Roughly two years ago, Tessa Sherman sent her children to live with her mother and moved into a trailer with her husband, Joe Shannon. The two worked as much as possible, saving as much as they could.

But by midsummer 2023, the couple was accepted into a parking program that provides security and access to sanitation services — an increasingly popular solution to homelessness that proponents call “safe parking.” It provided so much stability, that by November, Sherman, her husband and her children were able to reunite under one roof again.

“It’s nice feeling, like I’m a human again,” said Sherman, 36. “I didn’t feel like a human in that trailer.” The family’s move would not have been possible without a safe parking program in Redmond that allowed Sherman and her husband to park their trailer at the Mountain View Fellowship Church.

The safe parking program has become a model for solutions across Deschutes County. Bend operates one similar to the one in Redmond, which has seen relatively rapid success since it was established in 2022.

“I’m kind of living proof of it,” Sherman said.

In December, the Deschutes County Commission approved an overnight safe parking program of its own. The commission’s approval was a major step from the county to address homelessness at a time when an estimated 200 people are living in trailers, tents and makeshift shelters on unincorporated county land known as Juniper Ridge, north of Bend. It’s the first action from the commissioners that directly addresses homelessness since they approved rules for unauthorized camping on county land in July 2023.

The county’s program, which went into effect Dec. 13 and will expire June 2028, is limited to unincorporated county land within one mile or inside the urban growth boundaries of Bend and of Redmond.

Erik Kropp, deputy county administrator, expects fewer safe parking locations on unincorporated county land than within city limits.

“There’s just less land,” Kropp said.

The city of Bend, which adopted its own safe parking program in 2021, currently has four locations that have a combined total of 12 parking spaces.

In the past six months, the four locations in Bend have served more than 40 people, and 11 households have moved into permanent housing, said Brook O’Keefe, the city’s shelter coordinator.

The city of Bend restricts its safe parking program so that only churches, nonprofits, businesses and public entities can host safe parking locations. All of its locations are churches, O’Keefe said.

The county made no such restriction and allows private property owners to host safe parking sites, which is allowed under the 2021 House Bill 2006, so long as they adhere to specific stipulations like providing access to sanitation facilities and case management services.

Deschutes County commissioners unanimously approved the program within the UGBs for Bend and Redmond at their Dec. 6 meeting, but commissioner Tony DeBone opposed creating a program outside the those two UGBs, saying it was beyond the commissioners’ authority.

“These are orders that may not have anybody engaged,” DeBone said at the meeting. “That’s what I worry about here.”

Kropp, of the county, said no one has applied yet to create a safe parking location.

For Commissioner Patti Adair, approving the program showed that commissioners believe that the safe parking model is a viable solution to homelessness.

“I think creating the opportunity is incredibly important,” Adair said at the meeting. “This is a good first step.”

Eighteen people moved into permanent housing after living at one of the Redmond program’s sites, said Rick Russell, executive director of Mountain View Community Development and a pastor at the church. Around a dozen more people have moved onto more stable situations, he said.

“It seems like many of the people who come into safe parking, to some degree, have given up hope of permanent, stable housing,” Russell said.

Sherman’s story is relatively common at Mountain View’s safe parking program. Many who stay at the church’s three sites are struggling financially, and simply don’t make enough to rent an apartment, buy a home or afford mental health or drug treatment.

The safe parking program is just as much about building people’s self esteem as it is about building their financials, said Stephanie Bueckert, who was Sherman’s case manager while she was a part of the program.