BEND, OR -- Central Oregon's first ever civic assembly begins its next phase Friday, to find solutions to youth homelessness. The group of 30 delegates began learning about the issue last month. "The energy that came out of that first two days of the assembly was off the charts," says Josh Burgess, Executive Director of the Central Oregon Civic Action Project. He admits at first, the group was hesitant the ideas would be taken seriously, "When we let them know that this is their assembly, they're in control, they're making the decisions, we're just there facilitating, they turned into a mini legislature."

Burgess tells KBND News, "They'd been hearing, in that first couple of days, from government officials, from school board officials, from people with lived experience with youth homelessness, a wide range of experts, just to fully gain some perspective." He's impressed with the diversity of the group, "Some people have direct experience living next door to encampments, and feel the challenges there. Other people were homeless themselves, as youth. What we found though is that they came together over this idea of listening to young people come and talk about their experiences and becoming what I referred to as very, very quick experts about what the root causes are, and what the impacts are of youth homelessness." 

Over the next three days, "They'll start to really dig into deliberating on what they believe some of the priorities for solutions should be," says Burgess, who is helping moderate the meetings. The goal is for them to create a list of recommended actions, but it must get the support of at least 80%of the assembly. "Fast forward to November seventh," says Burgess, "And those recommendations will be presented to the full board of directors for the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council for their consideration." COIC will then work with the Bend City Council and Deschutes County Commissioners, who have agreed to consider the ideas. 

This weekend's deliberations at OSU-Cascades are open to the public. The meeting is also livestreamed HERE.