Tim Ellis, the Shepherd's House Ministries outreach van coordinator, right, and Sharon Buell, caseworker for Shepherd’s House, center, provide supplies to an extended family who live in a homeless camping area in Juniper Ridge north of Bend. 

Four barefoot children, all of their ages in single digits, darted across a dusty, clearing in Juniper Ridge, oblivious to the social debate that has defined where they live.

To them, this is not a homeless encampment, it’s home.

For the youngest of them, this is where they have lived their entire lives. They sleep in old campers and spend their days playing with toys they leave in the dirt. When trains rumble by, the children wave.

The children are a part of a large extended family that includes their 41-year-old grandmother, Crystal Deroche, and her daughter, 21-year-old Lizzy Deroche, the mother of two of the children.

The Deroches are content. Their spirits are light and they have as much fun as they can muster. They love their dogs, their home and their family.

“It can be fun, but it can be dreadful,” Lizzy said.

Life as they know it may soon change as Deschutes County and the city of Bend prepare to remove people living on public land in Juniper Ridge.

Deschutes County announced Tuesday it was beginning the first stage of its plan for removing people from Juniper Ridge, a result, in part, of having violated its own health and safety codes. The first stage includes placing dumpsters, portable restrooms and drinking water stations in Juniper Ridge.

Crystal Deroche said she’s looking forward to those new resources, especially the dumpsters, which will make it easier for people to keep their camps clean. It’ll be more sanitary, Crystal said.

But much is uncertain for the Deroches. They say they don’t know where they’ll go once the time to move arrives.

“As long as they tell us during the summer and not in the middle of winter,” Lizzy said.

The county’s plan is contingent on shelter options being available, which is why officials are holding off on removing people at this time, County Administrator Erik Kropp told The Bulletin on Tuesday.

The city of Bend has not finalized its own plan to remove people from its land in Juniper Ridge but said it will close railroad track crossings in the area because of demands from railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

“The illegal camps near the two crossings create an unsafe working environment for BNSF employees and contractors. BNSF workers have been subjected to harassment by illegal campers and threatened by uncontrolled dogs,” a lawyer for the railroad wrote in a July 26 letter to the city.

BNSF Railway lawyers referenced the July 19 death of Joseph Taylor Keeton, who was mauled by three dogs.

The city and the railroad had weeks of back-and-forth discussions. At one point, lawyers from BNSF Railway threatened to terminate its agreement with the city, according to records.

The city accelerated its plans and decided close the gates Aug. 18 and create a new emergency access path.

“What we don’t want to do is close the gates and lock people in with no way to get out,” city spokesperson Anne Aurand told The Bulletin on Friday.

However, the city was clear in its notices that living on public land in Juniper Ridge is not allowed.

“Camping is not allowed on the city’s land, but the city is aware that many individuals are present on the property,” a notice from the city said. “Camping on the city’s undeveloped land is dangerous, both from a public safety and public health standpoint, and the city does not approve or condone this use of its land.”

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

More than 1,600 people are homeless on a given night in Central Oregon, according to the Homeless Leadership Coalition’s most recent point in time count. Of those, 196 are children under 18. Central Oregon ranks top among rural areas in the nation for families who are homeless and not in a shelter, 2022 data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said.

Deschutes County, which recently passed new rules that ban overnight camping on county owned and controlled property, was in the process of attempting to open a managed camp for homeless people as an alternative to living outdoors outside of Bend’s urban growth boundary.

Gov. Tina Kotek quietly met with county Commissioner Patti Adair, Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch and Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler on Friday to discuss just that.

“I continue to firmly believe that we must exhaust every possible option within the UGB for shelter sites that provide practical options for people experiencing homelessness in Central Oregon like safe park sites and other alternatives to outdoor camping sites particularly as winter approaches,” Kotek said in an emailed statement. “My conversation with local elected county leaders today yielded common ground, and, I hope, a path forward.”

Ahead of people being forced to leave from Juniper Ridge, outreach workers like Sharon Buell and Tim Ellis of Shepherd’s House Ministries are doing what they can to build trust with people living there so they feel comfortable asking for help.

They offer clothes, food and toiletries, and Buell, a caseworker, attempts to get people connected to resources including housing.

“Not everyone is interested,” she said.

But she’s also had some success. There are a large handful of people on housing waiting lists, she said.

Ellis and Buell visit Juniper Ridge weekly, and they visit individual encampments on a rotating basis. Buell estimates they see 30 unique people a month. Around 70% are men and 30% are women. Building relationships gives people a little hope, said Ellis, the coordinator of the outreach van for Shepherd’s House.

“There’s very little difference between people in houses and not in houses,” Ellis said. “They’re just like us. They really enjoy connecting with their loved ones and living their life.”

Shepherd’s House Ministries accepts donations at its Lighthouse Navigation Center on Second Street. Currently the outreach van is in need of all men’s clothing, including socks and underwear, and women’s undergarments and socks.