Sage Kiernan-Sherrow | News Editor
As students drive into Salem as part of their daily route or for a day perusing the shops of downtown, they’re met by sidewalks lined with sleeping bags and valuables belonging to the Salem homeless community.
The homelessness situation in Salem is a complicated one and the dates for each individual instance that escalated the current issue are difficult to place. In early May of 2019, the homeless community members residing in Wallace Marine Park were given an ultimatum to vacate the premises following dangerous floods that caused rescue efforts to become necessary for several homeless folks. Prior to that decision, the homeless were also told to vacate Salem’s Marion Square Park underneath the bridge that leads into historic downtown Salem where nearby, the city’s new $61.8 million police station — with a $3.3 million boost from the Salem City Council, according to the Statesman Journal — is currently being built.
Recently, Salem issued a complete citywide camping ban, and groups were forced to stop setting up camp outside places like ARCHES, a service provider whose goal is to “promote housing and self-sufficiency by navigating clients from homelessness to stable housing and then to self-sufficiency,” according to their website.
Homeless folks from those areas had little choice but to congregate inwards towards the city center, first lining the walls of Rite Aid and later expanding into the mall vicinities where, now, every morning, the homeless of downtown Salem are asked to move in order for ServiceMaster Clean crews to purge the streets of human waste. Anthony Stevens, a member of the Salem homeless community, said that they were being treated better on the sidewalks compared to the sweeps through the parks which resulted in volunteers cutting up tents and tossing out people’s keepsakes.
“I’ve had friends lose their mother’s ashes and important documents,” Stevens stated.
Stevens has a mental disability which prevents him from finding work and he said that he suspects that is the case for many of the other homeless in Salem.
A regular of City Council meetings and a spokesperson for the homeless community, Stevens said that the city is currently considering declaring a state of emergency and bringing in FEMA to address the current situation. Stevens relayed that the homeless community felt torn about this possibility, with some members feeling victimized and others hoping that it would bring them much-needed support. Regardless, Stevens said “if the camping ban lifted, these streets would be empty … normally, we’re out of the public eye,” and concluded by stating, “we’re regular citizens, we just don’t have homes.”
Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu
Photo by Sage Kiernan-Sherrow
