future? According to the latest reports from the Shelter Work Group, not as much as we've had so far this year. They now have some semi-solid plans for a new site which would be open year-round. BUT there is a catch: it will have stay limits of 60 days in the winter, 45 days in summer. This is because of stupid zoning laws that only allow temporary camping on public land, and is in keeping with the concept of a homeless camp as "emergency shelter." But it is also a well-known fact that quite a few people stayed at the car camp for the entire three months it was open last year, and will also stay for the entire six months this year. It is clear that for many of us there is a need for an ongoing trailer-park type of arrangement as, for several reasons, we are more or less resigned to living in our campers or vehicles indefinitely...This need has been brought up to the Shelter Work Group, and a subcommittee was set up in February to look into possibilities for a long-term, low-rent mobile home park. But the conclusion,was that there is "no realistic possibility" of such a thing at the present time, so the idea was basically dropped. Among the long-term residents of the car camp there has been a growing sense of the place as a community, a neighorhood where we live. Yet all along it has been treated as if it were a transient motel or commercial campground where people are merely "passing through" and never even meet their neighbors. The City of Eugene prefers this fiction to the reality; and entities such as the Shelter Work Group are still sadly out of touch with the realities we face as well. (This is admittedly due in part to lack of participation by homeless campers at their meetings.) We need not only a camp that's open year-round, but also one in which we can have some degree of self-government, stability, and recognition of the fact that we are members of a distinct community with an identity of its own. There are too many of us whose needs will never be met by a temporary shelter type of camp, and who also have done nothing to deserve being criminalized again as the only alternative. We can't go on forever being moved around like pawns on a chessboard by politicians and bureaucrats who still perceive us as mindless idiot children and totally discount our feelings and perceptions of what is going on. We are the ones who will live in these camps; therefore we are the best judges of what kinds of conditions we need to live in. And this fact can only become more true as time goes on. The government simply cannot ignore it forever. As I am writing this it is still only April, but people in the car camp are already feeling the stress as we are anticipating The End and what it will mean for us. Fuses are short and tempers are flaring. Unless closer attention is soon paid to what is really going on here and what is really needed, there will be more trouble and repercussions down the road. And that's not a threat--it's a simple statement of fact. Issue #7, June 1994 FROM THE EDITOR ...Rick and I are moving into a beautiful new camper which is somewhat larger and much more homey than our previous one; and our cat Trina is expecting kittens. So ironically we are getting more domestic as the car camp is about to close and we will have to take our new home on the road, to live like Gypsies again and take the old risks again. There are countless people in this situation, who have beautiful mobile homes that they care about, but must keep constantly lugging around on wheels for lack of any permanent place to keep them. All we ask right now is that we not be criminalized while we are living this way. We can't afford to pay fines or towing fees, and we couldn't bear to lose our cats. If everyone would simply practice "live and let live" as we do, we would be just fine... (click here to view next page) |