NOVEMBER 26, 2021, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A3
Photo by JOEY CAPPELLETTI of Keizertimes
CAMP: ‘It isn’t something I’m
proud of.’
brainfood
Continued from page A1
To a passerby, the encampment looks
like a makeshift junkyard. Nearly three
dozen abandoned cars and RVs have
accumulated over the months, with junk
filling in the gaps. Scattered throughout
the derelict vehicles, however, are homes
of the unhoused.
Sara, the woman with the entrapped
RV, has been living at the Indian School
Road encampment for the past four
months. She is a survivor of domestic
abuse and said she became homeless
earlier this year after leaving her abuser.
Sara and Tim did not want their loca-
tions revealed to others and asked that
their real names not be used in the story.
Both names are pseudonyms.
Having worked as a home caregiver in
the past, Sara said she’s been looking for
work and housing for months. She said
Simonka Place, a Keizer-based women’s
shelter, has been full whenever she’s
inquired.
Kathy Smith, the director of Simonka
Place, said the shelter has turned away
659 women and 279 children from
September 2020 to August 2021 due to
being at capacity.
Sara said a friend gave her the RV a
couple of months ago “just so I’d have a
roof over my head.” Like many of the res-
idents of the encampment, Sara’s RV is
her only protection from the unforgiving
Oregon winter. If she’s unable to move it,
she said she’ll have no choice but to live
on the sidewalks in downtown Salem.
“They are going to take our homes
away from us and then we will just be
bodies on the street,” Sara said.
Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 10 a.m.
Residents cram belongings into the
back of their cars. Hoods of cars are
popped throughout the camp — owners
leaned over engines that haven’t started
in months. One couple yells out in relief
as their car sputters to a start.
State and local officials dispute that
the clearing of the camp was sudden.
Angela Beers-Seydel, a spokesperson for
ODOT, said that officials notified camp-
ers through camp postings on Nov. 2.
While two no trespassing signs are
visible, there are no postings at the camp
that indicate residents were warned of
the removal before Nov. 15.
The agency said the camp needed
to be cleared because “we had received
concerns from the farmer that access to
their farm was repeatedly blocked and
concerns from Chemawa Indian School
about the safety of their students follow-
ing police activity at the site.”
Delores Pigsley, chairman of the
Confederate Tribes of Siletz Indians, said
that she’s tried to have Indian School
Road cleaned up for months. Pigsley said
that the camp has become a safety con-
cern since students returned to school in
September.
A groundskeeper at the school was
attacked by a homeless person earlier
this year, according to Pigsley, and two
of the school’s buses had their windows
smashed. The encampment sits just out-
side of the school’s fences and less than
a half-mile from the Chemawa Cemetery.
“It’s a concern for the students but
also I have family buried at the cemetery
and I want to feel safe when I park and go
into the cemetery,” said Pigsley.
While Pigsley wants the camp dis-
persed, she also wants the couches, mat-
tresses and other trash that lines Indian
School Road to be cleaned up.
“It’s not the homeless,” said Pigsley.
“Two guys in a pickup were dumping a
mattress the other day. They were dump-
ing it out the back of their truck.”
She added, “I do feel bad about the
homeless people. They need to be pun-
ished but someone needs to help them,
they can’t just keep moving them and
moving them. If you don't have a place
to go to the bathroom or throw your gar-
bage, they throw it on the ground. It’s not
just their problem, it's our problem.”
Tim, whose bike I’d asked to take a
photo of earlier, doesn’t dispute that
trash has overtaken Indian School Road.
“Not all of us do this messy (exple-
tive). I think it’s filthy, ya know, I person-
ally try to help clean up whenever I come
around. But that is something they’ll
need to control if they do want to be
accepted anywhere,” he says.
But Tim says that a lot of the trash
that lines Indian School Road hasn’t
come from campers.
See CAMP, page 6
crossword
answers pg A22