Eugene weekly., October 21, 2021, Page 9, Image 9

type of activism he would become known for in Eugene
two years later. Jackson even self-published a book about
solutions for homelessness.
However, the peaceful pothead community at Stoner
Hill wasn’t meant to last; it quickly turned into a haven
for hard drug use and homelessness, according to The
Denver Post. There was trash everywhere and fights were
common. Both Jackson and his son had separate run-ins
with Denver police inside the park. By 2017, the park looked
radically different and the homeless were kicked out.
This is when Jackson says he landed in Eugene with
the sole purpose of helping the unhoused. While his move-
ment failed in Denver, Jackson believed Eugene to be the
kind of place something could catch on.
population to qualify for the alternate housing — making
the resources inadequate and the prohibited camping
tickets illegal, according to Jackson.
Skinner says, “It’s their First Amendment right to
camp wherever they want and protest.” But, he adds, “The
nuance is that in most instances when we deal with that
particular group, we had a space or shelter for them, but
they chose not to go.”
According to court documents, between Jan. 4 and
Dec.16, 2019, Jackson was cited for prohibited camping
53 times. This is in addition to scores of other citations
and small violations also listed in the documents.
Emphasis on ‘Adequate’
In June 2020, Jackson, along with about a dozen other
plaintiffs from the protest camps, filed a federal lawsuit
against the Eugene police, the city of Eugene and Lane
County, among other people individually named, claiming
that the city violated his constitutional rights by continu-
ally criminalizing Jackson’s way of life and the way of life
of thousands of unhoused Eugeneans.
“I’m not looking for big money damages from the city,
I’m looking for big change from the city,” Jackson says.
“The only money damages I'm looking for is mostly from
the county for their failure at Camp 99.”
Jackson’s federal lawsuit relies heavily on the precedent
set in the Boise case. On Dec.16, 2019, when the Supreme
Court denied a petition by the city of Boise, it bound all of
the states under the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, includ-
ing Oregon, to the decision.
Jackson wasted little time after arriving in Eugene. By
August 2018, he was already considered the public face
of a protest camp formed around the Butterfly Lot park-
ing structure, across Oak Street from the Lane County
Courthouse.
The Butterfly Lot protest camp formed shortly after
Martin v. Boise, the 2018 appeals court decision based on
the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's prohibi-
tion on cruel and unusual punishment. It held that cities
can’t enforce anti-camping bans if there aren’t available
homeless shelter beds.
In late October 2018, Lane County opened an official
homeless camp on Hwy 99 to relocate homeless camp-
ers who were congregating at Butterfly Lot, citing health
and safety concerns as reasons for making the move.
The county later temporarily closed the area and evicted
some campers who had returned to the site. There were
no arrests or citations.
Camp 99 was closed down in January 2019. In announc-
ing the pending closure, county officials said there were
increasing reports of violence among campers and at
least one known fire and several drug overdoses. Offi-
cials also said Camp 99 also showed evidence of rats, dog
waste and trash, despite dumpsters being provided on
site. Jackson says these claims are exaggerated and were
used as bogus reasons to shut down the camp before it
had time to succeed.
Jackson felt discouraged after the closing of Camp
99. At the time, the county still hadn’t approved a long-
proposed Dusk to Dawn temporary shelter that would
house upwards of 80 people and be run by St. Vincent
de Paul.
Chief Skinner admits that resources are scant and that
there simply aren’t enough beds to house everyone that’s
homeless in Lane County. He said in March 2020 that the
city planned on providing a 75-bed shelter, although when
and where it will be built had yet to be decided.
“The initial 75-bed shelter is really important to me,”
Skinner says. “It’s not kind to go up to someone and say,
‘Hey you can’t sleep here, but by the way I don’t have
anywhere else for you to go.’”
It was only this month, more than two years after
Camp 99, that Eugene finally opened its first Safe Sleep
site on 2nd and Garfield, with capacity to shelter up to 55
people. St. Vinnie’s opened its ‘Dawn to Dawn’ shelter off
Hwy 99 in 2020. The location is close to the old Camp 99
and holds up to 110 people. It’s funded through the end
of the year, according to its website.
In early 2020, Jackson, along with 75-year-old Pat
Hadley, had been staying in front of former Eugene mayoral
candidate Zondie Zinke’s house. They were forced to
relocate after the city of Eugene began fining Zinke more
than $300 a day until they left.
Through it all, Jackson has been issued a litany of
different tickets and violations — and he isn’t the only one.
Before ticketing, EPD says they give campers the
opportunity to accept alternate housing provided by
resources given out by the police. They’ll even offer to give
the campers a ride to the new location, often someplace
like White Bird Clinic or St. Vincent de Paul.
But shelters often have strict rules for who can stay
the night. Not all of them accept dogs, and most require
sobriety. This makes it difficult for some of the homeless
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
Boise Case
Photo by Keven Salazar
Kimberly E. Leefatt, an associate attorney who worked
on Martin v. Boise, explains that Boise shifted the respon-
sibility of having a shelter from the person who is involun-
tarily homeless to the municipalities who are attempting
to clean up homelessness.
“The decision was, if you have enough available beds,
even if it's not enough to serve the entire population, as
long as there is no option of sleeping in those available
beds, whatever that reason would be, the government
cannot criminalize the homeless.”
Boise has limitations. Under the ruling, each instance
where someone could be ticketed is based on the avail-
ability of shelter beds at that point in time. However, the
case does not define what availability means. Often, there
could be a bed that is open in a shelter, but restrictions on
things like having an animal or dealing with an addiction
can make that bed unavailable to that particular person.
“If Eugene doesn’t have a policy in place to call every
shelter, every night, for every homeless person they
encounter, then they can’t say they are in compliance
with the law,” Leefatt says.
“At some point there needs to be some sort of account-
ability for that officer. How do they know a bed is available?”
Leefatt says that it is up to Eugene to create a compas-
sionate definition of availability and to consider whether
someone is unable to access shelter for whatever reason,
even if a bed is available.
“A compassionate definition would include these issues
of mental illness,” she says. “It would include these issues
of family dynamics. Let’s define availability in a way that
preserves the humanity of these people.”
Jackson Goes to Jail
Jackson says if he’s learned anything from COVID-19,
it’s that homeless people are more than capable of main-
taining a livable area as a large group. He points to large
camps allowed to exist during the pandemic — such as
the one on Chambers and at Washington Jefferson Park
— as examples.
At first, Eugene police greatly scaled back their sweeps
of homeless encampments, as per the CDC’s orders, and
in some instances even provided temporary dumpsters,
port-o-potties and running water for the residents. It’s
the type of temporary solution that Jackson thoroughly
believes could be permanent with the right help from
the city.
But even in the shadows of a national pandemic, it
didn’t last long. An analysis of city records obtained by
Eugene Weekly and the Catalyst Journalism Project in
June 2020 showed that unhoused people were forced to
move from their campsites more than 1,600 times since
the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Jackson hasn’t received a ticket of any kind since
February 2020. He’s spent a majority of the pandemic
living in a tent in Zinke’s backyard, typing up his civil
suit from his phone, and searching for the momentum
he had when he successfully leveraged his Butterfly Lot
protest into Camp 99.
“I still want the city to give me the opportunity to take
care of what they asked me to take care of,” Jackson said.
“I still have the 150 people I’ve made inroads with who
qualify as low barrier, which they said is the only thing
they’ll finance.”
He spent a week in the Springfield Municipal Jail
at the beginning of February, where he finished out a
12-day sentence for two separate criminal trespassing
charges that date back to October 2019. Jackson sought
to appeal the charges, but says he missed a court date
due to COVID-19.
Zinke protested Jackson’s week-long stay in jail, call-
ing it a pointless and dangerous exercise of authority to
put a nonviolent person in jail with recirculated air in the
middle of a global pandemic.
The defendants in Jackson’s sweeping civil suit filed
a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim in June
2021. Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai filed an advice notice on
June 16, telling Jackson that he can’t rely on his original
complaint when answering to these motions; that he’ll
need to provide more evidence to make sure his case
doesn’t get thrown out.
“If you do not submit your own evidence in opposition,
the motion to dismiss will be granted, your case will be
dismissed, and there will be no trial,” Judge Kasubhai
writes in the filing.
It may seem as if Jackson has been more quiet lately,
but he isn’t gone. Filing a civil suit against a city is already
an uphill battle. Doing it while living in a tent — through
snowstorms, pandemics and heat waves — seems almost
impossible. Yet, through it all, Jackson is the same jarringly
confident man that he was nearly three years ago at Camp
99 and the Butterfly Lot, and his frustration with the city
has only grown more fervent.
Why did Jackson give up everything in his personal life
to help a city he had no connection to until only recently?
He says it’s because he made a commitment.
“Yeah, it really is,” Jackson says. “That's why I literally
wear a wedding ring. So that I don't forget that I’m married
to this cause, and I can't just walk away. Because there's
no voice. Nobody else has the ability to speak up because
they get pushed down by police. I won't be backed down
by the police. I'll do the time in jail. I don't care.” ■
With additional reporting from Rachel McKinnon.
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