Eugene City Council extends Safe Sleep Sites through at least June 2025

Alan Torres, Eugene Register-Guard
·4 min read

Eugene city councilors voted unanimously this week to continue operations of three of the five sites opened under the city's Safe Sleep Site program until at least June 30, 2025. The other two sites operate under approval from the state government and weren't affected by the vote but will continue to receive city funding.

The city described the Safe Sleep Sites as shelters in between "emergency shelters" such as Dawn to Dawn and "programmatic models" such as Rest Stops. At Monday's meeting, councilors praised the work of the sites and said they wanted them to keep going.

"(An) average of 25% of these people who go through these facilities get into permanent housing, which is exactly what we're trying to do," Councilor Alan Zelenka said. "Those numbers are really high comparatively speaking to other communities, and just really high compared to the alternative, which is nothing, with very little services to get people to housing."

Day Lead supervisor Rick Hatfield does the rounds at the St. Vincent de Paul 410 Garfield Safe Sleep Site in Eugene. Officials hope to use money from the Oregon legislature to expand services later this year.
Day Lead supervisor Rick Hatfield does the rounds at the St. Vincent de Paul 410 Garfield Safe Sleep Site in Eugene. Officials hope to use money from the Oregon legislature to expand services later this year.

Funding, capacity concerns for Safe Sleep Sites in Eugene

Some councilors voiced concerns over the sites' costs but signed on to the extension through the 2024-25 fiscal year, which is as long as the funding from the federal, state and county governments the city's been using for Safe Sleep Sites is projected to last.

"It's just an extension to the point at which we won't have funding available," City Manager Sarah Medary said. "And you (councilors) will need to have a conversation, a policy decision, about all these items that have one-time dollars — how you will move forward after those one-time dollars run out."

According to data from Lane County Health & Human Services, 3,574 people were unhoused in Eugene in January 2024. In a memo to councilors, city staff said there are approximately 1,000 shelter spots in Eugene, which includes all five Safe Sleep Sites among other shelters. The three sites extended Monday collectively provide 112 beds and 54 car and RV spots of shelter.

The Chase Commons Safe Sleep Site in Eugene.
The Chase Commons Safe Sleep Site in Eugene.

Long waitlists for St. Vincent de Paul’s sites

Approximately 1,100 people on the active waitlists for St. Vincent de Paul’s Safe Sleep Sites at 310 Garfield St. and 410 Garfield St., spokesperson Joel Gorthy told the Register-Guard.

Gorthy said 310 Garfield St. has an active waitlist of approximately 600 people, and 410 Garfield St. has approximately 500, with little-to-no overlap between the groups because of the differences between the sites. The 310 Garfield St. site offers car and RV parking, while 410 Garfield St. offers mostly indoor tents, plus a few Conestoga huts.

This translates to an average three-month wait for a spot at 410, and a longer wait time for a spot at 310, which Gorthy said St. Vincent de Paul staff couldn't properly estimate because of low turnover. That issue "serves to further illustrate how much demand exists for the limited legal vehicle-camping sites in Eugene," he said.

Safe Sleep Sites available to Eugene's homeless population

Citing a growing homeless population and reduced shelter capacity due to the pandemic, city councilors voted to create the city's Safe Sleep Sites in April 2021.

With a combination of one-time money from the American Rescue Plan, a state grant for shelter operations, and later money from the state's All-In program, the city established and began to pay for the operation of five Safe Sleep Sites:

  • 310 Garfield St., which opened in October 2021 and accommodates 44 RV spots and 10 car spots according to Gorthy. Run by St. Vincent de Paul.

  • Everyone Village, which opened in December 2021 with a mixture of shelter types and a 40-space capacity, and has since grown to 70 shelter spaces. Run by Everyone Church.

  • 410 Garfield St., which opened in February 2022 with 86 indoor tents and has grown to 92 beds with added outdoor Conestoga Huts. Run by St. Vincent de Paul.

  • Rosa, which opened in July 2022 with 40 shelters before being replaced by the same number of shelters for Opportunity Village 2.0 at the same location.

  • Tom Campbell at Chase Commons, which opened in March 2023 with 20 pallet shelters for people with "special medical needs." Run by Carry it Forward.

Everyone Village and Opportunity Village 2.0 now technically get their permission to operate from the state government instead of the city, but still rely on city-allocated funding.

The five sites collectively created 186 shelter beds and 55 vehicle camping spots, according to a staff summary. The city never reached its initial goal of 300 beds and 200 vehicle camping spots, mostly because of the costs of setting up and running the sites. The city spent approximately $5 million to set up and run the safe sites in their first year.

Alan Torres covers local government for the Register-Guard. He can be reached over email at atorres@registerguard.com or on X @alanfryetorres.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Eugene extends Safe Sleep homeless sites through June 2025