By Lori Raab
Bend, Ore. – A manager who’s worked at the Bethlehem Inn for the past seven years says he’s seeing a new disturbing trend at the region’s largest homeless shelter.
Chris Clouart says with a rental vacancy rate of less than 1 percent in Central Oregon many of the people they see now who need emergency housing have jobs but can’t find a place to live.
“Some of the things we are seeing right now are folks who have never experienced homelessness. We are seeing people who have jobs. and we’re seeing something we’ve never seen. Our parking lot is for the first time full because these people have jobs…they just can’t find a place.”
Clouart says people race to a property management company, but then there are 15 people there ahead of them, and so they don’t get the place.
“If you’re paying rent or a mortgage your housing costs should be around 30 percent of your income, but there are people in Bend right now that are paying 50 percent of their income in housing costs…and that is unsustainable and that will end up hurting Bend’s economy in the long term.”
Clouart says they are getting about 5 or 6 calls a day from families who are going to be homeless at the end of the month. The situation is often that they are getting evicted at the end of the month or they can’t afford the rent.
“I’ve heard people say their rent has increased by 300 a month. Landlord will call and say ‘up, 300 dollars next month’. There’s no room in these budgets. People are put under incredible pressure.”
Clouart says often people will make a judgement call about people who are in these situations and say something like the person just needs to make better decisions.
“The problem with being poor is that all of your decisions are short term. You can’t make good decisions if you’re living on the edge all the time”
He knows people who’ve left the shelter for fulltime work at a fast food job, but once they get more skilled and their pay increases they are cut way back in hours, as little as 5 hours a week, because someone else is willing to work at minimum wage.
“Some people ask me, am I an optimist or a pessimist, sometimes the glass is not half empty or half full, sometimes the glass is broken.”
The shelter still needs basic supplies like toilet paper and kitchen items. And Clouart says sleeping bags are handy for those who don’t want to stay overnight, or when they have to turn people away when they are too full.
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