Faced with decision of where to let homeless people camp, Turner doesn't choose a site

The debate has raged for months in Turner: what public property should the city designate to allow people who are homeless to camp.

Each potential site that was identified brought people who argued why that site shouldn’t be used. Few alternative sites were given.

Ultimately, a decision was made, but a site wasn’t chosen.

At a heated city council meeting held at the Turner Fire District headquarters Thursday night, the council voted 4-3 to allow city administrator Scott McClure to designate a place for people who want to camp in the city.

“But when you say, we’re going to have camps, we don’t know that,” Mayor Steve Horning said. “What’s going to bring people out of Salem or Portland to Turner, Oregon, when we don’t have resources to take care of them?”

Cities in Oregon have passed ordinances that state where and for how long homeless people can stay in response to state legislation and federal court rulings.

Agreeing on where to allow that in Turner has been contentious.

“This is painful,” said councilor Mike Schaufler, a former state representative in Clackamas County. “No matter what we do, nobody’s going to like it. ... But we got to do something because we have to comply with the law or be sued.”

Schaufler blamed Democrats in cities like Portland, Salem and Eugene for causing cities like to Turner to have to respond to the changes surrounding homeless camping.

Turner is a city of 2,400 located a couple miles southeast of Salem.

Each time a potential site was brought to the city council, people who lived nearby gave vocal opposition.

The council looked at David Sawyer Park – formerly Turner Park – then a city-owned gravel lot at Third Street and Delaney Road.

“My biggest concern is if you put it on Third and Delaney and we start getting homeless people in, that’s going to be the image of the city,” resident Charles Mead said. “And do we want that image?”

The ordinance the city council decided on imposes many restrictions on how long people are allowed to camp.

Turner will allow people to camp for 72 hours in a calendar year. Each person must leave by 7:30 a.m. each day and not return until 7 p.m. It also has a list of other requirements such as picking up after themselves and adhering to a noise curfew.

“We rarely have people coming through. It’s rare when we actually see someone sleeping here,” McClure said. “The police department is good at moving people into Salem where they have services. We’re hoping that regardless of where you pick, no one is really going to notice.”

Schaufler moved to enact the city ban camping on every public space except the gravel parking lot of the public works building.

But that motion failed.

Now people who want to camp in the city will have to ask the city staff where they can.

“We haven’t had anybody ask us to sleep or show up to sleep,” Horning said.

Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Faced with decision, Turner doesn't choose site for homeless to camp