Instead of keeping its promise to use common sense and humanity in its removal of 150 people from the China Hat and Horse Butte communities, the U. S. Forest Service will use Project 2025 as its guidebook.

If not stopped by U.S. District Court Judge McShane, the largest deployment of federal law enforcement ever seen in Bend will converge on China Hat on Thursday to conduct the evictions.

On page 223 of its Cabin Butte Project Environmental Assessment, the Forest Service pledged to coordinate with local churches, community groups, and service organizations to relocate “persons experiencing homelessness.”

It has done nothing of the sort.

So, where will the people who are kicked out of the forest on May 1 go?

When asked that question at the Feb. 25 Central Oregon Homelessness Forum, a panel representing Shepherd’s House, Cleveland Commons, J-Bar-J Youth services, Central Oregon Villages, and Home More Network stated unanimously they had no available space for them to move to.

Central Oregon Veterans Outreach told KTVZ on March 26: “They don’t know where the hundreds camping in the area would relocate.”

What can we as a community do to pause these evictions, so that these targeted people do not lose — in a single day — their possessions, companion animals, friends, and access to medical care and services?

Many of us have already signed a petition calling for a rolling closure over the next few months, and it is not too late to contact Deschutes National Forest Supervisor Holly Jewkes with your thoughts: SM.FS.BFR_FD@usda.gov. Also, please copy to Bend City Council (council@bendoregon.gov) and Deschutes County Commission (board@deschutes.org).

To date one local elected official, Bend City Councilor Megan Perkins, has raised objections to this mass eviction, saying, “I don’t quite understand how this is going to work, and I think the process is shortsighted. I’m very worried about it, both from the perspective of someone having to move and not knowing where they’re going to go and from the perspective of surrounding communities already strapped without sufficient resources to support the population.”

Let’s not deploy a massive strike force to overwhelm people struggling with poverty and disability. It is neither necessary nor moral.

Jewkes got it right in the Cabin Butte Environmental Assessment: Don’t criminalize; instead coordinate with our amazing, compassionate community of Bend to find safe places to relocate our neighbors, many of whom can claim lifelong ties to our city and region. Please email her: SM.FS.BFR_FD@usda.gov.

Foster Fell lives in Bend.