People gather at a homeless camp in Juniper Ridge on the outskirts of northeast Bend on June 2.  

Deschutes County will begin the early stages of a homeless encampment cleanup on 50 acres in Juniper Ridge, north of Bend, this week.

People won’t be forced to move yet, a Tuesday announcement from the county said. Instead, contractors will place drinking-water stations, trash containers and portable toilets on the county property and begin cleaning up human and solid waste. People camping in Juniper Ridge won’t have to move until the county establishes a managed camp, the announcement said.

The county won’t say when it will remove people from its property in Juniper Ridge. It also needs state approval to create a managed camp outside city limits, which it hasn’t received yet.

“Even though we’re not requiring them to leave, we’d prefer them to go to a shelter or other resources,” County Administrator Erik Kropp said.

The county is attempting to balance the safety of the people living on Juniper Ridge along with the safety of the rest of the community, he said. That includes providing basic necessities for people living outdoors in an effort to prevent the problem from getting worse.

The cleanup arose when the county violated its own code because of health and safety concerns in the Juniper Ridge area. Those included people using a nearby canal for drinking water and bathing, and the presence of excessive human waste and garbage that could potentially attract rodents, according to public records. The county was concerned about bacteria and disease transmission, records said.

County officials became aware of the code violations on Juniper Ridge in March, but the information wasn’t made public until June, according to documents obtained by The Bulletin. The city committed a similar code violation, but it will be handling its own cleanup plan, Kropp said.

Juniper Ridge spans 1,500 acres north of Bend. It’s a mix of publicly-owned property, including the county, the city of Bend and an irrigation district. Some estimate homeless people have been living there for around a decade, and the county says anywhere between 100-200 people are currently living there.

On June 21, county Commissioners Patti Adair and Tony DeBone approved a 10-week plan that could cost up to $300,000 for removing people from Juniper Ridge. The county’s Tuesday announcement is the first phase of that plan. Commissioner Phil Chang abstained from voting on the matter.

The commissioners frequently clash when attempting to address homelessness. However, they gave their unanimous approval to new rules in July that ban overnight camping on county owned or controlled property. Under the new rules, the county can close county property to those staying or camping there with notice, but alternative shelter options must exist because of federal case law.

“Part of that discussion led us to hold off on requiring people to leave right now because the board had public discussions about needing a managed camp or other places for people to go,” Kropp said.

The county does not want to run the risk of people currently on county land moving to other publicly owned property like federal land managed by the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management, Kropp said.

He added: “This is really not the time to ask people to leave.”

The county posted notices of its plan Tuesday afternoon, and Central Oregon Bio Solutions, one of the county contractors, will beginning cleaning up waste Monday.