BEND, OR -- A roundtable meeting Thursday held by the Coordinated Houseless Response Office brings together the U.S Forest Service, and the United States Intergovernmental Council on Homelessness, along with representatives from Deschutes County, and the cities of Bend, La Pine, Redmond, Sisters, and the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council.
Bend city councilor Megan Perkins, the CHRO board’s vice chair, says the discussion’s focus is on people living in the national forest, particularly in the China Hat area, “Knowing that in two hours, we are not going to solve China Hat, we are not going to fix China Hat, but at least we can have some ideas for future directions and an agreement that we will keep talking.”
Perkins says it is a complex situation with multiple jurisdictions involved as the area is on national forest land in Deschutes County, “We are all taking responsibility here and trying to produce some form of a release valve for our Forest Service friends that are working out of China Hat.”
Perkins hopes to take action right away, “We do a really huge surge of influx of service provision there to really take the people that we can get into either a shelter or some form of house environment. And then that leaves us more resources to work with the people that have been there for years.”
She tells KBND News those living and working around China Hat Road will provide input, “We have some State and some local individuals that are also going to be at this table. Really important: we also have people that are doing service provider work out in China Hat to talk about the problem. We're also going to hear from an individual that lived at China Hat for a few years. She can talk to us about what she sees going on there.”
Perkins admits many want to continue camping there, “But we have a lot of people in China Hat that are children, that are veterans, that are working every day, that really would like to find a more stable environment.”
The roundtable meeting starts at 10 Thursday.
The public can watch via live stream on this link.
