BEND, OR -- Bend City Councilors continue to work through guidelines for a new code regulating unsanctioned camping. City Manager Eric King says advocates for the houseless community brought concerns and questions to a recent open house, "Saying that 'you should be focused more on support services and building more capacity, not regulating camping in the rights of way.' We also got concerns about a lot of the crimes that are occurring, they’re very difficult to - I think a lot of folks have an impression that we can go arrest folks, when we have to see the crime in progress. I think this is an issue that generates a lot of interest from the public on all sides."

Councilors and city staff this week began developing time, place and manner guidelines. "Things like avoiding any kind of destruction of public property, excavation, digging, connecting to electrical outlets," King told KBND News Thursday, "We also talked about the size of a footprint for a camp and what that could be."

King says this will be a lengthy process, "We’ve got probably another work session to go, another Council meeting. We’ll have a draft code in September and then we’ll have some opportunities for the public to get more involved. We’ll have some roundtable discussions with the public in late September and probably adopt the code in October or November."