09/29/2026
We wanted to take a moment to address something that is happening in the regional landscape of homelessness and services that has begun to impact our small town. The City of Salem has started enforcing camping bans in Wallace Marine Park through widespread sweeps. This process involves posting notices across camp sites deeply embedded in the park and following up with the total removal of structures and belongings that have been left there. Some people who have lived in the park are able to gather some of their belongings and move to another location in the city. Some people lose their belongings entirely. If you have been in downtown Salem recently, you have probably noticed what looks like markedly increased homelessness on city streets and in parks. This isn’t because homelessness has increased but because people have been displaced. While services including low-barrier shelter, recovery based shelter and housing, and supportive services have increased over the past several years across Marion and Polk Counties, they have not been able to keep up with the increased need for shelter and housing. There are simply more unhoused people across our continuum of care than there are beds and homes.
While Silverton has managed to meet most of our local needs, we are starting to see the impact of the sweeps. Last week we had three people displaced from Salem camps arrive in our community within a three hour window. We do our best to meet every person with compassion, support, and competent services regardless of where they come from. If they have no ties to the Silver Falls community, our response is welcoming and supportive while we work to connect them to services in their home community within a short period of time. Of course, every adult has the right to go and live in whichever community they choose. There is a tension here between responding to human suffering, respecting civil rights and human dignity, and honoring the safety of our local community. We want to be transparent about our approach and the challenges we face as an organization and as a community. We appreciate the calls from local community members who express concern about the safety of newly displaced individuals, people experiencing behavioral health crises, and about the community in general. We will always do our best to respond in a timely, Trauma Informed way to these calls.
The impact of Salem’s sweeps is felt most by the people whose living spaces, inadequate as they may be, are lost. We know from years of research that sweeps do nothing to address homelessness but do cause harm to both the unhoused and to the system of care that aims to support them. Vital documents are lost. Basic needs become the priority over service navigation. People have to start over and they have to take up a space. Sweeps simply do not work without meaningful and adequate service pathways.
We also recognize the logic behind sweeps. We recognize the impact to quality of life for all community members, housed and unhoused, of unmanaged, unsheltered homelessness. We understand that municipalities have a responsibility to maintain safety and order and that the housing and homelessness crisis seems bigger than any one entity can address. We understand the reasons behind the sweeps and we recognize that they most often cause more harm to both individuals who are directly impacted and to the community at large. What we need is a robust and sustained investment in competent, transparent, and accountable services that go beyond one budget cycle or one political moment.
Over the years Sheltering Silverton has adapted to meet the needs of people who fall through the loose weave of systems meant to serve people with disabilities, people with complex behavioral health needs, and seniors living in poverty. These systems often take months to years to respond to individual needs and the emergency shelter services that try to catch them in the meantime do not have the resources, space, or staffing levels to safely do so. Did you know that a senior with disabilities experiencing incontinence might be kicked out of a Salem shelter for making a mess without being offered incontinence supplies or accomodations? Did you know that if a person has a severe and persistent mental illness, they might have to wait for six months to access medication and they might have to commit a crime in order to receive inpatient treatment? Did you know that a senior living on $1000 a month of Social Security could lose their home if they are unable to care for themselves and lack the support to access caregiving? They might become homeless for six months before they can get into a Medicaid supported assisted living facility. Did you know that a person with schizophrenia has a 50-98% chance of also experiencing Anosognosia, which is a lack of insight or awareness that they have an illness at all. Did you know that mental health care cannot be compelled unless a person presents a very clear danger to themselves or others, often determined by law enforcement? Did you know that over half of the people who become homeless in our country have suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury at some point in their life, affecting decision making, cognition, and impulse control?
These are the systemic gaps that intersect in homeless shelters and out on the streets of our rural communities and cities across Oregon. What do compassionate and responsible communities do to respond? We run up services, create safe, clean, dignified places for people to live while they await the proper care and support they deserve as human beings and as our neighbors. Silverton continues to support these services broadly and through sustained collaboration and investment. Sheltering Silverton benefits from earnest partnership with our hospital and health care system, law enforcement, our school system, and our municipal government. Regionally, we partner with other homeless services providers and a complex and under-resourced behavioral health system as well as senior and disability services. And in the meantime, we do our best to feed, house, care for, and enrich the lives of the people waiting for a permanent home or place to live in safety and dignity.
Thank you for your continued support and patience as we all navigate one of Oregon’s biggest challenges together.
The morning of Monday, Sept. 21, the city of Salem removed around 20 campsites from Wallace Marine Park as part of its effort to put a stop to homeless camping in the area. While the city says it prioritizes referrals for shelters ahead of removals, most campers packing up their things told Salem Re...
